Renaissance towards Classical Spirit: On the Inner Logic and Intellectual Roots of Li Changzhi’s Reevaluation of the May Fourth Movement

During the Second Sino-Japanese War, Li Changzhi’s reevaluation of the May Fourth Movement and his welcoming of the Chinese Renaissance were mutually exterior and interior. Although Li Changzhi denied the popular saying that the May Fourth Movement was the Renaissance of China, instead of excluding the absorption of Western culture, he demanded its comprehensive absorption, which showed the difference between Li Changzhi and the forces of cultural conservatism. By drawing lessons from German Classicism’s longing for Ancient Greece in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries and its transcendence of the Enlightenment Movement, Li Changzhi not only aimed his criticism at“superficial rationalism,” but also regarded the integration of rationality and emotion in the classical spirit as the goal of the Renaissance, thus devoting himself to the Zhou and Qin dynasties to explore the spirit of Chinese traditional culture. It is the interchange of classical spirit between Chinese and Western cultures that makes Li Changzhi’s criticism of the May Fourth Movement not turn to cultural conservatism, but to the creative transformation of Chinese traditional culture based on aesthetic modernity.