Bunmei kaika 文明開化 and the popular classes: notes towards a social vision of Meiji literature
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.11606/ej.vi43.185941Keywords:
Meiji fiction, Proletarian literature, Fiction and politicsAbstract
This paper aims at examining the representation of the popular masses in Meiji fiction, taking as its starting point the observation made by critic Hirabayashi Hatsunosuke on the theme. Most traditional histories of modern Japanese literature tend to focus on the aesthetic debate between different schools, paying little attention to the relation of literature and the social situation movement. We close by confirming Hirabayashi´s overall assessment, but we still try to point out exceptions to this picture.
of common people. This paper aims at closing this hiatus through a description of movements
and authors in order to situate moments of representation of the masses. Meiji´s exceptionality
lies in its being a time of popular revolt, unrest and the making of a left-wing anti-government
Downloads
References
COPELAND, Rebecca. Lost leaves: women writers of Meiji Japan. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2000.
FUTABATEI, Shimei. Futabatei Shimeishû (Nihon kindai bungaku taikei 4). Tóquio: Kadokawa Shoten, 1971.
GORDON, Andrew. A modern history of Japan. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003.
MAK, Rebecca. The Akutagawa/Tanizaki debate: actors in bundan discourse. In HUTCHINSON, Rachel (ed). Routledge book of modern Japanese literature. Abingdon: Oxfordshire; New York: Routledge, 2017.
ITO, Sei; KAMEI, Katsuichirô; NAKAMURA, Mitsuo; HIRANO, Ken; YAMAMOTO, Kenkichi (ed). Puroretaria bungakushû (Nihon Gendai Bungaku Zenshû 69). Tóquio: Kôdansha, 1969.
ITO, Ken. An age of melodrama. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2008.
VLASTOS, Stephen. Opposition movements in early Meiji, 1868-1885. In JANSEN, Marius (ed). The Cambridge history of Japan: the nineteenth century. Cambridge: CUP, 1989.
KEENE, Donald. Dawn to the west. Nova Iórque: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1984.
KAMEI, Hideo. The transformations of sensibility. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, 2002.
KINMONTH, Earl. The self-made man in Japanese thought. Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1982.
NAKAMURA, Mitsuo. Japanese fiction in the Meiji era. Tóquio: Kokusai Bunka Shinkokai, 1966.
NAKAMURA, Mitsuo. Japanese fiction in the Taisho era. Tóquio: Kokusai Bunka Shinkokai, 1968.
PYLE, Kenneth. The making of modern Japan. Toronto: Heath and Company, 1996.
SCHWARZ, Roberto. Ao vencedor as batatas. São Paulo: Duas Cidades, 2007.
SÉGUY, Christiane. Notes sur l’histoire de la presse japonaise. Estudos Japoneses, 10, 1-17. Recuperado de http://www.revistas.usp.br/ej/article/view/142819.
TIPTON, Elise. Modern Japan: a social and political history. Londres: Routledge, 2002.
UEDA, Atsuko. Concealment of politics, politics of concealment: the production of “literature” in Meiji Japan. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2007.
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
