April 1980

A central crisis in modern Chinese letters has been caused by the need to take account of Western forms. Some writers adjusted eagerly to Western literature out of a sincere admiration for Western culture; some grudgingly, out of a total rejection of China’s own “feudal” past; some out of a deeply ambiguous attitude, in which admiration for the West blended with the desire to preserve what was culturally valuable and historically charged in the Chinese tradition.