Chinese Journal of Literary Criticism

No.1, 2025

Creating a New Sublime Voice in Chinese Literature—A Comparison of the Sublime in Chinese and Western Literature in “On the Power of Mara Poetry”

(Abstract)

Zhang Guanfu

Scholarly research on Lu Xun’s early essay “On the Power of Mara Poetry” has been fruitful. However, one of his core ideas, Lu Xun’s comparison and choice of the “sublime” between the East and the West, which was a junction point in the face of the modern turning point of Chinese history and culture, has not yet been adequately studied. Lu Xun highly affirms the modern “sublime” of Western Romanticism embodied by the “Mara poets,” and points out the inadequacy and root cause of the traditional Chinese “sublime” represented by Qu Yuan. His intention was to “absorb modern thinking without forgetting inherent cultural traditions,” to borrow the “sublime” of the Western modernity, and to return to “poetry speaks to the will”—the source of Chinese poetics, so as to create the “sublime” of Chinese modernity. Lu Xun’s thinking on this issue reflects a profound concern for reality, which is inspiring but also has its limitations.