The Lyrical Lu Xun: A Study of His Classical-Style Verse

The influence of Lu Xun (1881-1936) in China’s cultural, literary, and artistic life over the last sixty years has been inestimable. A poet from a backwater town, Lu Xun was propelled by the times into the various careers of educator, writer, publicist, professor, and polemicist. He was, however, first and foremost a classical scholar, writing some of his best works in classical form. The Lyrical Lu Xun is the most complete treatment of his classical-style poetry in any foreign language, containing translations and extensive discussions of sixty-four poems in the highly stylized forms of jueju (quatrains) and lushi (full-length regulated verse) – forms with detailed, strict rules for rhyme and tonal prosody that evolved according to pronunciations and standards set up more than a thousand years ago.

• Jon Eugene von Kowallis, Author

  Jon Eugene von Kowallis is Professor of Chinese studies at the University of New South Wales in Sydney. He is the author of The Lyrical Lu Xun: A Study of His Classical-Style Verse.