Agents of May Fourth. Jing Yinyu, Xu Zhongnian, and the Early Introduction of Modern Chinese Literature in France

Jing Yinyu (1901-1931?) and Xu Zhongnian (1904-1981) played a pivotal role in the dissemination of modern Chinese literature in France at the turn of the 1930s. Best known as Lu Xun’s first translator into a Western language and a friend of Romain Rolland’s, Jing compiled the Anthologie des conteurs chinois modernes in 1929. In his Anthologie de la littérature chinoise. Des origines à nos jours, published in 1932, Xu also devoted a section to recent literary developments. By analysing the nature of the two projects, the translated corpora, and their paratexts, I will describe the features of Jing’s and Xu’s dissemination of May Fourth literature in France and scrutinise their artistic and ideological stance vis-à-vis the new literary scene. Ultimately, I will attempt to pinpoint in what terms the two scholars-cum-translators’ agency contributed to foreign readers’ awareness of the cultural, social and political experience of the May Fourth Movement.

When scholars within and outside China focus on this somewhat mysterious figure, they generally do so for two intimately connected reasons. The first is Jing's association with Romain Rolland, which began in 1924 and became closer during his French years, leading to the popularization of Rolland's work in China (Loi 1982;Findeisen 2001;Zhang 2017). Indeed, Jing undertook a Chinese translation of Jean-Christophe, published in instalments in the prestigious Short Story Monthly (Xiaoshuo yuebao 小說月報) in the first quarter of 1926, but discontinued after the first three chapters. He also contributed some French-language essays to Europe, the literary journal founded by Rolland. The second reason of interest is the fact that Jing was the first to make Lu Xun's fiction available to a Western audience (Liu 1992;Wang 2009;Gao 2014;Liang 2016). His French rendition of "The True Story of A Q" (A Q zhengzhuan 阿Q正傳) was published with a foreword in Europe shortly after his arrival in France (Lu 1926). Jing also acted as an intermediary between Lu Xun and Rolland by translating their correspondence and mutual manifestations of praise (Foster 2001) -a testament to his life-long endeavour to consolidate cross-cultural relations. Only recently have some studies (Findeisen 2010;Rabut 2010;Magagnin 2013;Zhang 2016, 258-72) been devoted to his agency that focus specifically on his Anthologie, a milestone in his translating career that, oddly enough, had never before been the object of in-depth analysis.

The Project and the Corpus
The Parisian publisher Rieder issued Jing Yinyu's Anthologie in the late March of 1929 within the series "Les prosateurs étrangers modernes". Jing was probably encouraged to undertake the project by Rolland himself, who had highly praised Lu Xun's "The True Story of A Q" a few years earlier; besides, Rieder was also the publisher of Europe. The book seems to have enjoyed some success in intellectual circles that even crossed national and language barriers: it was promptly retranslated into English for a British (Jing, Mills 1930) and an American edition (Jing, Mills 1931), and later into Spanish by an Argentinian publisher (Jing 1944).
The Anthologie included a publisher's "Note" (Jing 1929, 7), an "Introduction" by Jing himself (9-12), and a total of nine pieces of short fiction in his French translation , as listed below: 5 Two of the nine stories had already been published in Europe, namely, the aforementioned "La vie de Ah Qui" (Lu 1926) and, only two weeks before the book came out, "Mademoiselle Lysing" (Chen 1929). Jing's Anthologie includes a few soon-to-be classics of modern Chinese literature: besides displaying all the stylistic and thematic peculiarities of the latter, the corpus selected by Jing gives voice to the grievances, ideals, and social and political claims of the intellectuals who were linked, to variable extents, to the May Fourth Movement. The celebrated stories by Lu Xun portray the debasement of the intellectual, the degeneration of the national character, and the tensions and unease felt by the young generations in the transition from a rural, traditional culture to a 'modernity' that comes with a feeling of tragic disorientation. The stories by Chen Weimo, Yu Dafu and Jing Yinyu himself, much in the spirit of the Creation Society, bring to the fore characters fighting against a cruel society that seems to reject them, look in vain for pure love, and resist the constraints of traditional morals, especially traditional marriage practices: in Yu's case they slip into decadence and debauchery, whereas Jing's protagonist finds a new meaning in his life by joining the revolutionary army. Melancholy dominates Luo Huasheng's (pen name of Xu Dishan 許地山) story of family grief and newfound hope, while Bing Xin and Mao Dun, by using the tools of Realism, describe the slow descent into depression and disillusion induced by an oppressive society that crushes young people's ambitions and expectations. Jing's -somewhat pretentious -choice to include his own work, written directly in French (Zhang 2016, 265), deserves some final considerations. It is highly possible, as Rabut (2010, 198) suggests, that he felt entitled to present himself as not simply a translator of the great Chinese writers of his time included in his collection, but as their peer. On a less kind note, one could even insinuate that, by doing so, Jing was hoping to obtain, in French-speaking learned circles, the kind of literary recognition that he was being denied in his own country.

The Translation
No mention is made by Jing of a specific strategy adopted in the translation of the stories contained in his Anthologie. However, an interesting statement that points to the supposed untranslatability of Chinese logic is found in the "Introduction": "sudden, concise, with no links to one another, [the Chinese's] intuitive truths have to be promptly grasped. They are also difficult to put into words. Even more so, how could they be subjected to translation?" 6 (Jing 1929, 9-10). The "Note" that opens the book offers more interesting details. By the publisher's account, in three cases -namely, the stories by Bing Xin, Mao Dun, and Yu Dafu -they agreed to resort to adaptations, "a bastard genre that we are no more ready to accept today than we once were" (7), instead of complete translations, and they confess to having been persuaded to break this editorial golden rule by Jing's cogent arguments. Since "the field of new and genuine Chinese literature is still too sparse for us to be spoilt for choice", they thought it best to "include texts that, if adapted with the appropriate technique, would retain part of their authentic and original flavor", instead of "works that, if translated literally, would only result in a poor outcome" (7). Did such a statement reflect an earnest concern with the acceptability of works whose setting, style, and narrative were perceived as potentially challenging for the intended reader? Or was this simply a pretext for Jing to justify his far-reaching rewriting and recreation, in a further attempt to establish himself as a respected interpreter of the Chinese literature of his time? This is hard to determine with any reasonable level of certainty.
Be that as it may, the noteworthy part of Jing's agency as a translator lies precisely in his adaptations -not only the three overt ones, signalled by the annotation "after…" (d'après), but also those carried out covertly. His translations of Lu Xun's stories are generally close to their originals and prove "fairly solid renderings that have not necessarily been superseded by later translations" (Findeisen 2010, 146). The renditions of Luo Huasheng's and Bing Xin's works show some localised alterations and substantial omissions, possibly designed to make the plot clearer and sounder, as is also the case with Chen Weimo's text (Zhang 2016, 263). Other stories undergo a more indepth process of transcreation. Mao Dun's "Les illusions" is a heavily abridged version of the original novella Huanmie, characterised by extensive rewriting and a high degree of structural rearrangement, as shown by Findeisen (2010). This strategy may have been carried out by Jing in order to redress the imbalances and weaknesses of the original plot at the level of character representation (e.g. by presenting the female protagonist as a stronger woman than she was in the original). This makes the work a transposition that may even have improved the original (156). Similar considerations apply to "Un désenchanté", with its radical rewriting of some portions of the original plot. For example, the protagonist's musings on the happy life by 6 All translations from French were made by the Author.

Agents of May Fourth
Translating Wor(l)ds 4 61 May Fourth and Translation, 55-74 the side of his late beloved wife are drastically rewritten into an outburst of rage, full of bitterness and resentment, at a still living but estranged spouse. Details from other stories by Yu Dafu are interspersed in the narrative, and the main character's debauchery and whoring and drinking habits are expanded, or even added altogether, in order to stress his moral degradation (Rabut 2010;Magagnin 2013). These far-reaching changes may have been made to emphasise the deep transformations occurring in social and gender relationships, and generally to exacerbate the binary opposition between old and new -another trait of May Fourth literature in general, and of the writings of the Creation Society in particular. In other passages, Christian and Buddhist notions are inserted, thus adding or strongly emphasising a sense of spirituality that is absent, or at most only implicit, in the original (Rabut 2010, 196;Magagnin 2013, 139-40).
Jing possessed undeniable linguistic skills and writing talent in his second language, which he enriched with his own erudition and a strong lyrical sensibility, despite often slipping into overly exotic and somewhat baffling phrasing. He also inserted details that could only be construed by highly educated Chinese readers, and abstained from clarifying cultural references that remained largely unintelligible to his French-speaking audience. However, this may have been compensated by the latter's willingness to accept the unfamiliar in the reading process (Rabut 2010, 196-8;Magagnin 2013, 140).

The Paratext
In his "Introduction", dating from January 1929, Jing claims to have established an anthology of short stories upon request of some "European friends, curious about the evolution of Chinese thought" (Jing 1929, 9). At the head of these "European friends", of course, was his mentor Rolland. A promotional leaflet accompanying the Anthologie contains the following statement: "if this book were not considered primarily a testimony, it would probably defeat its essential purpose" (Les Éditions Rieder, s.d.). Curiously enough for an accomplished writer and translator who even included his own work in the collection, the literary value of these stories does not seem to be as important to him as their documentary value and sociological relevance. Jing qualifies the stories he selected as "generally works by students" (1929,9) who are "mostly too young" and "have not yet probed the meanders of the Dao" (11). Even if "they are not writers, not in the European sense of the word", they still "prove praiseworthy in that they try to expand their horizons" (11) by following the teachings of European writers, and are therefore capable of revealing "a new phase of China" to French readers (10). In addition to this, the text is interspersed with classical quotations (notably from the Laozi 老子 and the Zhuangzi 莊子), and contains a barrage of pseudo-Daoist statements that may resonate with the expectations of an European audience that, until that point, had only had access -if at all -to a strongly exoticised image of China. The latter is described as "so mysterious yet so simple" (9) and the Chinese are referred to as "black-eyed sage[s]" (10), "quiet, silent, yet profound", possessing a "primitive" logic (9).
Lu Xun deserves a special mention: "he is an enemy of the Dao", Jing states, "but may understand it better than most of those who are only superficially Daoists or Confucianists" (12). Elsewhere, Lu Xun is also celebrated as "one of [China's] most renowned authors" (Lu 1926, 56) thanks to the skilful combination of psychological analysis and symbolism that can be observed in "La vie de Ah Qui", a masterpiece of satirical realism that denounces all the evils of the old society. Jing suggests, however, that behind Lu Xun's passionate hatred for "the old Chinese spirit (in its negative aspects)" (1929, 12) one could actually see a heartfelt desire to revive traditional wisdom. Indeed, Jing's praise seems to go to the classics, because of their unique ability to encapsulate the spirit of a nation in few, elegant words (11). Even so, a passing annotation on the merits and expressive potential of the new vernacular, or "plain language" (baihua 白話), is made when Hu Shi 胡適 is credited with having replaced the ancient literary language with a simpler and more accessible one, the same language used by "students" (10-11). Apparently, however, Jing saw the new intellectuals as still too immature to bring significant social and cultural change, and believed that a solution to the current unrest could only be sought within the nation itself. The closing lines tellingly state that "after having tried in vain the remedies of Europe, which are not suitable for its illness, China, by a huge detour, will plunge again into the depths of the Dao" (12). Perhaps, these lines reveal how Jing was less of an iconoclast and an advocate of revolutionary literature than his association with the Creation Society -and of his picks for the Anthologie -might at first lead us to believe.

The Author
Born in Dongting (Jiangsu)  A prolific scholar and translator of French literature, in addition to his substantial scholarly output, Xu was responsible for the Chinese renditions -some of them still popular today -of several classics, including Dumas' Les Trois mousquetaires and Dumas fils' La Dame aux camélias. Conversely, he also greatly contributed to the popularization of Chinese literature, mainly from the premodern era: he did so by penning some three hundred articles in literary journals and publishing several volumes of translations in France and especially in China for the French-language publisher Imprimerie de la Politique de Pékin. Celebrated as a pioneer of Sino-French cultural relations (Yang 2013), Xu is mostly an object of scholarly research because of his merits in establishing a cultural bridge through his French translation of Chinese classics (Che 2016; Ma 2016). However, his role as a translator of modern literature has been largely neglected or is only mentioned with reference to his interest in Lu Xun (Liang 2016), while an in-depth scrutiny of his Anthologie de la littérature chinoise has yet to be conducted.

The Project and the Corpus
Xu's Anthologie, published in Paris in 1932, two years after its editor had returned to China from his studies in France, is an ambitious attempt to collect the milestones of Chinese literature, thought and historiography from their origins to the present day. The novelty, exhaustiveness and scholarly significance of this endeavour were praised by some European sinologists (Giles 1934), but the book seems to have enjoyed less success compared to Jing's. Surprisingly enough, or perhaps out of modesty, Xu makes no mention of his own work when lamenting the lack of a comprehensive and scientific history of Chinese literature, nearly two decades after its publication (Xu 1950). However, the Anthologie still had some cross-national impact within Europe: some of Xu's French renditions of Tang poems later became source texts for an Italian collection of Chinese premodern poetry, edited by Giorgia Valensin (1943) and prefaced by none other than Eugenio Montale, while three modern poems were given a Swedish retranslation by the poet Gunnar Ekelöf (1943).
The Anthologie features quite a long "Introduction" (Xu 1932, 5-90), which was written in Shanghai and carries the date of September 9, 1931. It is followed by the anthology proper (91-432), which includes Xu's French translations of representative works and excerpts, divided into five sections (poetry, fiction, drama, philosophy, and historiography) and listed chronologically. Of relevance to our investigation is the selection of modern literature, which excludes drama, philosophy, and historiography altogether and only comprises the fourteen poems (218-225) and four short stories (305-345) listed below: 7  Some of the poems featured clearly embody the style and spirit of the new baihua literature, as is particularly evident in Hu Shi's and Xu Zhimo's texts. Hu Shi's poem is permeated by the sense of the sublime and makes extensive use of several stylistic devices favoured by the new generation of writers, especially anaphora and exclamation. These general traits also characterise Xu Zhimo's three poems; moreover, "Poison" makes widespread use of disturbing symbolist imagery, which adds to the gloomy tenor of the verses. Surprisingly, however, most of the other poems are significantly more lyrical and peaceful, as typified by Zong Baihua's "Hiver". Indeed, despite their general use of free verse, some reveal a manifest influence of the Chinese tradition in which Xu was particularly well-versed, as witnessed by his life-long activity as a scholar and translator of classics. Even Guo Moruo's "Aurore", with its conventional tropes and orderly stanzaic scheme, is an odd choice for an author who had earned his reputation thanks to his bombastic and vigorous style. Paradoxical-ly enough, "Je suis un démon", which Xu may have written directly in French under his pseudonym Xu Dange, reads like a blatant imitation of Guo's "The Heavenly Hound" (Tiangou 天狗), with its pounding rhythm, the persistent "I" opening each stanza, and its radically iconoclastic message. Xu Zhongnian could not resist the temptation to carve out a little space for himself, either: but the fact that he did so under a pen name, perfectly opaque to his French readers, may sweep away the suspicion that he was driven by similar reasons as Jing Yinyu.

Agents of May Fourth
The works of short fiction picked by Xu are largely in line with the typical themes of May Fourth literature. Like Lu Xun's "K'ong Yi-ki" (which had also been included in Jing's collection), Yu Dafu's "Sang et larmes" portrays -with harshness and sarcasm -the humiliation of modern intellectuals through its protagonist, a poorly paid writer unable to follow a profitable '-ism.' In Zhu Ziqing's "L'histoire des rires", told from a female perspective, the youthful enthusiasm of a young bride is slowly eroded by the oppression of the traditional family, which emphasises the contrast between the constraints imposed by old customs and the desire to express one's feelings. A comparable theme and tone are found in the rather obscure "Une fillette d'une vertu inflexible" by Guai An, whose protagonist is starved to death by her family after the loss of her fiancé, only to be celebrated by the local notables as a girl of exemplary chastity.

The Translation
Toward the end of the first part of the "Introduction", Xu briefly explains the criteria that have inspired his work as a translator: The best method of translation is obviously tight translation [traduction serrée]. By this term I mean any translation rigorously faithful to the idea expressed in the original text. The 'word-forword' translation method is not foolproof. First, we cannot always find an expression, a turn of phrase, a French word that corresponds exactly to the Chinese characters. Even if this could be achieved, would a literary work thus translated give an even approximate idea of the original text? So, I have translated word-forword whenever I could; but where it has been impossible for me to use this method, I have sought and employed the phrases, the expressions or the French words which come closest to the Chinese text. (Xu 1932, 6-7; emphasis in the original) Vocabulary-wise, the notion of 'tight translation' seems to echo Lu Xun's own 'hard translation' (yingyi 硬譯), namely, a non-idiomatic strategy aiming to reproduce -to the fullest possible extent -not only the content, but also the formal traits of the original. However, the labels Xu uses here are somewhat ambiguous. What he means by "word-for-word translation" in the first occurrence is indeed similar to hard translation. However, in the second occurrence, this strategy is contrasted with one that comes closer to the original text: in this sense, the description now seems to point to Berman's concept of 'literal translation', in the sense of a translation which "does not reproduce the facticity [i.e. the formal appearance] of the original, but the logic that underlies such a facticity" (Berman 1999, 141). The two statements appear somewhat contradictory -unless, of course, Xu understands 'text' as 'the idea expressed in the original text'.
All labels aside, a scrutiny of the translations shows how Xu generally refrains from adopting a domesticating strategy in favour of an essentially philological approach. Still, his translator's style is vivid and sophisticated, just like his own French writing; he does not surrender to unidiomatic phrasing, and avoids all unnecessary exoticism. At the same time, he provides the readers with all the tools that are indispensable for an in-depth, contextualised reading of the text, as exemplified by the frequent use of footnotes.

The Paratext
The "Introduction" of the Anthologie opens with the editor's reasons for taking up the project. Xu declares to have collected "all the pieces that someone aspiring to [understand] Chinese literature should know" (1932,5), devoting substantial space to poetry, fiction, and drama, following the principles of accuracy and impartiality (6). His purpose, he continues, is to provide a supplement to the existing anthologies of Chinese literature, which he deems wanting and unsatisfactory, especially when it comes to fiction and drama, which are wrongly considered to be lesser genres. His notes on the translation method adopted, found at the end of the preamble, have already been discussed ( § 3.3). The editor then goes on to present chronologically the history of Chinese civilisation and its cultural achievements. For each epoch, a profile of major intellectuals, schools, and genres is provided, along with a brief outline of significant works.
Let us now focus on the section discussing the 20th century, which occurs at the end of the "Introduction" (80-90). The debate on baihua and the new literary language is described in detail, and the merits of the "new school" of intellectuals who advocate innovation are recognised, against the resistance shown by such conservatives as "the stubborn Lin Shu" and "the smiling Yan Fu" (83). The new expressive possibilities disclosed by the new language are specially celebrated by Xu: despite the political and social pressure, the new intellectual scene seems to benefit greatly from the newly achieved linguistic freedom (84).
According to Xu, "philosophy is dying" (82), with a few notable exceptions; "history has not produced any great masters, either" but, "philosophy and history aside, the evolution of poetry, fiction, novel and drama has brought about the emergence of a literature that is still young, yet aware of itself and its destiny" (83). Drama has witnessed some developments but appears generally monotonous and unconvincing: for instance, when Guo Moruo superposes new ideas onto old forms in his historical plays, "it is exactly as if a top hat were placed on Confucius's head, which often causes laughter" (86). This verdict may well explain why translations of philosophical, historical, and theatrical works are excluded altogether from the anthology. From Xu's point of view, the literary forms that show the highest vitality within the new cultural landscape are poetry and fiction. In some cases, young poets appear to be still caught between classical tropes and forms and a modern sensibility, as is the case with Hu Shi (84); some are influenced by European poetry, like Guo Moruo and even more so Xu Zhimo, the latter being acclaimed as "the best representative of this school", whereas others find their inspiration in the conciseness of Japanese poetry and in Tagore's works (85).
Xu is unequivocal in praising the young, bold fiction emerging in his time: he has words of praise for Yu Dafu, Zhang Ziping, and Mao Dun, but appreciates Lu Xun in particular. The latter's artistic production, while still meagre at the time, is declared to be of outstanding quality, and "some of [his] short stories […] are real masterpieces" (86). This admiration is also witnessed by a French-language article published shortly before the Anthologie, in which Xu presents Lu Xun's first short fiction collection Outcry (Nahan 吶喊) as a milestone in the new literature of China (Xu 1931). Some years later, when Xu became a regular contributor for the column "La littérature chinoise d'aujourd'hui" in the French-language Journal de Shanghai, he chose to inaugurate this collaboration with a French translation of Lu Xun's story "Soap" (Feizao 肥皂) (Lu 1934). Guo Moruo is also the object of some interesting remarks. Although Guo is esteemed for some of his prose, "he writes too much", especially now that he is producing an enormous amount of communist propaganda, which leads Xu to make the following statement: "I am not interested in politics in the least, but when the pen trots quickly, it cannot dig deep" (1932,85).
Nevertheless, politics, in its broadest sense, is far from absent from Xu's argument. In the final part of his "Introduction", the editor reflects on the importance of freeing literature from the traditional burden of moral preoccupations, a process with which contemporary writers are still coming to terms: "few authors dare to express frankly what they think: the slow Confucian poison has not yet finished to work its ravages" (88). Now that they have thrown off the yoke of a tradition based on sheer imitation, Xu continues, the new writers are "both too personal and not personal enough", giving in to narcissism and a tendency to excessive introspection. At the same time, many of his fellow countrymen seem to resist a "modernity" that they feel would bring an excess of "material civilization" (89). Despite all these obstructions and contradictions, unsurprisingly common in times of transition, Xu gives voice to a twofold hope: on the one hand, "that this modern civilization, often rejected in its healthy contributions and often enthusiastically welcomed in its dangerous aspects, will be established and spread peace and well-being among us"; on the other hand, "that the new generations, which now possess a new tool (baihua), will work unrelentingly, methodically, with patience and conscience, and follow the example of a great number of their elders" (90). The ability to evolve, Xu concludes, is the key to survival; without it, "Chinese civilization will only live on in the souls of a few artists and people of learning" (90).

Conclusions
Jing Yinyu and Xu Zhongnian are two intellectuals who, at the turn of the 1930s, undertook the pioneering enterprise of making the most recent literary developments in China known to a foreign audience -in their case, a French-speaking one. They did so by establishing a small canon of modern literary works, providing their own translations, and resorting to paratextual devices to comment -more or less extensively -on the young generation of writers and their output. In this sense, Jing and Xu played a pivotal role in the introduction of modern Chinese literature and culture in France -and beyond -in the first half of the 20th century. To accurately assess the scope of their influence on international readers and on the learned community of their time is no easy feat. However, if nothing else, the fact that some of their renditions of modern Chinese fiction and poetry became source material for retranslations into other languages over the two following decades is a testament to the significance of their contribution, which came at a time when international awareness of the new cultural landscape of China was still very scant. Indeed, it is no exaggeration to state that they were among the first -and arguably the most authoritative -intellectuals to give the world a glimpse of a changing China, by introducing a selection of the literature fostered by the May Fourth Movement. Unsurprisingly, Jing and Xu present certain similarities in terms of the nature and traits of their agency: this is almost inevitable, considering that they belonged to the same generation, had a largely similar educational background and pursued similar studies, shared the same artistic interests and a few friendships, and even attended the same establishment -the IFCL, a hotbed of prominent foreign-edu-cated Chinese intellectuals since the early 1920s.
Firstly, the two share an explicit admiration for Lu Xun, who enjoys a special place in their translations and -particularly in Jing's case -in their career as a whole: it is mostly thanks to them that the author of "The True Story of A Q" first came to be known and read outside China as the putative father of modern Chinese literature.
Secondly, Jing and Xu made an effort to bring to the fore all the tropes and stylistic features of May Fourth literature: a literary reflection of the debates between 'tradition' and 'modernity' and of the radical social and cultural transformations that were taking place in China at the time.
Thirdly, by engaging in their respective projects, Jing and Xu unquestionably pursued self-legitimation in the eyes of their intended audience, by presenting themselves as authoritative spokespersons of the new literary scene, as well as privileged interpreters of the complex social, political, and cultural situation of China. At the same time, it could be suggested that they also strove to obtain recognition from their French-educated Chinese peers, starting from their fellow students at the IFCL. Their linguistic and artistic background naturally supported this attempt; their excellent proficiency in the French language, as well as their ties with such a celebrated representative of French-speaking cultural circles as Romain Rolland, certainly helped provide them with the cultural capital they needed for their enterprise.
Despite these similarities, their paths show some major differences. These are immediately obvious in the nature of their work and in the selection of a canon. Jing's Anthologie is a literary collection that only focuses on modern fiction, presented as a document of the evolution of Chinese thought. In Xu's project, which is much more ambitious in scope and critical depth (and which certainly had scholarly value in the eyes of its author), the translations of new literary works only cover poetry and fiction and represent but a part of the whole project. Moreover, Jing explicitly aspired to be recognised as standing on the same level as the writers that he included in his collection, whereas Xu was much less explicit in this respect.
Substantial disparities can also be observed at the level of translation strategies. Jing did not refrain from heavily manipulating the Chinese originals, either in order to make them more suitable to the supposed taste of his readers or because of a "creator's complex" (Rabut 2010, 98) that was often expressed to the detriment of intelligibility. Contrary to Jing, Xu adopted a more philological approach, bringing the foreign reader closer to the Chinese text instead than the other way around, by means of a vast array of paratextual devices.
Differences in the use of exoticizing discourse also deserve to be pointed out. In both his "Introduction" and his translations, Jing frequently resorted to unannotated exotic expressions and no-tions -perhaps another attempt at self-canonization that relied on the conventional, well-established image of China familiar to his European readership. Conversely, exoticism is virtually absent from Xu's Anthologie, in line with the academic preoccupations of its compiler.
Finally, the diverging ideological stances of the two intellectuals with regard to the situation in China is noteworthy. Jing Yinyu explicitly praised classical knowledge and even championed a 'return to the Dao' to bring an end to decades of national turmoil, even if this claim seems to clash with his artistic persona, that of a modern and progressive intellectual. This contradiction, however, may be only apparent, as most May Fourth intellectuals experienced a lifelong tension between traditional values and radical viewpoints. That said, one might be surprised to see how Xu, a scholar of premodern literature who never denied his partiality for the classics (and might even superficially seem conservative), not only sung the praises of the new literature and condemned the 'Confucian poison' that prevented it from expressing its full potential, but even went as far as to advocate progress and evolution as the only path leading to peace and national salvation.