『Behold My Swarthy Face。』

Reading Modern Japanese Fiction in Translation： 42 Study Guides for 42 Selected Works

2013-04-30T16:20:00.000+09:00

Reading Modern Japanese Fiction in Translation by Beholdmyswarthyface

Study Guide: Ishikawa Jun “Moon Gems” (Meigetsushu, 1946)

2013-02-06T13:43:00.002+09:00

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Study Guide: Ishikawa Jun “Moon Gems” (Meigetsushu, 1946)

2013-02-06T13:41:00.002+09:00

Lit 365: Morrison

“There are moments when the radical gesture is to do nothing”–Slavoj Žižek, March 14, 2007 interview with Soft Targets.

Terms/Cultural Particularities

1. Hachiman 八幡: “One of the most popular Shinto deities of Japan; the patron deity of the Minamoto clan and of warriors in general; often referred to as the god of war. Hachiman is commonly regarded as the deification of Ojin, the 15th emperor of Japan. He is seldom worshipped alone, however, and Hachiman shrines are most frequently dedicated to three deities, the emperor Ojin, his mother the empress Jingo, and the goddess Hime-gami” (Schadé).

2. Hachimangū 八幡宮。A Shintō shrine dedicated to the gods of war; in this story, probably the Tomioka Hachiman located in the blue-collar Fukagawa district of Tokyo. One of more than sixty Hachiman shrines in Tokyo, the Tomioka Hachiman Shrine 富岡八幡神宮 was built around 1625, and is dedicated to the war god, Hachiman. Many of Japan’s major cities— especially cities that have served at the headquarters of the bakufu military government— have shrines to Hachiman.

3. Firebombing of Tokyo 東京大空襲: A total of sixty-seven Japanese cities were firebombed by US forces during WWII. The firebombing of Tokyo began in early 1945 and continued up through the final days of the war. The worst damage was suffered on Mach 10, 1945, when approximately 100,000 civilians were killed and over 1,000,000 homes destroyed. Other than the nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the March 10 Tokyo air raids proved to be the deadliest single attack on the Japanese mainland by US forces. The bombing referred to in this story is the infamous March 10 bombing.

4. Kyōka 狂歌: “Mad poems. Waka with a humorous or witty cast of language or thought,” and goes on to note that “word plays involving several meanings were especially popular” (PCJL, 287). The genre, it points out, was intended to “appeal to a popular audience” (287). Among the major collections of kyōka, which is said to begin with the Gyōgetsubō’s Sake Hyakushu in the early 14^th century, is the joint work of Ōta Nampo and Akera Kankō, titled Manzai Kyōkashū and compiled in 1783 (361). The PCJL also notes in the same entry: “Kyōka – ‘mad waka’ – were composed from fairly early times, as early as the Kamakura period. But at that period waka was so highly esteemed that ‘mad waka’ was a contradiction in terms, an oxymoron. That fact explains why kyōka really developed in Muromachi, and chiefly in Edo, times. Given the cultivation necessary to effect difference, and the desire to write poems that made the difference, it will be clear that the practice was chiefly that of the warrior aristocracy and of learned townspeople” (360).

5. Ōta Nanpo 大田南畝 (1749-1823), aka Shokusanjin 蜀山人: a late Edo writer of kyōka and kyōshi poetry, who also wrote kokkeibon, hanashibon, kibyōshi and other kinds of prose. He is best remembered though for his seminal works of poetry, most notably Shokusan hyakushu 蜀山百首 (1818), Manzaishū 万歳集 (A Thousand Centuries of Kyōka, 1783), and Neboke sensei bunshū 寝惚先生文集 (Professor Sleepy Head’s Poems, 1767) (PCJL, 216). According to Tyler, he was “the grand master of the kyōka coteries,” and was both a “samurai bureaucrat and a literary light” (188). He was to twentieth-century writers Ishikawa and Kafū the supreme model of Edo culture and elegance, admired for his “anti-establishment stance and iconoclastic humor, his cultivated air of aloofness, his uncompromising adroitness at playing the game of public versus private personae (omote/ura), his disdain for personal revelation, and his ability to generate fictions or fabrications that have an artistic integrity independent of the author’s life” (189). In a time when the I-novel dominated literary salons, “Ishikawa surely found Nanpo’s ‘shadowless’ transparency to be enviably cool” (189).

6. Epiphany: “A Moment of sudden insight. With an upper case ‘e’, Epiphany is a Christian festival that celebrates the appearance of Christ in this world to the Magi, and is celebrated on January 6. In a literary context, it retains a sense of higher, sometimes mystical awareness of how the world actually is (a form of subjective truth). There are many authors, such as George Herbert and William Wordsworth, whose poems seem to contain epiphanic moments. But the term is specifically associated with James Joyce, who used the term himself, and whose characters (particularly those in Dubliners) undergo moments of epiphany. Joyce thought it was the writer’s task to record these flashes of truth when they appear” (Auger, 100).

7. Transcendent Impulse: My term for the impulse (toward transcendence or some sort of mystical experience) that is discernible in many of Ishikawa’s narrators. Needless to say, this impulse is always thwarted by the conditions of reality.

8. Emperor Mu of the Zhou Dynasty (周穆王; circa 985-907 BC) and the Eight Stallions: “The Eight horses of Emperor Mu was a popular decoration on porcelain from the Transitional into the Yongzheng period (1723-35). The story originates from a historical romance, the Mu tianzhi zhuan (An Account of Emperor Mu), which describes the journeys of the fifth emperor of the Zhou dynasty (1023-983 BC) during which he met Xi Wang Mu, the Queen Mother of the West, at Yaozhi (the Jade Pond).

During these travels the emperor’s chariot was pulled by eight horses named after the color of their hair. Another account, the fourth-century book the Shiyiji (Researches into Lost Records) has it that the horses’ names reflected their unusual talents; Number 1 gallops without touching the ground; Number 2 runs faster than birds; Number 3 goes especially fast at night; Number 4 goes as fast as the shadow of the sun; Number 5 is especially well-groomed with a splendid mane; Number 6 runs so fast that one can see a row of ten images of him; Number 7 rides on a cloud; Number 8 has wings.

The Eight Horses of Wang Mu became a popular subject among later poets and artists and a symbol for the vehicle or journeys of any emperor” (Gotheborg).

9. The Toribeno Cemetary 鳥辺野: the customary site for cremation and burial in Kyoto, in the western slopes of Higashiyama. It appears in Genji monogatari and is referred to in the Hōjōki.

10. Bunjin 文人: Literati; Japanese term equivalent to the Chinese wenren, designating those who devoted themselves to studying literature and the arts” (Frédéric, 91).

11. Superfluous Man (or lishny chelovek in Russian): “a character type whose frequent recurrence in 19th-century Russian literature is sufficiently striking to make him a national archetype. He is usually an aristocrat, intelligent, well-educated, and informed by idealism and goodwill but incapable, for reasons as complex as Hamlet’s, of engaging in effective action” (Encyclopedia Britannica). Though Watashi gives us no clues regarding his family’s social status, he certainly fits the rest of this description.

Study Questions

Answer all of the following.

1. Describe the narrative structure. Where is the narrator situated temporally in relation to the events he is describing?

2. Give a concise summary of the story.

3. Discuss the symbolic significance of the bicycle. Discuss Watashi’s interaction with it.

4. Describe the character referred to as “Boots.” What ideas/institutions does he embody? How is he a marked contrast to Watashi?

5. Describe the persona of the narrator. Is he a comic or tragic figure?

6. Discuss the epiphany-like scene on page 48. Consider it in relation to the following scene in which Watashi has his first successful ride.

7. Discuss the significance of the title. What do the moon, moonbeams, etc. represent to the narrator? Identify and discuss other associated images in the work.

8. Describe the young girl and her relationship with Watashi. Why does she say “we won” (52) after the bombing raid?

9. Can this story be read as an allegory? Explain.

10. Explain the significance of poetry/kyōka in the story. Why is Watashi able to compose comic verse again by the end of the story?

11. Discuss the character Gūka. What is Gūka to Watashi?

12. Discuss the ending. Why is Watashi now ready to give away the bike?

Study Guide: Ishikawa Jun “Mars’ Song” (Marusu no uta; 1938)

2013-02-05T18:21:00.003+09:00

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Study Guide: Ishikawa Jun “Mars’ Song” (Marusu no uta; 1938)

2013-02-05T18:19:00.002+09:00

Lit 365: Morrison

Relevant Terms

1. Metafiction: a mimesis of product rather than of product; fiction that self-consciously addresses the devices of fiction, exposing the fictional illusion. “Fiction about fiction; or more especially a kind of fiction that openly comments on its own fictional status. In a weak sense, many modern novels about novelists having problems writing their novels may be called metafictional in so far as they discuss the nature of fiction; but the term is normally used for works that involve a significant degree of self-consciousness about themselves as fictions, in ways that go beyond occasional apologetic addresses to the reader. The most celebrated case is Sterne’s Tristram Shandy (1760-1767), which makes a continuous joke of its own digressive form. A notable modern example is John Fowles’s The French Lieutenant’s Woman (1969), in which Fowles interrupts the narrative to explain his procedures, and offers the reader alternative endings. Perhaps the finest of modern metafictions is Italo Calvino’s Se una notte d’inverno un viaggatore (If on a winter’s night a traveler, 1979), which begins ‘You are about to begin reading Italo Calvino’s new novel.” (Baldick, ODLT, 203)

2. Self-conscious narrator: A narrator that draws the reader’s attention to the process and mechanics of narration.

3. Death Drive (pulsion de mort) (psychoanalysis): Although intimations of the concept of the death drive (Todestrieb) can be found early on in Freud’s work, it was only in Beyond the Pleasure Principle (1920g) that the concept was fully articulated. In this work Freud established a fundamental opposition between life drives (eros), conceived of as a tendency towards cohesion and unity, and the death drives, which operate in the opposite direction, undoing connections and destroying things. However, the life drives and the death drives are never found in a pure state, but always mixed/fused together in differing proportions. Indeed, Freud argued that were it not for this fusion with erotism, the death drive would elude our perception, since in itself it is silent (Freud, 1930a: SE, XXI, 120).

The concept of the death drive was one of the most controversial concepts introduced by Freud, and many of his disciples rejected it (regarding it as mere poetry or as an unjustifiable incursion into metaphysics), but Freud continued to reaffirm the concept for the rest of his life. Of the non-Lacanian schools of psychoanalytic theory, only Kleinian psychoanalysis takes the concept seriously.

Lacan follows Freud in reaffirming the concept of the death drive as central to psychoanalysis: ‘to ignore the death instinct in his [Freud’s] doctrine is to misunderstand that doctrine entirely’ (E, 301).

In Lacan’s first remarks on the death drive, in 1938, he describes it as a nostalgia for a lost harmony, a desire to return to the preoedipal fusion with the mother’s breast, the loss of which is marked on the psyche in the weaning complex (Lacan, 1938:35). In 1946 he links the death drive to the suicidal tendency of narcissism (Ec, 186). By linking the death drive with the preoedipal phase and with narcissism, these early remarks would place the death drive in what Lacan later comes to call the imaginary order. However, when Lacan begins to develop his concept of the three orders of imaginary, symbolic and real, in the 1950s, he does not situate the death drive in the imaginary but in the symbolic. In the seminar of 1954–5, for example, he argues that the death drive is simply the fundamental tendency of the symbolic order to produce REPETITION; ‘The death instinct is only the mask of the symbolic order’ (S2, 326). This shift also marks a difference with Freud, for whom the death drive was closely bound up with biology, representing the fundamental tendency of every living thing to return to an inorganic state. By situating the death drive firmly in the symbolic, Lacan articulates it with culturerather than nature; he states that the death drive ‘is not a question of biology’ (E, 102), and must be distinguished from the biological instinct to return to the inanimate (S7, 211–12).

Another difference between Lacan’s concept of the death drive and Freud’s emerges in 1964. Freud opposed the death drive to the sexual drives, but now Lacan argues that the death drive is not a separate drive, but is in fact an aspect of every DRIVE. ‘The distinction between the life drive and the death drive is true in as much as it manifests two aspects of the drive’ (S11, 257). Hence Lacan writes that ‘every drive is virtually a death drive’ (Ec, 848), because (i) every drive pursues its own extinction, (ii) every drive involves the subject in repetition, and (iii) every drive is an attempt to go beyond the pleasure principle, to the realm of excess JOUISSANCE where enjoyment is experienced as suffering.

4. Fascism: “Political philosophy [from Latin fasces, the bundle of ax and rods carried before Roman consuls as a symbol of authority]. A political doctrine, in opposition to liberalism and socialism, which was originally proposed in early twentieth-century Italy by Mussolini and the neo-Hegelian philosopher Giovanni Gentile. The doctrine was deeply influenced by the Hegelian theory of the state and combined extreme nationalism with extreme communitarianism. Fascism rejects individualism by claiming that a nation is an organic entity rather than an aggregate of individuals with basic rights. It propounds irrationality and particularity in contrast to rationality and universality. It supports the role of the government as the upholder of moral integrity and the nation’s collective purpose. It advocates an authoritarian state in which the government controls all aspects of social life. In practice, Mussolini’s fascist government denied freedom of speech to individuals and appealed to violence. The term ‘fascism’ was later used to characterize Hitler’s National Socialism (Nazi) and other European regimes influenced by Hitler and Mussolini. Through Hitler, fascism became associated with genocidal anti-Semitism, but other fascist regimes were militaristic. Since the Second World War, the terms has been taken as a symbol of evil, which is applied to any oppressive and totalitarian political regime or action. Some political theorists seek to understand how fascist regimes arose in the context of modernity” (Bunnin, BDWP, 251).

Particularities of Culture

5. Hachiman 八幡: “One of the most popular Shinto deities of Japan; the patron deity of the Minamoto clan and of warriors in general; often referred to as the god of war. Hachiman is commonly regarded as the deification of Ojin, the 15th emperor of Japan. He is seldom worshipped alone, however, and Hachiman shrines are most frequently dedicated to three deities, the emperor Ojin, his mother the empress Jingo, and the goddess Hime-gami” (Schadé).

6. Roei no uta 露営の歌 (Field Encampment Song): Japanese gunka (military song) from 1937. “Marusu no uta” seems to be based on this actual song.

7. Kamata: eki in Ōta-ku, Tokyo; where Fuyuko lives.
8. Sōjiji temple in Tsurumi: temple in Yokohama.

9. Utsunomiya 宇都宮: military outpost in Tochigi-ken

10. Izu nagaoka:
11. Mishima-eki: in Shizuoka-ken, on Izu peninsula.
12. Shizuura- Shizuoka-ken, on Izu peninsula.
13. Mito:
14. … [add to the list as you read]

Historical Timeline

1935: Rapid rise of militarists begins.

1936: Ni-ni-roku jiken 二二六事件 (“February 26 Incident”): A major coup attempt against the Japanese government by the Imperial Way Faction 皇道派 in which groups of assassins killed or attempted to kill the upper leadership of the government and seize control of key buildings. Fourteen hundred junior military officers took up arms in Tokyo, occupying the Diet, army ministry, and police headquarters. Three cabinet members were killed, including finance minister Takahashi Korekiyo. The rebellion was eventually put down under orders from the emperor.

1937: Rokōkyō jiken 盧溝橋事件 (Marco Polo Bridge Incident): Conflict between Chinese and Japanese troops near the Marco Polo Bridge outside Beijing, which developed into the warfare between the two countries that was the prelude to the Pacific side of World War II. (Britannica Encyclopedia)

1937: Shina jihen 支那事変 (“China Incident”): incident that led to large-scale hostilities between Japan and China.

1937: Nanking Massacre 南京大虐殺: a mass murder and war rape that occurred during the six-week period following the Japanese capture of the city of Nanking, the former capital of the Republic of China.

1938: Establishment of the National Spiritual Mobilization Movement 国民精神総動員運動の設立: Organization established as part of the controls on civilian organizations under the National Mobilization Law by Prime Minister Fumimaro Konoe.

1938: National General Mobilization Law 国家総動員法: Legislation passed by the Diet of Japan by Prime Minister Fumimaro Konoe to put the national economy of the Empire of Japan on war-time footing after the start of the Second Sino-Japanese War. The National Mobilization Law had fifty clauses, which provided for government controls over civilian organizations (including labor unions), nationalization of strategic industries, price controls and rationing, and nationalized the news media. The laws gave the government the authority to use unlimited budgets to subsidize war production, and to compensate manufacturers for losses caused by war-time mobilization.

*Note on publication: “‘Mars’ Song’ appeared in Bungakkai but was banned within a week of the magazine’s distribution. Unsold copies were seized, and the magazine was ordered to cease publication temporarily. Eventually, Ishikawa and his editor, Kawakami Tetsutarō (1902-1991), were hauled into Tokyo District Court, where they were fined thirty and fifty yen, respectively—a considerable sum at the time and one that neither could hope to pay. Only through the intervention of Kikuchi Kan (1888-1949), then doyen of Japanese letters and editor-in-chief of the prestigious literary journal Bungei shunjū, were the fines paid and the two men released” (Tyler, LOG, 178)

Study Questions

Answer all of the following.

1. Describe the narrator. What is his relation to the world he inhabits? What does he find lacking in the world at present?

2. Describe the narrative structure of the work. What “metafictional” elements are employed? Is the narrator a “self-conscious narrator”?

3. Reality and fiction are initially presented by the narrator as irreconcilable opposites, yet it soon becomes apparent that they are somehow inseparable. Discuss the relationship between reality and fiction, art and life that is evoked in the work.

4. Discuss the character of Obiko 帯子. What female type (or combination of types) does she represent?

5. Discuss the character Fuyuko 冬子 (her tastes, inclinations, personality, etc.). What are the circumstances surrounding her suicide? Can her life and death—and particularly her hobby of feigning various handicaps—be read as an allegory for something? Also discuss the scene at her funeral wake.

6. Discuss the character Sanji.

7. Describe the mood of the times. What images/symbols/elements of militarism/fascism can you identify in the work?

8. Discuss the motif of refusal/resistance that runs through the work. Explain the context, target, significance, and impact of each act of refusal or resistance.

9. Describe the scene at the aquarium. Are the various species of fish metaphors for something? Explain.

Tanizaki Jun’ichirō (1886-1965), “The Tattooer” (Shisei刺青, 1910)

2013-02-03T14:55:00.001+09:00

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Study Guide Tanizaki Jun’ichirō (1886-1965), “The Tattooer” (Shisei刺青, 1910) by

Tanizaki Jun’ichirō (1886-1965), “The Tattooer” (Shisei刺青, 1910)

2013-02-03T14:53:00.001+09:00

Lit 231: Morrison

Tanizaki Jun’ichirō谷崎潤一郎 (1886-1965): Edokko; born to wealthy chōnin father (owner of publishing company) in Nihonbashi; a botchan in early years, but family fortunes soon declined; had to drop out of 帝大 in 1911; literary career begins in 1909; married in 1915, but soon bores of her; encourages her to have affair with Satō Haruo (Odawara jiken); obsession with West, aestheticism; moves to cosmopolitan Yokohama in 1922: lives bohemian lifestyle; dabbles in film industry, script writing, 純映画劇運動 (pure film movement); reputation really takes off after 1923 Kantō daishinsai quake (old Tokyo disappears, never to return; his attention moves from West to Kansai); between 1924 and 1934, writes Chijin no ai, In’ei raisan, Manji, Tade kū mushi, Yoshino kuzu, Ashikari, Shunkinshō; this period corresponds to the general trend of Nihon kaiki (yet maintains modernist inclinations); during war: Genji monogatari gendaiyaku and Sasame yuki (portrait of four daughters of a wealthy family slowing slipping in stature); awarded bunka kunshō (order of culture) in 1949; continues to pursue his favorite themes in later novels: longing for mother/ideal woman; male masochism; sexuality/perversion; fantasy in old age; his eternal ideal female archetypes: Western-ish femme fatale throughout early period, then the traditional ningyō-like woman, then the lost mother, then the noblewoman behind screen . . .

Terms/Particularities of Culture

1. Horimono/irezumi: traditional Japanese tattooing; can be traced back to Jōmon period for religious purposes, then as punishment in Kofun period (300-600AD); began to develop as art form during mid-Edo period, influenced by popularity of Japanese translation of Suikoden (Water Margin; 14^th century; one of four great classical novels of Chinese literature), which features heroes who have their deeds inscribed into their bodies; flourished among merchant class, wealthy merchants; horimono artists included many ukiyo-e artists; outlawed at beginning of Meiji, thus outlaw associations of tattoos; legalized again in 1948.

2. “Cruel Empress Chou of Shang Dynasty” (1600-1047 BC): reference to the sadistic and depraved King Zhou 商紂王 and Daji 妲己, who reigned from 1075-1046 BC and brought Shang dynasty to ruin. The empress is an archetype in Chinese history of selfish, sadistic consort who controls emperor through her charms, and leads the country to ruin.

3. Aestheticism, or “the Aesthetic Movement” (definition provided by Professor Yiu): A European phenomenon during the latter nineteenth century that had its chief philosophical headquarters in France. Its roots lie in the German theory, proposed by Kant (1790), that the pure aesthetic experience consists of a “disinterested” contemplation of an aesthetic object without reference to its reality, or to the “external” ends of its utility or morality. Rallying cries included “poem per se”—a “poem written solely for the poem’s sake,” (Edgar Allan Poe) and “art for art’s sake.” This movement also stresses the “autonomy” and “all-importance” of art (M.H. Abrams, A Glossary of Literary Terms).

Tanizaki’s story paved the way for other literary works that celebrated art for art’s sake and the artist’s unwavering devotion to his craft. [This story] and Akutagawa’s “Hell Screen” (Jigokuhen 地獄変, 1918) are often grouped together as works of the Aesthetic School (tanbi-ha 耽美派) and are seen not only as harbingers of modernism in prose but also as the beginnings of opposition to the literary school of Naturalism (shizen-shugi 自然主義) and the narrative style of the I-novel, which emphasized flat, unvarnished, and sincere depiction in contrast to the new, spectacle-driven narrative style of the modernists (William Tyler, Modanizumu: Modernist Fiction from Japan 1913-1938, University of Hawaii Press, 2008, p. 25.).

More on aestheticism: sensibility/philosophy of life and of art; English literary and artistic movement culminating in 1890s (Oscar Wilde/Walter Pater most extravagant proponent); a stage in development of Romanticism; related to symbolism; reaction to Naturalism; generally anti-commercial, anti-didactic, anti-democratic, anti-bourgeois, anti-“religion of progress” tone, anti-bunmeikaika; tends to emphasize hedonism, occult, and prefer spiritual, transcendental over material. Aestheticism has its roots in Kant’s postulate from Critique of Judgment (1790) of the “disinterestedness” (no personal interest) of aesthetical judgment, and the irrelevance of concepts to the intuitions of the imagination (i.e. emphasizes intuition/sense/imagination over rational intellect). Music is the ideal art form, as it is most immaterial, removed from quotidian; “to become like music is aspiration of all arts” says Schopenhauer, then Walter Pater)It holds that the pursuit of beauty the main task in life; l’art pour l’art (love of art for its own sake). Aestheticist writers usually regard themselves as an alienated minority, scornful of masses (Seikichi is no exception).

4. Aesthetic Movement in Japan (tanbiha 耽美派): Poe, Baudelaire influences; fin-de-siècle; diabolism (akumashugi); Tanizaki, Akutagawa, Satō Haruo, Kajii Motojirō, Nagai Kafū, Edogawa Rampo; centered around Keiō (Mitabungaku) vs. Waseda bungaku (Naturalists); urban, cosmopolitan, sophisticated.

5. The Edo Period (1603-1868), particularly the decades of Bunka and Bunsei (1804-1829):Tanizaki presents this as a time when wit and pleasure were highly esteemed—as were women who were depicted on stage, for example, in heroic roles in plays like The Female Sadakurō (Onna Sadakurō), The Female Jiraiya, and The Woman Thunder. It was an age of liberalism, affluence, and urbanity worthy of being reclaimed not in xenophobic retreat to the past but through rediscovery of a modernity latent and detectable within pre-Meiji history. Like many novelists writing in the years following Japan’s victory in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905, Tanizaki was disenchanted with the economic and human costs that accrued to an imperial power intent on building an international empire. In looking to the past for a different model of the future, he presents the townsman culture of the Edo period as an artistic and societal alternative to the policies of the Meiji establishment. Needless to say, in presenting his view of Edo as far nobler, he erases any vestige of the feudalistic authoritarianism historically associated with the samurai class, Neo-Confucianism, and the Tokugawa shogunate (Tyler 2008, p.25).

Bunka/Bunsei (1804-1829): the last great era before crisis decades of Tokugawa era; Edo period’s second flourishing of urban cultural scene, the first being Genroku (1688-1704) (a view contested by recent Tenmei-focused literary historians); painters Shiba Kōkan, Sharaku; writers Takizawa Bakin, Shikitei Sanba, Jippensha Ikku; arts of this period characterized by down to earth, vernacular style; popular appeal; common everyday themes; lavish habits of Tokugawa shogun Ienari spread to public (post Matsudaira Sadanobu).

6. Fetish/ Fetishism: A fetish is something, such as a material object or an often nonsexual part of the body that arouses or gratifies sexual desire. A fetishism is the displacement of sexual arousal or gratification to a fetish. (1) broad definition in psychoanalysis: any activity that deviates from heterosexual intercourse; (2) a non-sexual part of body or thing that is highly charged with libido/sex drive (foot, pillow, ear, etc.). According to Freud a fetish is a substitute for mother’s penis that boy/girl once believed in (i.e. she lost it, got to find it, before I lose it too). Fetishism is usually found in men, often accompanied by aversion to real female genitals. In Shisei, Seikichi finds replacement for mother’s penis in girl’s foot.

7. Archetype: Applied to narrative designs, character types, or images which are said to be identifiable in a wide variety of works of literature, as well as in myths, dreams, and even ritualized modes of social behavior. (Abrams, pp.11-12). A central term in Carl Jung’s analytical psychology, introduced in his 1919 work. Based on idea that there are “primordial and universal images that make up the contents of the collective consciousness.”

8. Ero-guro-nansensu (Erotic-grotesque-nonsense): A spontaneous artistic and narrative style, strategy and movement that came in vogue in the 1910s-1930s as a new form of expression in defiance of the introspective nature and unadorned language of the Naturalist movement. Playful, evocative, at times vulgar and absurd, it aims at entertaining and shocking the reader and the viewer in an age of nouveau art and literary forms. Literary and artistic movement in 1920s and 1930s Japan; “prewar, bourgeois cultural phenomenon that devoted itself to explorations of the deviant, the bizarre, and the ridiculous” (Reichart); focus on eroticism, sexual corruption, decadence; Taisho popular culture (roots in ukiyoe, shunga). Challenged state ideology, bourgeois conservative values; Edogawa Rampo; traces today in manga, anime, etc.

9. Femme Fatale (lit, “deadly woman”): Mysterious, charming, seductive, often dangerous even deadly female archetype. Examples from history/literature: Eve, Lilith, Delilah, Cleopatra, other “dark ladies” from antiquity; film noir females.

10. Mimetic theory of art: Views/evaluates art in relation to real world; the value of art is determined by the extent to which it accurately mirrors reality.

11. Masochism/sadism: Tanizaki’s great theme; Krafft-Ebing first to provide detailed account of masochism in Psychopathia Sexualis (1886). Word itself comes from Sacher-Masoch’s book Venus in Furs. Krafft-Ebing’s classic study of sexual perversion was introduced to Japan in 1914, translated as 『変態性慾心理』 and immediately banned. The modern use of the word hentai began around this time. (An earlier translation had appeared in 1894, under the title Shikijōkyōhen.) What does masochist want?→satisfaction through unpleasantness/pain). Freud’s gives three types of masochist: erotogenic (sexual pleasure linked with pain), feminine masochism (acting the subservient “bitch”), and moral masochism (desire to experience guilt). Seikichi seems to be erotogenic (he wants her to stomp on his face). Tanizaki’s great insight into human relations: romantic relations are always negotiated in terms of power.

Study Questions (Provided by Professor A. Yiu)

Answer all of the following.

1. Identify the age (time period) and place (setting) of the narrative. How does Tanizaki comment on the Meiji period through evoking a different time period?

2. What is the atmosphere of that specific age and place? How is that atmosphere evoked or depicted?

3. Discuss elements of decadence, eroticism, exoticism, fetishism, and sensuality in the text. In what sense does this work precipitate and embody elements of ero-guro-nansense movement?

4. Discuss the image of the woman as a literary archetype. How is that archetype constructed in the text? How does it serve as a generic archetype as well as a Tanizaki archetype?

5. “Just as the ancient Egyptians had embellished their magnificent land with pyramids

and sphinxes, he was about to embellish the pure skin of this girl” (p. 167). What is the nature of this comparison? Discuss the relationship between art (man-made/tattooing) and nature (not man-made/the woman’s skin) in the text.

6. In insisting on inscribing (tattooing) on nature (the woman’s skin) to create art, how does Tanizaki challenge the mimetic theory (art imitates nature) of art?

7. What happens to the tattooer when his work is complete? Discuss the relationship between the artist and the work of art. In what sense is this work representative of the tanbi-ha (Aesthetic School)?

Mori Ōgai, “Takasebune” (The Boat on the Takase River, 1916)

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Study Guide Mori Ōgai, “Takasebune” (The Boat on the Takase River, 1916) by

Mori Ōgai, “Takasebune” (The Boat on the Takase River, 1916)

2013-02-03T12:26:00.003+09:00

Mori Ōgai 森鴎外(1862-1922), “Takasebune” 高瀬舟 (The Boat on the Takase River, 1916)[1]

My motives (in writing historical fiction) are simple. In studying historical records, I came to revere the reality that was evidenced in them. Any wanton change seemed distasteful to me. This is one of my motives. Secondly, if contemporary authors can write about life “just as it is” and find it satisfactory, then they ought to appreciate a similar treatment of the past.

. . . Just as I disliked changing the reality in history, I became bound by history in spite of myself. Suffering under these bonds, I thought I must break loose from them (my italics).

-Mori Ōgai, “History as it is and history ignored” 歴史そのままと歴史離れ (in The Historical Fiction of Mori Ōgai, pp. 181-2)

Mori Ōgai (1862-1922): Born in Shimane-ken to family of physicians to daimyō; received elite education in neo-Confucian classics. In 1872, he moved in with Nishi Amane, began studying German. Graduates from Tokyo Imperial University medical school, becomes a doctor at 19; reads late-Edo gesaku fiction; sent by army to study in Germany from 1884-1888; encounters European literature; publishes Shigarami sōshi, 1889–1894 and his own book of poetry (Omokage, 1889) in anti-realist, German Romantic vein (Ōgai vs. Tsubouchi); institutes modern literary criticism in Japan based on the aesthetic theories of Karl von Hartmann. In 1890, publishes Maihime. His own exile to Kyushu; appointed surgeon general in 1907; edits Mezamashi gusa, 1892–1909 while serving in army as surgeon; translates works of Goethe, Schiller, Ibsen, Hans Christian Andersen, and Hauptmann. From 1912–1916: historical stories (rekishi monogatari; e.g. Sanshō dayu, Takasebune). From 1916-death: shiden (literary biographies; e.g. Shibue Chūsai). His literary style is often characterized as Apollonian, rational, stoic, manly, understated.

Terms/Particularities of Culture

1. Showing/depicting and telling: Fictional discourse constantly alternates between showing us what happened and telling us what happened. The purest form of showing is the quoted speech of characters, in which language exactly mirrors the event (because the event is linguistic). (Note: One must be careful, however, that quoted speech does not always have to be exclusively depiction. Depiction often involves the use of metaphor, imagery and detailed description to make a scene or event vivid, as though it is happening in front of our eyes (A.Yiu).

The purest form of telling is authorial or narrative summary, in which the conciseness and abstraction of the narrator’s language effaces he particularity and individuality of the characters and their actions. Summary has its uses; it can, for instance, accelerate the tempo of a narrative, hurrying us through events which would be uninteresting, or too interesting—therefore distracting, if lingered over. (Lodge, The Art of Fiction)

In Japanese narratives, the style of “depicting” approximates the mimetic, representational form of description typically found in 19th century Western orthodox novels, while “telling” is linked to the Japanese narrative and theatrical traditional of “presentational art,” in which the making of an art form (literary, visual, theatrical) is presented in full view to the reader or viewer. The writer does not hide behind the scene; on the contrary, he or she wants you to show you the process of artistic creation by drawing attention to the art of telling (A. Yiu).

Showing/depicting: mimetic; representational; conversations, action, characters’ thoughts transcribed (interior monologue); the preferred method of Western realism. “The purest form of showing is the quoted speech of characters, in which language exactly mirrors the event (because the event is linguistic)” (Lodge). Wayne Booth’s Rhetoric of Fiction (1961; the terms “implied author” and “unreliable author” coined in this work) argues that “showing” is not necessarily better than “telling,” and that all writers employ both.

Telling: non-mimetic; presentational art of tradition Japanese narrative form, in which the act of narration is exposed. “The purest form of telling is authorial or narrative summary, in which the conciseness and abstraction of the narrator’s language effaces the particularity and individuality of the characters and their actions” (Lodge, The Art of Fiction). “Fictional discourse constantly alternates between showing us what happened and telling us what happened” (Lodge). Telling is presentational rather than representational. It includes explanations, historical background passages, summary of events, etc. “[Telling] can, for instance, accelerate the tempo of a narrative, hurrying us through events which would be uninteresting, or too interesting—therefore distracting, if lingered over” (Lodge).

2. Rekishi shōsetsu (historical novellas): Fictional works that deal with historical themes in an artistic or psychological way (usually with contemporary relevance). Ōgai began writing in this genre after Nogi’s junshi suicide in 1912 (partly to make up for thousands of deaths during Russo-Japanese War). To be contrasted with later shiden (his historical biographies). Sanshō dayu, Takasebune, etc.

3. Mimesis: The imitation or representation of nature, esp. in art and literature. Imitation (a basic human instinct) or representation of nature, esp. in art and literature; basis of representational arts, realism. According to Plato’s broad definition, all forms of discourse are mimetic, are shadows of the Ideal. For Aristotle, mimesis is limited to poetry; depiction of men in action. Rhetoric persuades; dialectic establishes truth; Mimesis founds possibility of history and realist fiction. Concept of Realism/Mimesis came under attack in 20^th century: so-called “reality” of work demonstrated to be an illusion/trick/ideology; yet the notion still survives today in expanded form. Mimetic (adj.): Using imitative means of representation.

4. Mimetic criticism: Mimetic criticism views the literary work as an imitation, or reflection, or representation of the world and human life, and the primary criterion applied to a work is that of the “truth” of its representation to the objects it represents, or should represent. This mode of criticism, which first appeared in Plato and (in a qualified way) in Aristotle, is characteristic of modern theories of literary realism (Abrams, p. 37). (An example in usage: “This passage conveys the horror of the event in a mimetic form. . .explain the chosen passage).

Mimetic criticism examines work in reference to the external world it is purported to represent (unreal=bad). It “views the literary work as an imitation, or reflection, or representation of the world and human life, and the primary criterion applied to a work is that of the “truth” of its representation to the objects it represents, or should represent. This mode of criticism, which first appeared in Plato and (in a qualified way) in Aristotle, is characteristic of modern theories of literary realisms” (Abrams, 37).

5. Verisimilitude: “seeming-to-be-true-ness”; “the achievement of an illusion of reality in the reader/audience” (Abrams, 201); employed to convince readers of reality of the things represented in the work, to establish credibility; employed in attempt to satisfy even the rational, skeptical reader that the events and characters portrayed are realistic/possible. Different genres have different measurements, standards, and expectations (i.e. what is realistic in comedy may not be in tragedy).

6. Realism: Concept based on assumption that the form (i.e. novel, poem, drama, painting, etc.) mirrors/imitates reality, and that reality is more or less stable and commonly accessible. Realism is most commonly associated with the nineteenth-century novel, which was believed to be uniquely capable of revealing the truth of contemporary life in society. Honoré de Balzac is often credited with pioneering a systematic realism in French literature, through the inclusion of specific detail and recurring characters. Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Leo Tolstoy, Gustave Flaubert, Ivan Turgenev represent the zenith of the realist style with their unadorned prose and attention to the details of everyday life. Émile Zola's naturalism is regarded as an offshoot of realism. Tsubouchi Shōyō first to write about realism/realist novel, elaborate on its techniques.

7. Reality Effect: Barthes’ term for details that serve no other purpose than producing the effect of reality; they don’t advance the narrative (in fact, they often interrupt it); their function is to state to reader, “hey, this is real.” Examples in “Takasebune”: Takase River, Kyoto, Osaka, Edo bakufu, Kansei era, real historical records; Ōgai’s comments; narrator’s referring to self as “I.”

8. Verisimilitude. The achievement of an illusion of reality in the reader/audience (Abrams, 201). (An example in usage: “This sentence conveys/embodies verisimilitude in the vividness of its depiction/imagery. . .explain the chosen sentence).

9. Naturalism = Realism + science/post-Darwin biological/social determinism/social theories. Eg: Zola; offshoot of realism.

10. Self-sacrifice (akirame/teinen): common theme in Ōgai’s works after General Nogi’s seppuku in 1912. Ware tada taru o shiru 我唯足知 (written at Ryōanji tsukubai washing basin in Kyoto: I am content with what I have; Might also be interpreted as Ōgai’s warning to proletariat: don’t start getting uppity...). The akirame ideal is embodied here by Kisuke, Kisuke’s brother, then Shōbee.

11. Kansei era (1789-1801): era of the Tokugawa period; followed Tenmei; saw Kansei reforms (Kansei no kaikaku) of reactionary Matsudaira Sadanobu, the strengthening of sakoku policies, and the prohibition of non-neo-Confucian heterodoxies.

12. Euthanasia 安楽死: no official laws in Japan prohibiting it.

Study Questions

Answer all of the following.

1. Examine the imagery in the opening scene. What kind of atmosphere/world does it create?

2. How does the author tell the story by using a mixture of “telling” and “showing” (depicting)? Give specific examples.

3. How does the text achieve verisimilitude and mimesis? Give specific examples to illustrate you answer.

4. How does “telling” and “depicting” enable the Ōgai to “adhere to history as it is” (rekishi sono mama) and “to break loose from history” (rekishibanare)? If “adhering to history” refers to a kind of documentation, why is it inadequate to Ōgai? If “breaking loose from history” refers to gravitating towards metaphor and rhetoric/poetry, why is it necessary?

5. How does the writer draw your attention to his story-telling?

[1] Included in The Historical Fiction of Mori Ōgai, edited by David Dilworth and Thomas Rimer (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, [1971], 1991).

Akutagawa’s “In a Grove”: A Meditation on the Question, What is Woman?

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Akutagawa’s “In a Grove”—A Meditation on the Question, What is Woman?

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Lit 231: Morrison

Introduction

Contrary to popular belief, Akutagawa Ryūnosuke’s “In a Grove” (1922; Shinchō) is NOT a parable about perspectivism, the unknowability of truth, etc. Rather, it is a meditation on the question “What is woman?”—the answer to which is so terrifying that one of the main characters in the story—the young aristocrat Kanazawa no Takehiko—presumably stabs himself in the chest the moment he discovers it.

Akutagawa published “Yabu no naka” (“In a Grove”) in 1922. The story is based on an episode in Konjaku monogatarishū, a collection of setsuwa tales from the tenth century. In that version, an aristocrat and his wife are attacked by a bandit while travelling along a mountain path; the wife is raped; the bandit flees; and they continue on their way. Aside from this basic plotline, everything else in “In a Grove” Akutagawa added himself.

In 1950, director Kurosawa Akira adapted Akutagawa’s story into the acclaimed film Rashomon. The film became an international sensation, and since its release much has been written on both Akutagawa’s story and the film. The great bulk of this criticism focuses on the purported “philosophical” message of the work, namely the idea that there is no ultimate reality or truth but only an irreducible multiplicity of subjective perspectives. A term was even coined—the “Rashomon effect”—to explain this phenomenon, which has since been referenced and parodied in numerous novels, films, plays, and even several American sitcoms.

Akutagawa’s story borrows the form of the whodunit mystery. In all, seven witnesses provide testimonies of what they purportedly saw. Very little matches up. Although the ghost of the dead husband Takehiko appears at the end of the story through a medium—a usual cue to the reader that the truth will at last be revealed—this final testimony adds only another layer of confusion. The reader wants to piece together the puzzle, but the pieces don’t fit. Without any omniscient narrator to tell us what actually happened, the story ends with the truth lost somewhere in the “yabu no naka.”

But certainly Akutagawa did not write this story simply to make a facile point about the evasiveness of truth. It is my view that his motivation for writing the story lay elsewhere, namely in a question far more profound and problematic, the question, “What is woman?”

The focal character in the story is Masago, widow of Takehiko and rape victim of Tajōmaru. She and her mother are the story’s only female characters. Though a non-entity in the first testimony, and alluded to only briefly as a peripheral figure in the following two testimonies, Masago’s presence grows with each witness’s account, ultimately becoming the dominant ordering force in the work, effectively swallowing up the other characters and indeed the story itself.

In each of the seven testimonies Masago embodies a different aspect or archetype of woman. In the first testimony, she represents woman as absence. In the second, woman as enigma. In the third, she is woman as nameless object of male desire. In the fourth, she is the obedient daughter and faithful wife. In the fifth, she is presented as a “modern woman” (kindai josei). In the sixth, she is the yamato nadeshiko, the traditional female ideal in Japan. And in the final testimony, she is woman as pure, unbridled feminine desire or will.

Testimony One: Woman as Absence

This is the testimony of the woodcutter. There is no mention of Masago. At this point, she has not yet been made the object of male desire, and therefore does not yet exist. She is woman as absence.

Testimony Two: Woman as Enigma

This testimony is given by the traveling priest. He describes catching a glimpse of Masago, whose face is veiled in a dark red and blue cloth—an image evoking a mood of mystery and exoticism. She is the enigmatic noblewoman behind the screen, much like that female archetype that appears in so many of Tanizaki’s works. The fact that he is a Buddhist priest may also explain why he refers to her only indirectly, as woman are generally regarded as impure in Buddhist teachings.

Testimony Three: Woman as Anonymous Object of Male Desire

Here the magistrate describes Tajōmaru as a lustful onnazuki (fancier of women), implying that the young, attractive Masago would have been a likely target. The magistrate does not directly mention Masago, and we learn nothing new about Masago’s appearance or character. Yet she is alluded to as a potential target of male desire, i.e. as anonymous object of male desire.

Testimony Four: Woman as Obedient Daughter, Faithful Wife

The fourth testimony is given by Masago’s mother. Here for the first time we are given her name and age (she is nineteen). Her appearance is also described in some detail: she has an oval-shaped face (urizanegao), a slightly dark complexion, and “a birthmark under her left eye.” We are also told that she is strong-willed, somewhat boyish, and faithful as Takehiko’s wife. Lest anyone think she was a hussy asking to be raped, Masago’s mother insists on pointing out that her daughter maintained her virginity until marriage. Masago is portrayed here through a filter of maternal concern as an obedient daughter and faithful wife, i.e. as a woman who follows the rules of the Confucian patriarchal society.

Testimony Five: Woman as Kindai Josei

This is the confession of Tajōmaru, renowned rebel, bandit, and womanizer. He begins his testimony by asserting that he did not murder Masago and that he knows nothing of her current whereabouts. He describes his first glimpse of her in quasi-religious terms: she struck him as beautiful, refined, even “Bodhisattva”-like. He describes how she literally remained on her “high horse” while he led her greedy, materialistic proto-petit bourgeois husband Tanehiko to the “treasure” that he swore was buried in the grove. Of course, there never was any treasure, and after tying up the husband, Tajōmaru returns for his prey.

Masago valiantly resists Tajōmaru’s advances, but she is eventually subdued and dragged into the grove to be raped in front of her husband. Either during or immediately after the rape, Masago presumably forms a wild attachment to Tajōmaru. When Tajōmaru suggests that they have no choice now but to get married, she commands the two men to duel, promising herself to the winner. Takehiko takes up the challenge, but while the two men are fighting, Masago takes the opportunity to flee and turn Tajōmaru in to the authorities.

By Tajōmaru’s account, Masago is a clever, independent, and calculating “modern woman” (kindai josei) with a knack for self-preservation.

Testimony Six: Woman as Yamato Nadeshiko

The sixth testimony is that of Masago herself, now a nun, confessing from her convent. Predictably, she presents herself as a devout wife who, after being submitted to a humiliating rape, rushed to the side of her bound and gagged husband. Yet instead of coming to her aid, her conventionally-minded husband, having witnessed her “defilement,” simply stares at her contemptuously. Even after Tajōmaru is gone, Takehiko continues to glare at her in disgust. We might ask here: what does Takehiko know that we don’t? Did he witness, perhaps, his wife enjoying the rape?

But the strong-willed Masago is not about to let Takehiko define her as a whore. She makes a proposal: now that she has been “shamed,” she has no choice but to die. Only there is a catch: having witnessed her “shame,” Takehiko must die first. Takehiko accedes to this, and presumably asks his wife to kill him. (It is of course possible that she misheard—perhaps intentionally?—his request, as his mouth is still stuffed with leaves.) Masago successfully kills him, yet she fails—and perhaps this was her plan all along—to fulfill her end of the bargain by taking her own life. Her testimony ends with her repeating her line about how ashamed she is, revealing an occasional smile between tears.

Thus Masago has tried to present herself as a devout, principled (as defined by the male-dominated order), self-sacrificing, but ultimately weak woman; in a word, as a yamato nadeshiko.

Testimony Seven: Woman as Pure, Unbridled Desire or Will

The final testimony is that of the ghost of Takehiko, spoken through a medium. After witnessing his wife’s rape, Takehiko watches jealously as Masago is consoled by her sweet-talking, bad-boy rapist-lover. She appears to be falling for him, and eventually asks him to take her away with him. As if to corroborate René Girard’s theory that desire is always triangulated, it is precisely at this moment that Masago appears to Takehiko “more beautiful than ever.” Masago then makes a startling demand: Tajōmaru must kill Takehiko so that she may preserve her reputation. Tajōmaru refuses to obey her merciless order, and in the ensuing confusion, she flees. For the first time in his life, Takehiko has seen his wife as she truly is—as the embodiment of pure, unbridled female desire or will—and he is so horrified by her that he plunges the dagger into his breast and kills himself.

Thus, through Takehiko’s account—no doubt the most credible of all the accounts—the “real Masago”—and by extension, Truth itself—is revealed: she is a beautiful, willful, vain, and ruthless femme fatale capable of anything, even mariticide.

Study Guide: Natsume Sōseki, “The Cat’s Tomb” (1909), “Hector” (1915)

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Study Guide: Natsume Sōseki, “The Cat’s Tomb” (1909), “Hector” (1915) by

Study Guide: Natsume Sōseki, “The Cat’s Tomb” (1909), “Hector” (1915)

2013-02-02T13:41:00.000+09:00

Lit 231: Morrison

1. Natsume Sōseki (1867-1916): Enters 東帝大 in 1884; 1895 stint in Matsuyama, Shikoku; 1895, in Kumamoto; studied at University College, London 1900-1903; returns to Japan and replaces Lafcadio Hearn as lecturer, subsequently becoming professor of English literature at Tōteidai; literary career begins in 1903 w/ haiku, renku, haikaishi for Masaoka Shiki’s Hototogisu; quits Tōteidai, joins Asahi shimbun to be full-time novelist; debut novel: Wagahai wa neko de aru (1905), followed by Botchan (1906) and Kusamakura (1906); stomach ulcers intensify, chronic dyspepsia; masterpieces are the trilogy Sanshirō (1908), Sorekara (1909), Mon (1911), and Kokoro (1914) and Michikusa (1915), all concerned to varying degrees with central theme alienation of ordinary Japanese in era of modernity/capitalism/egocentrism; produces all of his fictional masterpieces in span of 10 years; remembered today as the master of the modern Japanese psychological novel.

2. A Sōseki zuihitsu (literary essay): mixes facts with fiction and combines the features of an essay, a diary, and a fictional narrative. To Sōseki these different forms of writing are not mutually exclusive genres but different values in a spectrum. While (the wife and daughter are biographical realities), and the writer persona is largely self-referential. . . there is a strong touch of fictional embellishment in the portrayal of real-life characters through the use of dialogues, though these dialogues are embedded in a text that seems to be composed of the solitary reflections of the personal essay. Central to the text is the flow and rhythm of daily life; the author uses a form that resembles the diary to capture a ceaseless repetition that finally engulfs the “helpless creatures.” -Angela Yiu, “A Preface to Bunchō” Michigan Quarterly Review (Summer 2001), p. 484-485 (modified).

3. Bōkansha 傍観者: spectator, onlooker, bystander, detached observer who is either unable or unwilling to make deep connections with people; a stock character in the fiction of Mori Ōgai, Sōseki, others.. My theory: employed as narrative strategy as a middle ground/happy medium between omniscient third-person narrator of European realism and personal/lyrical/subjective style of Japanese poetry/zuihitsu/monogatari. Has its roots in world-renouncing wenren-bunjin/Buddhism/yamabushi/etc.

4. Zuihitsu 随筆: lit: follow the brush; loosely connected, fragmented, personal, informal semi-fictional essay or discursive prose. Traditional form for bunjin (e.g. Tsurezure gusa, Hōjōki, Makura-sōshi), revived in modern times. Often has world-renouncing but humorous tone. Chief theme: impermanence; addresses death, indirectly. Tone is often nostalgic for a lost past. Kindai zuihitsu: part of general trend of I-centered writing of early 20^th century. Similar to the “essay” (lit. “try-out”) in the West: informal, cultivated style, no formal structure of progression; play of mind in free associations around a given topic; dialogues (with implied reader), not debates; Montaigne (1533-1592) first great “essayist.”

5. Shōhinbun 小品文: “little items”; “belles-lettres” literary vignettes, filled with personal reminiscences; incorporate kikōbun, nikki, zuihitsu, hyōron elements. Originally Ming-dynasty Chinese form characterized by informal anti-vulgar, anti-political cultivated enclosed-individualist style. Similar to I-novel (Soseki’s only I-novel-esque works are his shōhinbun). However, as opposed to “just be me” philosophy of I-novelists Naturalists, shōhinbun display the construction of literary persona/stand-in/surrogate. A common form among men who consider themselves bunjin/wenren. Shōhinbun were popular in Britain/China/Japan in 1930s. Sōseki’s all take place at Sōseki home (or, more accurately, in his memory); querulous literary persona first displayed in Bunchō (1908). Others by Sōseki include: Eijitsu shōhin (1909); Mankan tokorodokoro (1909, about trip to Korea/Manchurian colonies); Omoidasu koto nado (1911; diary/philosophical reflection); Garasu do no uchi (1915; 39 serialized episodes).

6. Eijitsu shōhin 永日小品 (1909; Spring Miscellany; includes “The Cat’s Tomb”): eclectic pastiche of 8 stories and 17 essays: 8 on stay in London, several include surreal elements, most deal with lower classes, taboo subject of money (favorite theme of proto-Marxist Sōseki); (semi-) autobiographical, I-novel-esque, yet of autobiographical AND literary value. First three chapters: New Year’s Day (about how bad he is at Noh in Takahama Kyoshi’s Noh group), The Snake (surrealistic, dream-like account of experience with uncle), The Thief.

7. Garasu do no naka硝子戸の中 (1915; includes Hector chapters 3-5): literary reminiscences serialized in 1915 in Asahi Shimbun (first book form several years later). Sōseki’s last work in shōhin vein, after Yumejūya (1908), Eijitsu shōhin (1909), Omoidasu koto nado (1910-11). 39 fictionalized autobiographical accounts loosely arranged in zuihitsu (#4) style. Many-voiced self/polyphony. Sōseki’s many manifestations, fictionalized selves. Reminders of death/dying abound. Loneliness/alienation, disillusionment w/ modernity a major theme. Yet not all gloom and doom: often self-parody mixed with this dark view; filled with humor, ironic portraits of self, etc. Most episodes involve a far past recalled from great distance (more recent Hector episodes an exception. Wistful tone about things lost/forgotten. Aside from Hector chapters, includes scattered episodes from youth, high school, dead older brother, old neighborhood in Babashita (Ushigome/Shinjuku), entertainment halls (yose) and areas/customs now lost to modernity. Older parents hardly figure in/only fragments; only the maid recalled fondly. The suicidal woman who comes to visit, photographers, burglars, and other visitors to his hermitage. Outside world is unknowable and uncontrollable, but inside glass doors: a place where one finds solace, peace of mind, a safe haven from clamorous, violent, ever-changing modern world. The most important of these many voices is the narrator’s introspective voice that muses on fragility of memory, relation with past, death, dying, dead friends, mind capable of grasping only fragments of past, etc. Concludes his long polyphonic/dialogic/polyglossic/polyvocal rambling soliloquy (assuming roles of philosopher, literary man, family man, mere mortal, curmudgeon, etc.) on serene, Zen-like note suggesting transcendence.

Study Questions

Answer all of the following questions.

1. How does Sōseki capture in his description the isolated modern ego? Quote to

illustrate your answer.

2. How does the form of the zuihitsu combine the features of an essay, a diary, and a

fictional narrative? Give examples to illustrate your answer.

3. Are there passages of objective depiction? i.e. the observer stands aloof at a distance

to depict a world outside him without showing much emotion.

4. Are there instances where the narrator steps outside his aloof, objective depiction and

describes a scene through the filter of his feelings?

5. The story of Hector is taken from the collection “Within the Glass Door.” What is the

effect of the metaphor of the glass door in creating narrative distance?

6. Do you see humor (or black humor) in the stories?

7. Discuss the intersection between life and death—the flurry of activities that death

brings about. What does that say about the sense of existence? How does that

contrast with the two short poems written on the grave markers?

8. With reference to Sōseki’s selection of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice (C.1) as an

example of objective depiction, what are the similarities and dissimilarities between

Austen’s and Sōseki’s depictions?

Brief Historical Overview of Japan

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Brief Historical Overview of Japan

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Lit 231: Morrison

A. Pre-modern

①Heian (794-1185):

-capital moved here from Nara in 794, and remained capital until Taira clan (and emperors) were defeated by Minamoto clan in Genpei War, establishing Kamakura bakufu or Shogunate;

-city modeled after Tang dynasty capital Chang’an;

-Buddhism (mainly Lotus-sutra-based populist Tendai and China-Kūkai-derived esoteric-aristocratic Shingon), Taoism, Chinese influences spread;

-imperial court center of culture, while Fujiwara clan ruled from behind scenes, securing power through intermarrying with royalty;

-rise of samurai class, first as bodyguards (this class eventually defeats the aristocracy and takes power)

-court stops sending official delegates to Tang dynasty China in 9^th century→ development of kana and flowering of indigenous Japanese culture of the literate aristocracy/Buddhist clergy;

-waka (later known as tanka; 5-7-5 kami no ku + 7-7 shimo no ku; e.g. Kokinwakashū first of series of imperial anthologies, also scattered throughout monogatari) replaces kanshi;

-monogatari reaches peak; monogatari: tale or prose narrative, “relating of things” or “person telling”: “mono o kataru”; Taketori monogatari said to be the first; usually have “monogatari” in title; about someone other than author; many subgenres, e.g. denki, rekishi, gunki, jitsuroku, etc; examples: Ise monogatari, Genji monogatari, Konjaku monogatari, and later, Eiga monogatari, Taiheiki; at least 198 monogatari written by late 13^th century, 40 of which still exist.

②Kamakura (1185-1333)

-Victorious Minamoto clan, led by Minamoto no Yoritomo, makes Kamakura the seat of shogunate and regent;

-bushi class replaces aristocracy as rulers of Japan;

-in dark days, Buddhism thrives and spreads its influence;

-resistance to Shogunate dictatorship in provinces, situation unstable, although Shogunate mains maintains equilibrium with Kyoto court (contrast with Ashikaga Shogunate);

-great popularization of Buddhism (newer Jōdo-shū and Zen dominate, while older aristocracy-supported esoteric Shingon and the Tendai at Hiezan continue;

-Key Tendai followers break off: Nichiren forms Nichiren, Dōgen forms Sōtō Zen, Eisai forms Rinzai Zen, Ippen forms Ji (i.e. Amida Buddha dance), Shinran forms Jōdo shinshū, Hōnen forms Jōdōshū);

-taking advantage of this instability, the Mongols invade Japan in 1274 and 1281, but were repulsed by two well-timed typhoons;

-Finally, loyalist Nitta Yoshisada conquers and destroys Kamakura in 1333, reestablishing imperial rule under Emperor Go-Daigo.

-era of political uncertainty reflected in literature of period (e.g. heavily Buddhist-influenced Hōjōki by Kamo no Chōmei in 1212; Heikei monogatari about rise and fall of Taira; Shin kokinwakashū in 1201-5);

-nostalgia for past a major theme; mappō end days

-early renga, haikai; busshi (Buddhist sculptor);

-Unkei’s sculptures in Nara, etc.

③Muromachi (1336-1573)

-period of the Ashikaga (i.e. Muromachi) Shogunate, who lived on Muromachi street in Kyoto;

-period has two major eras: Nanboku-chō (1336-1392) and Sengoku (1467-1573)

-Ōnin War (1467–1477) marked the start of the Sengoku period; wiped out Kyoto, as well as the bakufu’s national authority, leaving a power vacuum that led to a century of war and anarchy;

-contact with Ming Dynasty China renewed;

-Ashikaga shogunate takes over parts of imperial government;

-Shintō, for centuries quiet and absorbed into more powerful Buddhism (esp. Shingon; ryōbū or dual Shintō) reemerges as autonomous force, spurred by Mongol invasion and new sense of national consciousness, and encouraged by Kitabatake Chikafusa and other Shintō revivalist-loyalists;

-Europeans arrive: first the Portugese in southern Kyūshū in 1543 (Xavier and Spanish Jesuits in 1549), initiating period of Nanban trade (lasts till 1614), followed by the Spanish in 1587, then the Dutch in 1609;

-attention to outside intensified with increase in foreign trade;

-Muromachi period ends when last Ashikaga shogunate (Yoshiaki) forced out of Kyoto by Oda Nobunaga;

-much of what we consider as “Japanese aesthetics” developed/came to prominence in this period: wabi (transient and stark beauty; spiritual wealth in material poverty), sabi (beauty of aging), yūgen (profound grace and subtlety), cha no yu, Sen no Rikyū, ikebana, Noh, bonsai, zōen landscape gardening, etc.;

-why this emphasis on transience?→national culture was centered around the bakufu-Shogunate headquarters in Kyoto, thus military/somber/Spartan/austere ethics-aesthetics;

-Also, Zen, which plays a major role in spreading religion and art;

-Also, imperial court and bakufu-Shogunate together in Kyoto lead to comingling of regional daimyō, samurai, Zen priests, imperial family members, courtiers; militarization of aristocracy;

-Also Zeami (1364-1443), father of Noh. As we will see, Buddhist concerns/themes/messages feature prominently in Noh.

④Azuchi-Momoyama (1568-1603):

-following Sengoku warring states period, political unification; era name derived from Nobunaga’s castle in Azuchi (Shiga-ken);

-during this transitional period, Oda Nobunaga and Toyotomi Hideyoshi impose order on the chaos following Ashikaga Shogunate collapse in 1573;

-Hideyoshi wages two failed Korean campaigns (1593, 1597);

-beginning of rise of merchant class;

-ornate architectural styles in marked contrast to somber Muromachi styles;

-new aesthetic sense evident in nanban style of painting (exotic paintings of European priests, traders, southern barbarians, etc.);

-Muromachi-era tea ceremony, ceramics, etc. continue to thrive;

-interest in outside world increases;

-Nobunaga supports Christianity to help suppress Buddhism, but Hideyoshi is suspicious, prohibiting Christianity in 1587, clamping down in 1597;

-end of Nanban trading, beginning of sakoku/kaikin policies.

B. Early Modern

⑤Edo (Tokugawa) (1603-1868):

-period of peace and semi-sakoku, ruled by Tokugawa shoguns, lasting until Fall of Edo 江戸開城 and restoration of emperor in 1868;

-by mid-18^th century, Edo largest city in world with population of 1 million;

-strict mibunsei: kuge + 4 classes (shi-nō-kō-shō: 士5% 農80% 工　商 ) + hinin/eta;

-however, unprecedented intermingling of classes (Sorai considered this the corruption/commercialization of the samurai class);

-sankin kōtai (alternate residence) system ensures that samurai daimyō (warlords in han) remain loyal to shōgun;

-no “individual” rights (家 smallest legal unit; contrast with post-Meiji emphasis/obsession with self/individual);

-increasing restrictions/persecutions against Christians sparks failed Shimabara Rebellion of 1637-1638, which marks end of Christians practicing openly;

-despite sakoku policy, knowledge of West keeps trickling in through Rangaku Dutch studies in Dejima in Nagasaki bay;

-flourishing of humanistic, rational, historical, secular perspective of Neo-confucianism日本朱子学 (no longer solely the domain of Buddhist clerics; now dominant legal philosophy)→yet, from within this movement occurs a rise of Shintō and kokugaku (national learning) studies, and a renewed interest in Kojiki, Nihon shoki, and Man’yōshū and anti-continental sentiment.

-rise of chōnin status, plebeian culture;

-80% literacy in Edo;

-floating world literature: Matsuo Bashō, Ihara Saikaku, Takizawa Bakin, yomihon, gesaku comic literature, haikai no renga, yūkaku red-light districts such as Yoshiwara, kyōka, ukiyo, shunga, iki, kabuki, bunraku, Chikamatsu plays, etc.

C. Modern

⑥Meiji (1868-1912):

-begins with overthrow of Tokugawa Shogunate, restoration of emperor Meiji, and relocation of capital to Edo-Tokyo;

-after decades of threats and pressures from West to open up, they open up;

-end of ban on Christianity, revocation of mibunsei laws;

-regional daimyō relinquish lands to show support for emperor, as Han system is replaced by prefectures (a blow to samurai, increase in # of rōnin; as we will see, many writers from this disenfranchised, formerly elite class);

-officials from former key han given top positions in new central government;

-efforts to establish 1,000 year old Shintō imperial throne lead to creation of new “invented tradition” of State Shintō (separated from Buddhism with which it had been linked);

-national mythology of divine throne created, kokutai ideas of Mito-han embraced;

-neo-Confucianism still basis for ethics; Buddhism still persists, despite series of anti-Buddhist laws and movements (e.g. 1868 haibutsu kishaku, 1868 shinbutsu bunri law, etc.);

-private ownership legalized with 1873 land tax reform: land owning elites secure monopoly of government through new tax laws.

-however, reacting to this→Itagaki Taisuke’s The Freedom and People’s Rights Movement 自由民権運動 (1873-1880s) sought democratic reform, representative government, criticized Meiji oligarchy, and pushed for Meiji Constitution; Itagaki followed with his Aikokusha party and French-inspired Jiyūtō; also: Fukuzawa Yukichi’s liberal treatises; Protestant Christian connection; other anti-oligarchy parties follow, leading to government crackdown;

-Universal Conscription Law of 1873 another blow to samurai class already hurt by 1871 Abolition of Han System act; many refuse to serve in military with lowly peasants; series of former samurai-led rebellions culminating in Saigō Takamori’s Satsuma Rebellion in 1877); more disgruntled samurai as shi-nō-kō-shō continues to be challenged/inverted;

-1889 Meiji Constitution a blow for progressive parties, as it ensured that the small clique of elite Satsuma and Chōshū statesman (later called the genrō) would rule the nation, and enfranchised only men who pay substantial amount in property taxes;

-two major war victories, over Qing Dynasty China in 1894-1895 for control of Korea, and over Russia in 1904-1905 for control of Manchuria and Korea;

-development of modern conscript army, modern monarchy, modern industry, modern financial system, centralized modern state, modern police force/justice system.

-ethos of day can be summed up in phrase/slogan: bunmei kaika (Civilization and Enlightenment);

-yatoi-gaijin such as Ernest Fenollosa, Lafcadio Hearn, Basil Hall Chamberlain, and others teach at universities;

-translation begins of nearly everything Western (philosophy, literature, etc.);

-genbun-itchi slowly displaces old literary style;

-shōsetsu/bungaku now a respectable enterprise;

-Tsubouchi Shōyō translates Shakespeare, advocates psychological realism in his Shōsetsu no shinzui (1885);

-Futabatei Shimei writes “first modern novel” Ukigumo (1887; four characters; critical of materialistic society; depicts anomie/social breakdown);

-Ōgai and Sōseki grapple with the political and literary problems of the age; Ōgai-introduced Romanticism and English-style Realism reign supreme;

-risshin shusse capitalist society vs. anti-materialistic neo-Confucian ethic (tension is a main theme in Botchan);

-debut of naturalist shōsetsu (I-novel) at end of Meiji;

-Major writers from this period include: Tsubouchi Shōyō, Mori Ōgai, Futabatei Shimei, Higuchi Ichiyō, Izumi Kyōka, Shimazaki Tōson, Kunikida Doppo, Natsume Sōseki, and somewhat reactionary, neo-classicists Ozaki Kōyō, Yamada Bimyō, and Kōda Rohan.

⑦Taishō (1912-1926):

-a period of peace and relative prosperity (especially prosperous after WWI);

-Japan becomes one of Big 5 powers at Treaty of Versailles in 1919, and given permanent seat in League of Nations: now “caught up” with West;

-taking advantage of Germany’s defeat and collapse of tsarist Russia, Japan consolidates its position in Asia, expands empire;

-slight power shift from old genrō elite clique to democratic parties and the Diet→”Taishō democracy.”

-rise of popular culture, the bourgeoisie;

-commercialization of literature/culture and revolution in mass publishing (enpon in 1926);

-bunkashugi (from bunmei to bunka; birth of bourgeois subjectivism);

-at the same time, increase in leftist-/anarchist-inspired ideas, Marxism, labor unions, Japanese Communist Party in 1922, rise of proletarian writers in 1920s as economic situation worsens;

-increased calls for universal suffrage leads to passing of 1925 General Election Law (made ineffective however w/ 1928 Peace Preservation Law);

-then bam!→1923 Tokyo Earthquake destroys Tokyo (downhill from here, according to many): 100,000 dead; much of city (especially old shitamachi) destroyed; city center moves westward).

-experimental modernist fiction;

-prominent writers of this period include: Tayama Katai, Akutagawa Ryūnosuke, Tanizaki Jun’ichirō, Kajii Motojirō, Nagai Kafū, Satō Haruo, Shiga Naoya and other Shirakaba writers, etc.

⑧Shōwa (1926-1989):

-left suppressed (Communist Party forced underground in 1926, gone by 1933);

-progressive victory with General Election Law (1925; all 25+ males can vote), followed immediately by reactionary Peace Preservation Law (1925; restricts political activities, makes kokutai supreme symbol of nation);

-1931: conquest of Manchuria begins with army acting independently; pioneer settlements begin;

-1933: Japan withdraws from League of Nations; increasing isolation, international criticism;

-1935: rapid rise of militarists; fascism/cult of emperor; Nihonshugi/kokusuishugi nationalism (post-Meiji phenomenon) reaches fever pitch;

-1936: ni-ni-roku jiken, right-wing coup of 1,500 against government; ordered by emperor to stop after several assassinations;

-1937: Marco Polo Bridge incident leads to full-scale invasion of China;

-1937-1945: bloodiest war in human history; 10 million Chinese dead; 3 million Japanese (1 million civilians); several million from around Southeast Asia;

-Disillusioned writers flee to imagined past (Edo, Heian, etc.): nihon kaiki and tenkō novels from former leftists, Japanese Romantic School . . .;

-attempt to “overcome modernity” and seek other alternatives;

- defeat, occupation/postwar/economic boom/etc…;

⑨Heisei (1989- ):

-otaku culture, muen shakai, anime, manga, pillow-humpers, etc.

15 Things to Think About While Watching Mizoguchi Kenji’s Sanshō the Bailiff (1954)

2013-01-30T16:21:00.002+09:00

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2013-01-30T16:20:00.001+09:00

LIT 365: Morrison

Online Version, with subtitles (in 9 parts)

Part 1. http://bit.ly/yPFu4J

Part 2. http://bit.ly/QD7W34

Part 3. http://bit.ly/RdfSKk

Part 4. http://bit.ly/T5VcGt

Part 5. http://bit.ly/Pg3yMz

Part 6. http://bit.ly/RdfZpq

Part 7. http://bit.ly/RIMz1k

Part 8. http://bit.ly/UguKfa

Part 9. http://bit.ly/VkVyw6

Consider all of the following.

1. Consider the significance of father’s message about mercy & its relation to the rest of the film.

2. Consider the significance of Zushio’s corruption, transformation, and rejuvenation.

3. Consider the use of flashbacks in the first half of film.

4. Consider the representations of the mother and father.

5. Consider the mood throughout the film, and its numerous changes.

6. Consider the notion of human nature presented in the film. How is human evil presented?

7. Consider the most affecting/beautiful scenes.

8. Consider what happens in the end (with Sanshō and his slave factory). Are scores settled? Is revenge exacted? Is there resolution?

9. Consider how are women portrayed in the work. What sort of society do the women live in, and what is their role within it? (Note: this is favorite topic of Mizoguchi’s.)

10. Consider the representation of Anju.

11. Consider what liberal or left-leaning ideas or ideologies inform the film. How do these relate to the historical context of postwar Japan?

12. Consider how the Mother’s song functions as a kind of recurring motif. What does the musical score add to the film?

13. Consider why Mizoguchi chooses to reverse the ages of the two children.

14. Consider the acting. Is this realistic/mimetic method acting, or is it more formal & stylized?

15. Consider the religious elements in the film.

Mori Ōgai Sanshō Dayū (1915) Study Guide

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Lit 365: Morrison

Terms/Particularities of Culture

1. Apollonian and Dionysian: Apollonian and Dionysian are terms used by Nietzsche in The Birth of Tragedy to designate the two central principles in Greek culture. The Apollonian, which corresponds to Schopenhauer’s principium individuationis (“principle of individuation”), is the basis of all analytic distinctions. Everything that is part of the unique individuality of man or thing is Apollonian in character; all types of form or structure are Apollonian, since form serves to define or individualize that which is formed; thus, sculpture is the most Apollonian of the arts, since it relies entirely on form for its effect. Rational thought is also Apollonian since it is structured and makes distinctions.

The Dionysian, which corresponds roughly to Schopenhauer’s conception of Will, is directly opposed to the Apollonian. Drunkenness and madness are Dionysian because they break down a man’s individual character; all forms of enthusiasm and ecstasy are Dionysian, for in such states man gives up his individuality and submerges himself in a greater whole: music is the most Dionysian of the arts, since it appeals directly to man’s instinctive, chaotic emotions and not to his formally reasoning mind. Nietzsche believed that both forces were present in Greek tragedy, and that the true tragedy could only be produced by the tension between them. He used the names Apollonian and Dionysian for the two forces because Apollo, as the sun-god, represents light, clarity, and form, whereas Dionysus, as the wine-god, represents drunkenness and ecstasy. (Walter Kaufmann, From Shakespeare to Existentialism: An Original Study (Princeton University Press, 1959), pp. 207-8)

Old provinces:

1. Iwashiro岩代国 (Fukushima-ken): where the family lives

2. Tsukushi 筑紫国 (Fukuoka, way west in Kyushu): where father banished 12 yr prior

3. Echigo (Niigata): Nihonkaigawa; where the town of Kasuga is.

4. Sado 佐渡国 (tiny island in Nihonkai; part of Niigata, Sado City): place of exile.

The Tango-bound boat passes through the following looking for buyers . . .

1. Etchū 越中 (Toyama-ken): on Nihonkai-gawa. Borders Echigo (N). City: Miyazaki

2. Noto 能登国 (Ishikawa-ken): the tip prefecture; on Nihonkaigawa.

3. Echizen 越前 (Fukui-ken): Nihonkai-gawa

4. Wakasa 若狭 (Fukui-ken): Nihonkai-gawa

5. Tango 丹後国 (northern Kyoto-ken): Nihonkai-gawa. City: Ishiura (Sansho’s estate)

Other places/references (add to this list as you read)

1. Imazu :

2. Nakayama-dera (Hyougo-ken): temple in Hyogo-ken

3. Rengebuji Temple 蓮華峰寺: in Sado

4. Ise (in Mie-ken, formerly Iga 伊賀国 and Kii 紀伊国 on Taiheiyou-gawa):

5. Kiyomizu-dera: founded in 798; no nails;

6. Jizou bodhisattva: guardian of children and travelers; Anju’s Jizo amulet

7. Taira (or Heike) Clan: One of 4 important clans of Heian (others were Minamoto, Tachibana, Fujiwara); arrogant; destroyed in Genpei War (1180-1185); subject of Heike monogatari.

Study Questions

Answer all of the following.

1. Give a concise summary of the story.

2. Despite taking place in the Heian period, the story is very much about the contemporary world in which Ōgai lived. Identify the major themes of the work and explain how they reflect/relate to/engage with the historical period? Is the story an allegory for Japan in 1915? If so, what corresponds to what?

3. Discuss the work’s fantasy-like ending, in which all conflicts are suddenly and almost miraculously resolved. Why do you think Ōgai made these alterations to the original story? What is the effect of such changes? Does this unexpected happy ending prove that Ōgai was ultimately a conservative/reactionary writer who was paranoid about social unrest and revolution?

4. Compare Ōgai’s story to Mizoguchi’s film that was made a few years after the end of WWII? How are they each a reflection of their times? How do they represent different ends of the ideological spectrum?

5. Discuss the narrative voice. Who is narrating? Is the narrator omniscient? Does it employ mostly showing or telling? Does it focalize itself in any of the characters? Does it relate events that are mostly constitutive or supplementary? What style is it written in (言文一致 or 雅俗一致)?

6. After General Nogi’s famous seppuku suicide in 1912 following the death of Emperor Meiji, Ōgai became rather obsessed with the ideas of junshi (殉死) and self-sacrifice. Discuss the theme of self-sacrifice as it is presented in this work, represented most conspicuously in the two characters, Ubatake and Anju.

7. What does Ōgai believe to be the proper relationship between history and fiction? What is his attitude toward his historical materials?

8. Ōgai describes his own artistic temperament as more “Apollonian” than “Dionysian.” What does this mean? What is Apollonian or Dionysian about “Sanshō the Steward”?

9. How is human nature presented in the work? What is Ōgai trying to say about human nature, the various kinds of evil, etc.?

Study Guide: Ishikawa Jun’s “Jesus of the Ruins” (Yakeato no iesu; 1946)

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Lit 365: Morrison

Terms/Figures/Places

Yakeato generation (yakeato sedai 焼跡世代): “The boy in this short story belonged to a generation of war-orphans numbering approximately 123,000 by the end of the war in 1945. The child literally defies description because the ‘taxonomy of his kind had yet to be invented.’ The taxonomy that Ishikawa was looking for in 1946 when the short-narrative was composed was shortly to define an entire generation that would come to be known as yakeato sedai or the ‘generation coming of age amidst the burned-out ruins after the war.’ Ishikawa was born in 1899 and set a literary precedent when he used the title phrase to signify an orphaned child growing up in the burned-out ruins of metropolitans where the immediate black-market economy signified the struggle for daily survival. Ishikawa’s indistinguishable usage of the term yakeato introduces the possibility of a generation that would rise like a phoenix out of the ashes of the long war” (Rosenbaum, 2006, 2; for more, see Legacies of the Asia-Pacific War: The Yakeato Generation, edited by Roman Rosenbaum, Yasuko Claremont (2012), as well as Rosenbaum’s article “Ishikawa Jun and Postwar Japan”).

Yatsushi やつし: From the verb yatsusu which means “to disguise,” yatsushi is a disguised contemporary version of a romantic figure from antiquity or classical literature. It involves the inversion of something refined/noble into something vulgar/plebeian. In this story, the yakeato orphan is described as a sort of yatsushi version of Jesus Christ. Ishikawa Jun discusses this term—along with mitate, haikai, honkadori, and other terms related to Edo-period aesthetics—in his essay “On the ThoughtPatterns of the People of Edo” (1943).

Mitate 身立て: Analog; the depiction of one thing through the presentation of something else. In traditional waka, it is associated with a kind of “elegant confusion,” such as when falling cherry blossoms petals are mistaken for snow. In general, the term means “selection” and signifies imagery that combines two completely different subjects, often drawn from high culture and popular culture respectively. In this story, the yakeato orphan is given an added depth through his mitate link through with Jesus.

Kiyomizu hall 清水観音堂: Inspired by the magnificent Kiyomizu-dera in Kyoto, Ueno Kiyomizu Kannon-dō was established by Abbot Tenkai Sōjō, who was also the founder of the Kan’eiji Temple. Built in 1631, the temple is one of Tokyo’s oldest, and has miraculously survived battles of civil war and bombing raids. Today, it is recognized as a national treasure.

Tōshōgū Shrine東照宮: Built in 1616, the shrine is one of numerous shrines in Japan dedicated to Tokugawa Ieyasu, the founder of the Edo Shogunate. Until 1868, the shrine was a part of Kan’eiji Temple.

Ueno black market (yamiichi 闇市): A major site of the black markets that flourished in the immediate postwar period, when goods were hard to come by.

Dazai Shundai 太宰春台 (1680-1747): Neo-Confucian scholar, born in the province of Shinano (Nagano prefecture). Entering the service of the daimyo of Izushi near Hyōgo, he studied under Nakano Iken. Later, having left the Izushi estate, he became a disciple of Ogyū Sorai. He then entered the service of the daimyo of Ooimi (Shimōsa) but soon decided to teach. His favorite subject was economics, and he published a number of works on the subject, the best known of which were Keizairoku (Discussion of Economics, 1729) and Keizairokushū-i (Discussion of Economics, part two). He wrote more than 50 works. (Louis Frédéric, Japan Encyclopedia, 150).

Hattori Nankaku 服部南郭 (1683-1759): Confucian scholar, painter, and poet of the mid-Tokugawa period. Born in Kyoto, he studied the Chinese classics under Ogyū Sorai, then opened his own school in 1716. He is best known for his Bunjinga “scholarly paintings,” which are in imitation of the Chinese Qing-dynasty style. He helped to popularize Tang poetry, which had an enormous influence on Edo culture.

Gap (béance) (Term in Lacanian Psychoanalysis): The French term béance is an antiquated literary term which means a ‘large hole or opening.’ It is also a scientific term used in medicine to denote the opening of the larynx. The term is used in several ways in Lacan’s work. In 1946, he speaks of an ‘interrogative gap’ which opens up in madness, when the subject is perplexed by the phenomena which he experiences (hallucinations, etc.) (Ec, 165–6).

In the early 1950s, the term comes to refer to the fundamental rupture between man and NATURE, which is due to the fact that ‘in man, the imaginary relation has deviated, in so far as that is where the gap is produced whereby death makes itself felt’ (S2, 210). This gap between man and nature is evident in the mirror stage [...] The function of the imaginary is precisely to fill this gap, thus covering over the subject’s division and presenting an imaginary sense of unity and wholeness.

In 1957 the term is used in the context of the relationship between the sexes; ‘in the relation between man and woman…a gap always remains open’ (S4, 374; see S4, 408). This anticipates Lacan’s later remarks on the non-existence of the SEXUAL RELATIONSHIP.

In 1964, Lacan argues that ‘the relation of the subject to the Other is entirely produced in a process of gap’ (S11, 206), and states that the subject is constituted by a gap, since the subject is essentially divided (see SPLIT). He also argues that the concept of causality is essentially problematic because there is always a mysterious, inexplicable gap between cause and effect (S11, 21–2).

Lacan also uses the term ‘dehiscence’ in a way that makes it practically synonymous, in his discourse, with the term ‘gap’. Dehiscence is a botanical term which designates the bursting open of mature seed-pods; Lacan uses the term to refer to the split which is constitutive of the subject: there is ‘a vital dehiscence that is constitutive of man’ (E, 21). This split is also the division between culture and nature which means that man’s relation to the latter ‘is altered by a certain dehiscence at the heart of the organism, a primordial. Discord’ (E, 4) (Evans, 72-73)

Study Questions

Answer all of the following.

1. Describe the narrative structure of the work. Who is narrating the story? What it his relation to the world he is describing?

2. Describe the scene at the Ueno yamiichi (black market). What phase of human history do we seem to be in? What is the relation between past, present, and future? Does the narrator feel that the world has really turned over a “new leaf”?

3. Describe the woman selling the o-musubi rice balls. How does the narrator react to her? What qualities does she seem to embody?

4. Describe the yakeato orphan who appears in the black market. How do people react to him? How does the narrator react? What powers does he seem to possess?

5. Describe the incident that takes place in the market. How does the narrator become involved?

6. What does the narrator intend to do when he gets to Yanaka? What is the significance of this act? Explain his interest in Dazai Shundai, Hattori Nankaku, Edo period (particularly Tenmei era), Tang dynasty, etc.

7. Describe the appearance of the orphan the next day. Why does he chase down and attack the narrator? What does this scuffle symbolize?

8. Discuss the connection between the yakeato orphan and Jesus Christ in terms of the Edo/Ishikawan concepts of yatsushi and mitate (see definition above).

9. Describe the scene at the market the next morning. Discuss the final passage of the work:

Until only yesterday stands had lined the alleys of the marketplace like a wall. But what about today?

All that remained along either side of the streets were the long, empty rows of stalls constructed of flimsy reed screens. Stretching as far as the eye could see, they resembled huge stable equipped with countless berths and mangers. But it was a horseless livery. Not a horse was in sight.

Peering still farther inside, one saw an open space. It looked freshly swept. It was as if someone had taken a stiff broom and given it a vigorous sweeping.

Still, the surface was market by a spot here and there. It was as though something had traipsed across it and left behind its traces. They were the marks of an unidentified being that had walked upon the face of the earth and left its telltale imprint. As a matter of fact, the traces looked ever so much like footsteps—yea, even hoofprints—that a strange creature, having wandered into the desert, left as its tracks in the sand.

10. Gaps, stains, openings, rips, tears, burn marks, traces, holes, etc. form a cluster of recurring images in the work. Discuss the significance of these images.

The Behold My Swarthy (Incomplete and Not so Helpful) Japanese Grammar Guide

2013-01-27T20:10:00.000+09:00

Behold My Swarthy Japanese Grammar Guide

Study Guide for Ishikawa Jun’s Asters (Shion Monogatari, 1956)

2013-01-25T14:18:00.002+09:00

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Study Guide for Ishikawa Jun’s Asters (Shion Monogatari, 1956)

2013-01-25T14:17:00.000+09:00

Lit 365: Morrison

Ishikawa Jun’s Asters (Shion Monogatari, 1956)[1]

Ishikawa Jun 石川淳 (1899-1987): Novelist from Tokyo. Made his literary debut in 1935 with the novella Kajin (The Nymphs). His 1936 novel Fugen (The Bodhisattva) won him the second Akutagawa Prize. After World War II, Ishikawa came to be regarded as one of the Shin-gesaku (new gesaku) school of writers. Other representative works are Yake-ato no Iesu (Jesus of the Ruins, 1946), Ōgon densetsu (The Legend of Gold, 1946), Taka (The Hawk, 1953), Shifukusennen (A Thousand Years of Happiness, 1966), and Kyōfūki (Account of the Wild Wind).

Some Terms

1. Ichioku sō-zange 一億総懺悔: “Collective repentance by 100 million.” “‘Ichioku,’ or one hundred million, refers to the size of the population of Japan, and by extension it becomes a metaphor for ‘all the subjects/citizens in the land’; ‘zange,’ or penitence, is done by all or in unison (sō)” (Tyler 1998, 274). The term was coined shortly after the war by Prime Minister Higashikuni Naruhiko, who called on the Japanese people to repent collectively for the war. His call has been criticized as an attempt to exonerate the militarists and the ruling classes who were directly responsible for the war, and to shift the blame to the entire population. Ishikawa indirectly addresses the themes of memory, amnesia, trauma, repentance, atrocity, etc in this story.

2. Doppelgänger: “Double walker” in German; a double or second-self. In literature, dream analysis, or archetypal symbolism, the Doppelgänger is often figured as a twin, shadow, or mirror-image of the protagonist. The Doppelgänger characteristically appears as identical to (or closely resembling) the protagonist; sometimes the protagonist and Doppelgänger have the same name. Prominent literary examples of Doppelgängers include Poe’s “William Wilson,” Stevenson’s “Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde,” Conrad’s “The Secret Sharer,” and the novel and movie “The Fight Club.” […] In Freudian terms, the Doppelgänger represents hidden or repressed aspects of the protagonist’s personality, and the arrival of the double represents the “return of the repressed.” The protagonist must acknowledge what the double represents, and at the same time struggle against it. Characteristically, a Doppelgänger story climaxes with a confrontation of the two, usually a fight to the death. The death of the Doppelgänger represents the successful repression of the dangerous impulses, but the struggle leaves the protagonist sadder and wiser about humanity and about himself or herself. (Dr. Glen Johnson, Catholic University of America)

3. Kant’s four types of evil: (1) evil resulting from fragilitas, (2) evil resulting from impuritas, (3) evil resulting from perversitas (i.e. radical evil) (privileging of inclinations, still pathological), and (4) diabolical evil (unpathological, not based on inclinations, contrary to self-interest, elevated to the level of a maxim). For more, see Kant’s Religion Within the Limits of Reason Alone (1794): http://bit.ly/bBJlc8

Study Guide

Answer all of the following.

1. What genre(s) of novel might the work be classified as? Does the story fit into any of Todorov’s genres of “the uncanny,” “the fantastic,” or “the marvelous”?

2. Describe the narrative structure of the work.

3. Discuss the role of poetry in the work. What powers does poetry possess? How does Muneyori regard his own natural poetic gifts? Explain the connection between his renunciation of poetry and his rebellion against his father/his father’s courtly culture?

4. Explain the significance of the three arrows. What does each arrow represent? How are they related? What discovery does Muneyori make?

5. At its core, the work is an exploration of the problem of evil. Discuss the four types of evil that are represented in the work through the four characters of Tōnai, Princess Utsuro, Yumimaro, and Muneyori. Consider these characters in relation to Kant’s four types of evil mentioned above. Also, discuss the ambiguous relationship between diabolical evil (Muneyori) and ultimate good (Heita).

6. Describe the character Heita. Describe his doppelgänger-esque relationship to Muneyori. In what ways are they the uncanny mirror images of each another? What are their similarities? What are their differences? Do they complement each another to make a whole?

7. Describe the two settings—Muneyori’s province and the town beyond the mountain—and the inhabitants/communities/cultures of each. How does each group view the other? What is their relation to one another?

8. The work abounds in dichotomies/binary oppositions. Identify and describe them all. What does Ishikawa seem to be saying about the true nature of these dichotomies?

9. Explain the significance of the three plants: the asters (shion), the forget-me-nots (wasurenagusa), and the grasses-of-forgetfulness/day lilies (wasuregusa). Which plants does Muneyori plant? In what circumstances? For what purpose? Which plants does Heita plant? In what circumstances? For what purpose? How do these plants relate to the larger themes of the work, namely the problems of history, memory, trauma, atrocity, evil, etc.?

10. Describe the Buddhist statues that are carved into the rocks. Why is Muneyori driven to destroy them?

11. Discuss the character of Chigusa. How does Chigusa and Muneyori’s relationship resemble that of Yang Kwei-fei 楊貴妃 and Emperor Hsuan Tsung 玄宗 from Bai Juyi’s Song of Everlasting Regret 長恨歌 (806)?

12. Given its main themes, can this work be read as an allegory of postwar Japanese society? Explain.

Study Guide Questions for Edogawa Rampo’s “Human Chair” (1925)

2013-01-23T22:55:00.001+09:00

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Study Guide Questions for Edogawa Rampo’s “Human Chair” (1925) by