This is a powerful account of how the ruin and resurrection of Zhuangzi in modern China's literary history correspond to the rise and fall of modern Chinese individuality. By examining the twentieth century reinterpretation and appropriation of Zhuangzi, the author explores modern Chinese writers' complicated relationship with "tradition."

• Introduction


• Chapter 1 Guo Moruo: Radically Changing Attitudes Toward Zhuangzi


• Chapter 2 Hu Shi: Biological Evolutionism and Zhuangzi


• Chapter 3 Lu Xun: The Persistent Rejection of Zhuangzi


• Chapter 4 Zhou Zuoren: The Unconscious and Troubled Semi-Zhuangzi


• Chapter 5 Lin Yutang: Zhuangzi Travels to the West


• Chapter 6 Fei Ming: From Artistic Transcendence to Political Kitsch


• Chapter 7 The Unlucky Fate of Zhuangzi


• Chapter 8 The Resurrection of Zhuangzi in the 1980s


• Chapter 9 Yan Lianke's Vacillation: To Be or Not to Be Zhuangzi


• Chapter 10 Gao Xingjian: The Triumph of the Modern Zhuangzi


• Bibliography


• Notes

Liu Jianmei is Associate Professor of Chinese Literature at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.