Essay: Suggestions for Literary Reform

Overview
Hu Shih's 1917 essay "Suggestions for Literary Reform" argued for a decisive break from Classical Chinese literary forms and for the adoption of the vernacular (baihua) as the written language of modern literature. He presented a practical program to make literature intelligible, useful, and relevant to the lives of ordinary people, linking linguistic change to broader cultural and educational reform. The essay quickly became a touchstone for the New Culture Movement and helped launch the vernacular literature movement that transformed 20th-century Chinese letters.

Main Arguments
Hu insisted that the written language must reflect spoken language and everyday experience; literature should capture life rather than imitate archaic models. He criticized the reliance on classical forms that required specialized training and excluded most readers, arguing that such forms obstructed social progress and democratic participation. Hu emphasized clarity, simplicity, and fidelity to contemporary speech as necessary to create literature that could educate, entertain, and engage a mass readership.

Proposed Reforms
The essay advocated replacing classical grammar, vocabulary, and rhetorical ornamentation with a written idiom drawn from vernacular speech, while encouraging concise, natural expression. Hu urged writers to adopt realistic subject matter, domestic scenes, social problems, and ordinary emotions, rather than the moralistic, historical, or purely rhetorical themes dominant under the old style. He also called for experimentation with new genres and structures imported from modern literatures, especially the short story and novel as means to portray individual lives and social conditions.

Rationale and Intellectual Influences
Hu framed literary reform as part of a broader push for educational and cultural modernization: language reform would democratize knowledge, facilitate scientific learning, and cultivate critical thinking. His arguments reflected exposure to Western literary practice and pragmatic philosophies that prioritize usefulness, empirical evidence, and communication. The essay treated language not as a sacred legacy to be preserved, but as a tool to be reshaped to meet contemporary needs.

Reception and Immediate Impact
Contemporary writers and intellectuals found the essay compelling because it offered concrete prescriptions rather than abstract denunciations. It energized younger writers who wanted to write for new audiences in a rapidly changing society and provided theoretical support for the experiments in vernacular prose and fiction that followed. While some traditionalists resisted the abandonment of Classical Chinese, the essay galvanized debates that quickly shifted literary production and educational practice.

Long-term Legacy
"Suggestions for Literary Reform" played a central role in the transformation of modern Chinese literature by helping to legitimize baihua as the medium of serious writing and by orienting authors toward realism, individuality, and social relevance. The shift it promoted influenced curricula, publishing, and journalism, and it enabled generations of writers to address contemporary social issues in accessible language. Hu Shih's call for a literature that serves the living needs of the people left an enduring imprint on the literary and cultural modernization of China.