Abstract:

The academic circle has gained some achievements in the research of “essay”, an important subject in the research of modern Chinese literary forms. However, lots of issues remain open to discussion, including the context where the concept of “essay” was put forward and its essential cultural logic. ZHOU Zuoren put forward the concept of “essay” after he read Buddhist sutras during his stay in the West Mountain to recuperate his health in 1921. The writing of “essays” of ZHOU Zuoren et al. formed a response to revolutionary discourses represented by leftwing literature. Such literary practice implies an effort to resist revolutionary ecstasy with individual reason, object the instrumentality of revolutionary literature with literary beauty, and deconstruct various forms of “eightpart essays” as stereotyped writing. ZHOU attaches great importance to “practice” and “affairs” while depreciates “empty words” and “moral integrity”. He consequently creates a literary paradigm, which is full of wide knowledge and philosophic wisdom and is characterized by peace, calmness, leisure, ease and bitterness.