周瘦鵑在民國初期的文學與文化的理論與實踐跨越翻譯、創作、電影、報刊、政治等方面，其中貫穿的對於文言白話「新舊兼備」的語言立場及其文化政治，為「舊派」作家所共享，成為建構民國市民大眾新文化的基本動力，而在近三十年來全球都市發展中重現其活力。周瘦鵑有其思想譜系，即淵源於二十世紀初「國粹」、「復古」思潮，至民初由於南社內部分化而走向大眾傳媒，秉承共和憲政理念，批評時政、鼓吹家庭倫理；其小說以抒情傳統融匯現代價值，為都市大眾展開感情教育。本文提出以語言的辯證關係來重新考察中國現代文學的源起和開展，對於雅與俗、新與舊等流行觀念進行了歷史化的複雜化的描述，涉及如何使文學史書寫更合乎歷史真實的方法論問題。

In the early Republican era, Zhou Shoujuan’s周瘦鵑 literary and cultural activities included literary translation, creative writing, film, politics, and print culture. Zhou endorsed the cultural politics of “embracing both old and new,” which was based on the equal treatment of the classical and vernacular languages. Not only did this cultural politics provide Zhou and his contemporaries with momentum in their creation of a new urban culture in 1920s Shanghai, but it also has been revived in China today. As a member of the Southern Society, Zhou was influenced by the “national essence” and “revival of antiquity” intellectual trends of the late Qing, which criticized warlords and politicians, advocated family ethics, and expressed support for a Republican constitution. His fiction manifested literary modernity while remaining embedded in the Chinese lyrical tradition. By examining the origins of modern Chinese literature in historical context, this article treats a series of concepts such as old and new, elite and popular in a more complicated and subtle way, which touches upon methodological issues involved in the practice of “rewriting literary history.”