Editing Hu Shih (section)

=== Essays ===
Hu was an advocate for the literary revolution of the era, a movement which aimed to replace scholarly classical Chinese in writing with the vernacular spoken language, and to cultivate and stimulate new forms of literature. In an article originally published in ''[[New Youth]]'' in January 1917 titled "A Preliminary Discussion of Literature Reform",<ref>[[s:zh:文學改良芻議|文學改良芻議]]</ref> Hu originally emphasized eight guidelines that all Chinese writers should take to heart in writing:

# Write with substance. By this, Hu meant that literature should contain real feeling and human thought. This was intended to be a contrast to the recent poetry with rhymes and phrases that Hu saw as being empty.
# Do not imitate the ancients. Literature should not be written in the styles of long ago, but rather in the modern style of the present era.
# Respect grammar. Hu did not elaborate at length on this point, merely stating that some recent forms of poetry had neglected proper grammar.
# Reject melancholy. Recent young authors often chose grave pen names, and wrote on such topics as death. Hu rejected this way of thinking as being unproductive in solving modern problems.
# Eliminate old clichés. The Chinese language has always had numerous ''[[chengyu]]'' used to describe events. Hu implored writers to use their own words in descriptions, and deplored those who did not.
# Do not use allusions. By this, Hu was referring to the practice of comparing present events with historical events even when there is no meaningful analogy.
# Do not use couplets or parallelism. Though these forms had been pursued by earlier writers, Hu believed that modern writers first needed to learn the basics of substance and quality, before returning to these matters of subtlety and delicacy.
# Do not avoid popular expressions or popular forms of characters. This rule, perhaps the most well-known, ties in directly with Hu's belief that modern literature should be written in the vernacular, rather than in Classical Chinese. He believed that this practice had historical precedents, and led to greater understanding of important texts.

In April 1918, Hu published a second article in ''New Youth'', this one titled "Constructive Literary Revolution – A Literature of National Speech".<ref>[[s:zh: 建设的文学革命论|建設的文學革命論]]</ref> In it, he simplified the original eight points into just four:

# Speak only when you have something to say. This is analogous to the first point above.
# Speak what you want to say and say it in the way you want to say it. This combines points two through six above.
# Speak what is your own and not that of someone else. This is a rewording of point seven.
# Speak in the language of the time in which you live. This refers again to the replacement of Classical Chinese with the vernacular language.

In the 15 July ''New Youth'' issue, Hu published an essay entitled, ''Chastity'' ({{lang|zh|贞操问题}}). In the traditional Chinese context, this refers not only to virginity before marriage, but specifically to women remaining chaste before they marry and after their husband's death ({{lang|zh|守贞}}). He wrote that this is an unequal and illogical view of life, that there is no natural or moral law upholding such a practice, that chastity is a mutual value for both men and women, and that he vigorously opposes any legislation favoring traditional practices on chastity. There was a movement to introduce traditional Confucian value systems into law at the time.

His 1947 essay ''We Must Choose Our Own Direction'' ({{lang|zh|我们必须选择我们的方向}}) was devoted to liberalism. He held the Jiaxu manuscript ({{zhi|c=甲戌本|p=Jiǎxū běn}}) for many years until his death.