The Birth of Twentieth-Century Chinese Literature

This study makes a linguistic case for the twentieth century revolution in Chinese language and literature. It offers a history of reform and change in the Chinese language throughout the country’s history, and focuses on the concept of ‘baihua’, a language reform movement championed by Hu Shi and other scholars which laid the foundation for the May fourth New Literature Movement, the larger New Culture Movement and which now defines modern Chinese. Examining the differences between classical an