This paper examines the transformative process through which Zhou Shuren (later known as Lu Xun) evolved from a traditionally educated youth from Shaoxing into the founder of modern Chinese literature during his study period in Japan from 1902 to 1909.
The seven-year stay in Japan can be divided into three stages: Japanese language study and basic education at Kobun Gakuin (Hongwen Academy), medical training at Sendai Medical School, and literary and artistic activities in Tokyo after returning from Sendai, including German language study. The various works Zhou Shuren wrote and translated during this period—such as The Soul of Sparta, On the History of Mankind, On the Power of Mara Poetry, On the偏至 of Culture, and Stories from Abroad—were deeply embedded in the intellectual and publishing environment of Meiji Japan. These texts were not isolated creations but were formed through the absorption, selection, and reconstruction of Japanese sources, which served as both material and ideological foundations for his thought.
Particularly significant were his encounters with evolutionary theory (via Ishikawa Chiyomatsu and丘浅次郎), ideas on reforming national character (influenced by Arthur H. Smith’s Chinese Characteristics in its Japanese translation and Haga Yaichi’s Ten Essays on National Character), individualism (drawn from Meiji-period Japanese texts on Nietzsche, Stirner, Ibsen, etc.), and the theory of Mara poets. Through these, Zhou Shuren constructed a unique spiritual framework centered on “establishing the individual” (liren).
Furthermore, the images of “madmen” and discourses on “cannibalism” prevalent in Meiji Japan, along with his reading of Russian literature, profoundly shaped his later work. These influences culminated explosively in the 1918 story A Madman’s Diary, with its motifs of “cannibalism” and the famous cry “Save the children…”.
Unlike conventional Lu Xun studies, this research treats Zhou Shuren during his study years as an independent subject prior to the birth of “Lu Xun,” and rigorously demonstrates the close relationship between his writings and contemporary Japanese literature. It concludes that the spiritual core of “Lu Xun” had already been formed during his seven years in Japan. The birth of Lu Xun was not a sudden event, but a necessary outcome nurtured within the chain of modern intellectual exchanges in East Asia.
