Lu Xun 's Japanese Interpretation

By clarifying Lu Xun’s way of dealing the events that happened in his time and his understanding of the relationship between "political" and "literature", in his masterpiece Lu Xun, Takeuti Yosimi deemed that Lu Xun has a special personality which means by “struggle” and “self-denial” he became himself. But his “struggle” does not mean a simple confrontation, but a kind of attitude: when facing some problems, he will put in all his life experiences first and “pull out” himself finally, but in this process, he forged himself and still kept association with the time and others.After the world war II, Japan was under the regulatory of the United States, in this atmosphere, some Japanese intellectuals began to reflect Japanese way of modernization, what Takeuti Yosimi most concerned is national subjectivity. He thought Chinese revolutionary process has the same structure with Lu Xun’s personality that is although China was colonized, but Chinese revolution finally extended to the bottom of the society, as a result of nationwide resistance, People’s Republic of China had been established. Takeuti Yosimi considered it as real independence, by contrast, he thought although Japan’s modernization seems more successful than China’s, it’s just a kind of copy, because without resistance, a country can never create their own culture and be really independent. So he took China as an example to reflect Japan.This idea became a paradigm of Japan’s postwar study of Lu Xun, a lot of people were influenced and started to study Lu Xun. Noboru Maruyama and Toramaru Ito were two of the best. Noboru Maruyama was thought of set up a new pattern while Toramaru Ito was thought of proceeded Takeuti Yosimi completely and surpassed him. But both of them were learned a lot from Takeuti Yosimi, we can see in their studies, most Lu Xun’s works and events they focused on were once emphasized by Takeuti Yosimi. So this article will make cooperation between their studies, to enrich the understanding of Lu Xun.Despite his enlightening view, Takeuti Yosimi was hard to understand sometime because his obscure statements, especially the discussion of “politics” and “literature” had made many believe that he was s “literary doctrine”, his study was also abstracted as a “conclusion” repeated inanely. under the circumstances, Noboru Maruyama developed a new thinking. The first part of this article will type through Noboru Maruyama’s study of Lu Xun. Noboru Maruyama was an Marxist with empirical spirit, he tried to present a comprehensive historical view then comprehend Lu Xun’s uniqueness. He found Lu Xun had developed a strong desire for revolution since he was very young and it wasn’t contradict with his literature. He hope to fill the gap about the relationship of “politics” and “literature” that Takeuti Yosimi left and indeed, he made tangible achievement. But as Toramaru Ito pointed out later that when Takeuti Yosimi talks about “political” he doesn’t mean “revolution”, on the contrary, Noboru Maruyama’s meaning of Lu Xun’s revolutionary spirit can be included in Takeuti Yosimi’s meaning of “political”. In other words, Noboru Maruyama’s down-to-earth study could not completely solve the complexity that Takeuti Yosimi left.Toramaru Ito started to study Lu Xun a little later than Noboru Maruyama. He deemed that both Takeuti Yosimi’s study and Noboru Maruyama’s study were very convincible, but he had his own views. The second part of this article will present his understanding of Lu Xun. He portrayed Lu Xun as a real “individualists”, but in his view, Lu Xun’s individualism dosen’t mean selfish or seeking for private benefits, but a concern of the individual subjectivity which is the foundation of the integrity of civilization and the basis of a nation. Except “politics” and “literature”, he provided a new “science” perspective to understand Lu Xun. And “science” here doesn’t mean technology or a discipline, it linked with the “individualism” we mentioned. Toramaru Ito’s new achievement also reflected in his interpretation of Lu Xun’s novel, he found these works were based on "sober realism". Thus here’s a big difference between him and Takeuti Yosimi: Takeuti Yosimi felt it’s hard to understand Lu Xun’s Old Tales Retold, but Toramaru Ito’s linked it with Lu Xun’s other works and interpreted it very well in his own way. Toramaru Ito believe that the important implication we can get from Lu Xun is that for Asia’s modernization, what matters most is how to establish "real individualism". But because he took it as a cultural and ethical issue rather than a political one, he largely ignored China’s political experience as a colonial, so once we realize such individualism has never been achieved in China, Lu Xun’s implication will become empty accordingly.Therefore the last chapter of this article will focus on the "Political and Literature" issue that Takeuti Yosimi raised. In his discussion, both "political" and "literature” were had no clear definition, for instance, " politics " refers to the different position compared with " literature”, the colonial situation of China and a concern of human’s public life. "literature”, was considered as a kind of " function ", a position that by which Lu Xun perceiving the world, it has consistency with " political " when it involves human’s mentality and emotion, but should also be critical to " political”. Thus it will be very useful to enrich our understanding of "political" and” literature” by discussing Takeuti Yosimi’s analysis, especially we have adopted the "pure literature" conception which narrowed our cognition of literature largely since 1980 s. By doing this, on one hand, we can know more about Lu Xun’s spirit, on the other hand, we can try to understand modern Chinese revolution through his thoughts and make further efforts to reflect on history, learn from history.