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Photographs included in ttie original manuscript have been reproduced xerographically in this copy. Higher quality 6" x 9" black and white photographic prints are available for any photographs or illustrations appearing in this copy for an additional charge. Contact UMI directly to order. Bell & Howell Information and Learning 300 North Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 USA 800-521-0600 UMI' A LITERATURE FOR THE PEOPLE: A STUDY OF JIDAI SHÔSETSU IN TAISHÔ AND EARLY SHÔNA JAPAN DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Scott C. Langton, M.A. The Ohio State University 2000 Dissertation Committee: Approved by Professor Richard Torrance, Adviser Professor William Tyler Adviser Professor Mark Bender East: Asian Languages and Literatures UMI Number 9982924 UMI UMI Microform9982924 Copyright 2000 by Bell & Howell Information and Learning Company. All lights reserved. This microform edition is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. Bell & Howell Information and teaming Company 300 North Zeeb Road P.O. Box 1346 Ann Artwr, Ml 48106-1346 ABSTRACT During the early twentieth-century, the genre of popular literature {taishu bungaku) evolved in tandem with the development of Japan's mass print industry. One of the most popular sub-genres subsumed under the rubric of talsljû bungaku was historical fiction (jidai shôsetsu), which typically incorporated conventions borrowed from the popular arts of the Edo era (1600-1868). Jidai shôsetsu serialized in newspapers and magazines during the Taishô (1912-26) and early Shôwa (1926-89) periods often incorporated the formulaic plots and stock characters found in kabuki, yomihon and the oral narratives (kôdan) of the vaudeville hall. Popular audiences, faced with the economic instability, social unrest and a rising tide of Westernism, drew comfort from the sense of tradition they discerned in the conventional morality of historical fiction. They turned to jidai shôsetsu to escape the challenges of modern life. Japanese literary scholars including Matsumura Tomomi, Tsurumi Shunsuke and Ozaki Hotsuki suggest that the popularity of jidai shôsetsu derives in part frcmi the populau: writer's understanding of the hardships experienced by his readers and his eüaility to incorporate within the formulas of jidai shôsetsu elements which address the people's need to express repressed feelings. I argue that the jidai shôsetsu writer's efforts to appeal to a contemporary mass audience result in the backward projection of his consciousness of his own milieu onto the past. The popular historical novelist camouflages his treatment of conteoqporary themes by employing settings, people and conventions from the past. In support of this hypothesis, I offer an overview of the historical development of jidai shôsetsu, concentrating on the role of the mass readership in influencing the development of jidai shôsetsu '3 vernacular style and contemporary content. This overview includes an examination of two progenitors of the popular historical novel, sokki~kôdan (kôdan transcriptions) and Tachikawa bunko. Finally, I make a close reading of specific jidai shôsetsu written between 1913 and 1939, with exegesis grounded in the social context within %rtiich the novels were produced. My analysis includes translated excerpts and plot synopses of selected works by three important popular historical novelists: Nakazato Kaizan (1885-1944), Osaragi Jirô (1897-1973) and Yoshikawa Eiji (1892-1962). ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I wish to thank my adviser, Richard Torrance, for providing support, encouragement euid intellectual guidance which have made this thesis possible. His insights in matters of critical interpretation have been invaluable. I thank willicun Tyler Wiose many penetrating questions and cogent arguments have helped me focus my ideas during the course of this project. I have also benefited greatly by his advice in matters of style. I also thank Mark Bender for his suggestions regeirding the study of popular culture in twentieth-century Asia. I am grateful to Robert Epp for his incisive comments on my translation of Nakazato Kaizan's poetry. I am indebted to Rumiko Sode, Yu Hirata, Sanae Eda, Akihiko Kumakura and Noriko Chino %dio have offered advice on the interpretation of various Japanese terms. I am also grateful to Jeffrey Angles and Maki Mito who provided research materials from Japan. Finally, I wish to thank my wife, Lindsay, and my children, Peter auid Abby. I could not have completed this project without their patient and loving support. IV VITA October 21, 1962............. Born - Orrvllle, Ohio 1992 M.A. Japanese Literature, The Ohio State University 1997-1998 ................... Lecturer, Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures, The Ohio State University PUBLICATIONS 1. Scott Langton and Mineharu Nakayama, "On Japanese Adverbs Orokanimo and Mazato. " In J. Kim, et al. (eds.), 'Is the Logic Clear?': Papers in Honor of Howard Lasnik, UCONN Working Papers in Linguistics vol. 8. (1997): 231-39. FIELDS OF STUDY Major Field : East Asian Lcuiguages cuid Literatures TABLE OF CONTENTS p^ge Acknowledgments ...................................... iv Vita ................................................. V Introduction ......................................... 1 Chapters : 1. Being Faithful to History: Distinguishing between "Pure" and "Popular" Historical Fiction .... .... 12 1.1 "History as it is" .......................... 31 1.2 "History as a point of departure" ............ 45 2. The Beginnings of jidai shôsetsu .................. 68 2.1 Newspapers euid the education of the modem reader...................................... 72 2.2 From sokki^kôdan to shinkôdan................ 79 2.3 Tamada Kyokujûsai, the Yêunadas and Tachikawa bunko ............................. 93 2.4 Conclusion ................................ 108 3. The Universality of Dalbosatsu tôges Of Nihilism and Humanitarianism .............................. Ill 3.1 Nakazato Kaizan's background.................. 119 3.2 Dalbosatsu tôge ............................. 146 3.3 Critical response to Dalbosatsutô g e .......... 171 VI 4. Osaragi Jirô's Kureuna Tengu: A Romantic Hero with a Democratic Twist ......................... 180 4.1 Osaragi Jirô's background .................. 190 4.2 Kureuaa Tengu novels between 1924 and 1927 .... 205 4.3 Critical response to the Kureuaa Tengu series .. 250 5. Yoshikawa Eiji's Miyamoto Musashi: Confident Hero for an Anxious Age ......................... 261 5.1 Yoshikawa Eiji's background ................ 270 5.2 Miyamoto Musasbi ........................... 305 5.3 Critical and popular reaction to Miyamoto M u s a s h i .................................... 325 Epilogue ............................................. 337 Appendix A ........................................... 350 Bibliography ......................................... 352 VII INTRODUCTION Walter Benjamin observes that "a great storyteller will always be rooted in the people." A great storyteller is one who shares, or at least understands, the experiences of the peasant, the artisam, the lédx>rer, the tradesman. He also observes that the storyteller always has something useful to pass along to his audience, whether it be a moral, a maxim or some practical advice. "In every case, the storyteller is a mem who has counsel for his readers. " The didactic import of a story does not, however, preclude its entertainment value. The object of storytelling is not "to convey the pure essence of a thing, like information or a report," suggests Benjamin. On the contrary, spinning a tale "sinks the thing into the life of the storyteller in order to bring it out of him again. Thus the traces of the storyteller cling to the story the way the handprints of a potter cling to the clay vessel."^ Every culture has its storytelling traditions. In Japan the art of storytelling is historically associated with Buddhist preaching. In fact, Buddhist monks were relating humorous short stories as part of their sermons as early as the seventh-century. In the course of several centuries, however, storytelling evolved gradually from narrative intended to elucidate the sutras or illustrate a particular moral into a popular entertainment form. In the sixteenth- ' Walter Benjamin. The Storyteller: Reflections on the Works of Nikolai Leskov,"Illuminations in ed. Hannah Arendt and trans. Harry Zohn (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World. 1968; reprint. New York: Schocken Books, 1988), 86. 91-92 and