Week 2 (Seminar) - Japanese Modernism

Question 1

What are the two phases of modernism in Japanese literature?

Answer 1

• a moment of rupture and criticism with the established tradition (Meiji literature and the representation of the ‘modern self’) and identification with Western culture (universalism and cosmopolitanism)
• failure of universalism: modernity is marked by the fragmentation and dissolution of the self

Question 2

According to Lippit, what is modernism formally characterised by (three points)?

Answer 2

1. mix of multiple genres (not only prose but poetry, film, etc.)
2. dismantling of the structures of the modern novel (shosetsu)
3. rejection of the mainstream colloquial writing (genbun itchi) that characterised modern literature

Question 3

With modernism we witness a shift in the way of representation of ____ and ____ (elaborate).

Answer 3

Space
- beyond the domestic world and into the modern city
- 1923 Kanto earthquake - sense of urbanisation vs sense of nostalgia
Self
- phase 1: Taisho cosmopolitanism and urbanism
- phase 2: fragmentation and dissolution of identities. Loss and homelessness.

Question 4

What were the two trends that influenced modernist literature?

Answer 4

Americanisation: modern novel as commodity
Sovietisation: rise of Marxist literary movement

Question 5

Why is Akutagawa a perfect example of a modernist writer (two points)?

Answer 5

Early writing: possibility of self-cultivation (cultivation of oneself in order to become a ‘universal person’)
Late writing: disintegration of this ideology - ‘plotless novel’ (‘hanashi no nai shosetsu’)

Question 6

What differing views did Akutagawa and Tanizaki have on the plotless novel?

Answer 6

Tanizaki: ‘the plot is essential in a novel. To exclude the appeal of plot is to discard the special privilege of the novel form.’
Akutagawa: ‘the presence of a story does not determine the aesthetic value of the novel … the novel without a proper story is, among all novels, closest to poetry’. Tendency towards abstraction.

Question 7

In what sense is Akutagawa inspired by European painters (two points)?

Answer 7

Purity - not essentialisation but destruction as negation of the category of the novel itself
Poetic spirit - intended as a general literary category opposed to prose, an active exploration of a multiplicity of forms and different modes of representation.

Question 8

What is significant about Cogwheels?

Answer 8

• narrator is afraid of modern technology

- narrator’s mental collapse is reflected in the breakdown of his linguistic abilities

Question 9

What is significant about Akutagawa’s suicide?

Answer 9

• marked rise of Showa literature

- marked the defeat of an intellectual and aestheticised literature disengaged from historical and social reality