JPN 103 - Midterm

Meiji Period (1868-1912)

• meiji restoration

  • tokugawa shogunate overthrown, power was restored to emperor meiji, capital moved from kyoto to edo

  • renamed edo to tokyo

• abolition of feudalism

  • 4-class system abolished; dismantled samurai privileges, domains replaced with prefectural system to unify country

• military reform

  • new western-style national army and navy established, replaced samurai class with conscription

• meiji constitution

  • established constitutional government w/ diet

  • emperor held supreme command and ultimate authority

• imperial expansion

  • first sino-japanese war, 1894-95

  • russo-japanese war, 1904-05

  • established global power by winning the wars

• international recognition

  • revised ‘unequal treaties’ signed earlier w/ western powers and annexed korea

Taisho Period (1912-26)

• rise of democracy, different political viewpoints

• cosmopolitan culture

• mass culture and media

• from ‘civilization’ to ‘culture’

• great kanto earthquake, 1923

• pure literature vs. popular literature

  • emergence of literature for different groups and audiences

Showa Period (1926-89)

• encompasses prewar, wartime and postwar periods

• emperor hirohito

• huge changes in japanese history

• 1920s-30s rise of miitarism

modernity

• definitions:

  • the quality or state of being or appearing to be modern

  • the modern era or world and especially the ideas and attitudes

• examples:

  • in girl watcher: trains, female students, western-style clothes

“Civilization and Enlightenment”

• in the meiji period

• movement in meiji jp aimed at modernizing through westernization

• transformed life through industrialization, adoption of western customs and political reform

  • creating “rich country, strong military” to resist western colonization

“Better the self, rise in the world”

• to improve oneself in order to help the nation look better

  • improving mind and body

  • going to another country to study and coming back to native country to use learnings to improve it

unification of spoken and written language

• genbun itchi

• early 19th-20th century movement in meiji era that replaced classical, formal writing w/ vernacular style based on colloquial speech

• aimed to increase literacy and modernize jp by standardizing written jpn (fostering national unity)

  • make literacy more accessible to the public and not just the elite

triumph of good, punishment of evil

• traditionally represented through buddhist and shinto deities, such as cultural narratives where moral righteousness prevails

• painting accountability in stories and illustrations

Miyake Kaho (1868-1944)

• first woman commercial writer → didn’t need money made from her published writings, but used it for her brother’s family

  • first woman to make money from it

• came from aristocratic family

• questioned whether the west or japan was the best in her stories

• wrote “Warbler in the Grove” (1888)

• privileged

  • had connections and was able to get stories published

• friend of higuchi ichiyo (1872-96)

“Warbler in the Grove”

• published in 1888

• edited by tsubouchi shoyo, leading male writer of that day

  • translated shakespeare

• strong influence of tsubouchi or shakespeare’s writing

  • character-type driven

  • clear good or bad characters

  • trying to be more odern

  • good prevails, evil is punished

    • common pre-meiji era trope; some chn literary traditions where there tends to be punishment to evil

    • moralistic

  • theater style

• successful because…

  • publishing connections, westernization

  • plot

    • love-triangles, scandals, entertaining love-romance, romantic-love ideology

  • women’s choices

  • moralistic

  • depiction of ‘modern’ things, people, ideas, etc.

    • female writers, students; ideal modern female identity in jp; future of the nation

    • different languages

Mori Ogai (1862-1922)

• one of the most important writers of meiji jp

• was an army general surgeon

• fluent in german

  • studied in germany in 1890

• wrote “kompira” in 1909

“Kompira”

• written in 1909

• means the god of the seas and sickness; a shrine in the book

• main shrine: kotohira shrine in kagawa prefecture in shikoku

• exploration of the modern man’s condition

• questions of modernity

• loosely based on mori ogai’s own experiences of losing an infant son

• strong belief that ghosts existed

naturalism

• literary term coined by emile zola

  • significant influence from french critics and scientific theories

• 2 forms in jp in early years

  • flat description

  • discussion of sexuality and the ‘darker’ or taboo aspects of human exeperiences

• in jp, later helps development of the i-novel

i-novel (semi-autobiographical fiction)

• narrator uses “I'",” referring to themselves in the story

• semi-autobiographical fashion

  • get a peak into someone’s life and/or history

Good Wife, Wise Mother

• ryosai kenbo

• represented traditional ideal for womanhood in east asia

• serving the country or husband by being a wife and mother as their roles

Social Darwinism

• coined by herbert spencer (1820-1903)

  • used darwin’s ideas, applying it to societies & people

• “survival of the fittest” / “natural selection”

  • superior vs. inferior races, nations, etc.

• in “Girl Watcher”

  • sugita thinks he’s too old for modernization, too old for the new modern era

eugenics

• improvement of the human race

  • sexual desire

  • other ‘negative’ factors

• question of nature vs. nurture

• influenced political, public health and social movements in jp

Tayama Katai (1871-1930)

• wrote “The Girl Watcher” → or actually, “Girl Sickness” in 1907

• key figure in naturalism

  • helped establish the i-novel genre

  • focused on frank, autobiographical writing

“The Girl Watcher”

• written in 1907

• naturalist i-novel

• middle-aged protagonist, who is a writer and obsession w/ watching young, affluent schoolgirls on trains

• themes of voyeurism, urban modernization, and psychological decay

• social darwinism

Natsume Soseki (1867-1916)

• 1903 - became a professor of english literature at uni of tokyo

  • extremely high status to be working or studying there

  • writing literature isn’t super high status; questionable artistic crowd

• quits in 1907 → becomes employee of Asa Shinbun; publishing company

  • hired to write fiction and produced newspapers

• anti-naturalism

  • not just rely on aspects of own life to write things

    • wanted to use imagination

  • against naturalism b/c it focused on darker taboos

    • didn’t believe that everything should be about sex

Kokoro

• written in 1914

• kokoro → “the heart of things” / “spirit”

• uses first-person narration

• character sensei doesn’t trust other people

  • personality changes after close friend, K, passes away

  • mysterious

• semi-autobiographical fashion

• idea of love and the topic of it

  • love as modern experience

  • different forms of love between sensei and narrator

    • homo-sensual love

      • homosexual desire → narrator isn’t interested in marrying people, but being close to sensei

    • homosocial bond → sensei allows narrator to get close to him, even though he keeps others at a certain distance

• idea of modern self and change

  • the meaning of life in the modern world

first-person narration

• usage of “i/me” pronouns to tell the story

• through the character’s eyes; showing thoughts and emotions

  • their perspective of the things around them

third-person narration

• external narrator, usage of “he", '“she”, “they”, etc. to tell the story

• describes settings and events without using a character’s own perspective and thoughts

primogeniture

• only first born son in the main family line can succeed the household and become the head of the family

• eldest son stays home to continue the line

• if there are no sons and only daughters, then the eldest daughter marries another family’s son that is taken into their own family to succeed

  • daughters are usually married off into other families

    • who they are married off to is picked by family head

ie (family; household) system

• patriarchal family system; head of the household is the man

• eldest son inherits; primogeniture

• legal system established in meiji period

• main family and branch family

  • other sons of the family who aren’t the eldest become a branch family of the main line

  • daughters are married elsewhere

imperialism

• expansion and seeking out to industrialize and emulate western powers

• conquered neighboring asian countries to secure resources, territories, markets, and mainly to assert dominance

• jp was compelled to modernize military and economic structure to avoid becoming a victim to western colonialism

colonialism

expansionist policies that acted as industrializing in order to create an empire

• jp justified its expansion as bringing modernization to neighboring countries and land while enforcing jpn culture

Akutagawa Ryunosuke

“In a Grove”

Tales of Times Now Past (c. 12th century) — assigned excerpt

Edogawa Ranpo/Rampo

“The Human Chair”

ero-guro-nansensu (erotique, grotesque, nonsense)

pure literature

p

popular literature

“The Factory Ship”

Kobayashi Takiji

Hayashi Fumiko

The Diary of a Vagabond — assigned excerpt

proletarian literature

mod

modernism

• artistic and/or literary movement

• often associated w/ late 19th century or early 20th century in Europe/US, but also takes form elsewhere

• often associated w/ stylistic fragmentation and experimental representation

• questioning of representation itself and the condition of being ‘modern’

joryuu bungaku (women’s style literature)

josei bungaku (women’s literature)