| May 4 is a very rare golden age in the history of the Chinese thoughts. During that period, the radical literati completely broke away from the traditional culture and regarded modernity as their mutual dominating value and cultural choice, thus lifting a grand tide of radical culture. The radicalism, which was established in the Western cultural yardstick and aimed to build a modern texture of the Chinese culture, rather anxiously made value judgment on hosts of complicated cultural problems from the perspective of modernity. As a result the enlightenment started the course of modernization from the political system to the cultural level, which globally influenced the transition of China's history, culture and literature to modernity.With a proper respect for the intrinsic law of history, this dissertation explores radicalism's origin, reveals its multiple connotations, delineates the outline of China's new literature, probes into its initial mechanism, explains the relation between radicalism and Chinese new literature and finally gains a scientific understanding and an accurate knowledge of the May 4 radicalism on the basis of the words, deeds and ideas of such radical literati as Cheng Duxiu, Li Dazhao, Hu Shi, Lu Xun , Qian Yuantong and Chai Yuanpou in New Youth and Peking University. The whole paper is structured upon the binary cultural conceptions such as enlightenment/ salvation, tradition / modernity, orient/ Occident, new / old and ancient/ modern, and all the researches are made in the knowledge genealogy, theoretical category or cultural phenomena of evolution, exotica, revolution, democracy, science and folk. The time period examined in this dissertation is naturally May 4 cultural radicalism, but the time that was involved goes beyond the period of May 4 Movement. Therefore the late 19th century was traced in part of my description and explanation.The prologue of the paper, which mainly discusses May 4 radicalism's connotation and extension, argues that the enlightening ideology, cultural spirit of criticism, resources of thoughts like democracy, science, liberty, rationalism, humanism and human rights-all these that radicalists advocated-have been a great power and spiritual upholder that prompted the change of China's history, culture and literature into modernity, and have been a kind of tactical representation of the origin and emergence of modernization of China's culture and literature.Chapter 1 explores the theoretical root of the May 4 radicalism. Darwin's theory of evolution that widely spread in China was rammed into the heads of the May 4 literati. Those pioneers, who were put in the conflicts between the Western culture and the Chinese culture, between the new ideas and the old traditions, and-who lived in the inferior position of accumulated weakness, were very likely to make a better choice between the Western culture Chinese culture and they even went so far as tocompletely negate the Chinese tradition and finally formed a radical character of evolution.The foreign resources are examined in Chapter 2. Permeated in the atmosphere of great cultural gaps between China and Western countries, the May 4 radical literati unflaggingly struggled against imperialism and colonialism on the one hand, and on the other hand they decided to model on the Western world and referred to, transplanted and took in the Western capitalist cultures, dreaming to find a efficient way of saving and strengthening China. All the modern cultures and thoughts that came from Japan, France and Russia produced a domino effect for the May 4 radicalism and Chinese new literature.Chapter 3 scrutinizes the revolutionary strategy of the May 4 radicalism. The enthusiasm of saving China from extinction not only incensed a real revolutionary strategy that is characteristic of instigation and agitation, but also promoted a complete change of Chinese culture into modernity. The emphasis on the rupture between the old literature and the new literature, the irreconcilability between classical Chinese...
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