Old Tales Retold

Old Tales Retold is a collection of stories by Lu Hsun, prominent writer, thinker, revolutionary, and forerunner of China’s Cultural Revolution. It contains eight stories on historical subjects, a period of thirteen years elapsing between his writing of the first tale in 1922 and the publication of the collection in 1935. These eight tales are based on fables and legends of ancient China. Lu Hsun’s attitude in writing historical stories was “to take a subject and write it up freely, adding some coloring of your own,” which means “using ancient things to satirize the present.” “Forging the Swords,” for example, fully expresses the will of oppressed people to resist and take revenge; “Curbing the Flood,” “Opposing Aggression” and ‘Leaving the Pass” etc. ridicule the absurdities of the traitorous Kuomintang regime and the reactionary “scholars” it fostered. Lu Hsun’s vigorous, militant spirit is revealed throughout the collection, and his combining romanticism with realism adds much to the beauty of the tales.