The many voices of Duying: revisiting the disputed essays between Lu Xun and Zhou Zuoren.

This article focuses on the authorship attribution of three disputed essays published pseudonymously by Lu Xun (鲁迅) and his brother Zhou Zuoren (周作人) in 1912, using stylometric analysis based on function character n-grams in classical Chinese prose. The study finds strong evidence that "Looking at the Country of China" (望华国篇) was authored by Lu Xun, while "People of Yue, Forget Not Your Ancestors' Instructions" (尔越人毋忘先民之训) was either predominantly written or heavily revised by Lu Xun, reflecting a collaborative style similar to the known joint work "Looking at the Land of Yue" (望越篇). The third essay, "Where Has the Character of the Republic Gone?" (民国之征何在), exhibits a diluted, mixed style indicative of thorough collaboration between the brothers. These findings challenge previous assumptions about the pseudonym "Duying," reveal Lu Xun's covert engagement with social issues during his so-called "silent era," and provide insights into the early intellectual and literary interplay between the two influential modern Chinese writers.