Abstract: The paper tries to analyze the modern name and connotation of "literature" and its emergence and evolution in early modern China. The establishment of literature in China bearing the Western name and connotation was marked by Zhu Xizu's paper On Literature, when professors of literature at institutions of higher learning at that time tried to define literature and its boundaries through academic papers whose influence reached out to the entire social community. Zhu's literary concepts mainly came from the Zhou brothers, who studied in Japan in the early 1900s. The Zhou brothers were among the first advocates for literature in the Western sense of the word with overflowing passion for modern aesthetics at a time of the prolonged oppression of social institutions and volatility. Their effort yielded tangible results in the form of literary revolution during the May Fourth Movement period.  

Key words: literature, modernity, articles, Zhu Xizu, the Zhou brothers