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Paper short abstract:

This study aims to compare and analyze the transformation of the "queerness" of A little Princess during the formation of the "Shojo Shosetsu (Girls' fiction)" genre before and after the WWII, by taking a close look at the the translated wordings, particularly gender-related ones.

Paper long abstract:

The modern Japanese "Shojo Shosetsu (Girls' fiction)" opens its history with Wakamatsu Shizuko's translation of Sara Crewe, or What Happened at Miss Minchin's (1887), which was later revised and published as A Little Princess (1905), by Frances Hodgson Burnett. The translator, Wakamatsu, who had been well known already for her previous translation of Little Lord Fauntleroy (1886) in 1890, exercised her ingenuity in translating Sara Crewe to be accepted to the Japanese readers, who were not yet familiar with Western cultures.

Burnett's texts, including the "Secret Garden (1911)," have been re-discovered and receiving attention in the Post-colonial context since 1990's. For example, Kawabata Ariko claims that Sara is the "Lady of the Empire," who once becomes an orphan but eventually recovers her family and wealth. However, when her intolerability comes to an extreme, the make-believe princess was not enough for her to escape from the reality; instead, such condition requires her to be a make-believe soldier.

Meguro Tsuyoshi pays attention to Sara's violent temper in Wakamatsu's translation and claims that this text is quite unique for not being part of the "dutiful wife and devoted mother (Ryosai Kenbo)" ideology, which has been maintained since the late 1880's in Japan (Meguro, 2007). From this point of view, it is important to note that Wakamatsu's translation carefully preserves Sara's description being a "queer (Ippu Kawatta)" little child. In the modern translation of A Little Princess, Kuroyanagi Kazuyo (2014) also uses the same word, queer (Ippu Kawatta), as one of Sara's main characteristics along with some other descriptions, such as "odd" and "quaint."

In 1910, Fujii Haku'unshi translated A Little Princess, and since then, notable authors and scholars, such as Kikuchi Kan (1927), Itoh Sei (1940, 1949), and Kawabata Yasunari and Nogami Akira (joint translation, 1953) have made the Japanese translation of this text. This study aims to compare and analyze the transformation of the "queerness" of A little Princess during the formation of the "Shojo Shosetsu (Girls' fiction)" genre before and after the WWII, by taking a close look at the the translated wordings, particularly gender-related ones.

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Paper short abstract:

This paper examines the thematic integration of love and politics in the novel Karyū shunwa (1878-79) through a narrative that emphasized the control of emotions and desire. This new type of narrative decisively impacted the Japanese political novel and Tsubouchi Shōyō's project of literary reform.

Paper long abstract:

This presentation seeks to offer a new critical perspective on the political novel (seiji shōsetsu), one of the dominant forms in 1880s Japanese fiction, through the lens of a narrative theme that has been largely overlooked in discussions of the genre: male-female love and sexuality. I primarily focus on the translation Karyū shunwa (Spring Tale of Flowers and Willows, 1878-79)—a translation of E. Bulwer-Lytton's (1803-73) Ernest Maltravers and its sequel Alice (1837-38)— which was probably the first Japanese novel to reflect the political agenda of the People's Rights Movement (jiyū minken undō). I first examine how Karyū shunwa synthesized seemingly incongruous discourses and concerns: new enlightenment discourses on gender, sexuality as well as "passion" and romantic love (the latter for the first time introduced in this novel), but also concepts of social advancement (risshin shusse) and democratic politics. I then argue that this synthesis of "politics" and "love" relied on a renegotiation of late Edo-period narrative formats, in particular the heroic and moral yomihon ("books for reading") and the romantic ninjōbon ("books of human emotion") genres. This renegotiation not only allowed for the representation of titillating erotic scenes, like in a ninjōbon, but also for a new kind of narrative that emphasized the control of desire and emotions—the precondition for the integration of the love theme within a plot centering on the representation of male political activity and moral exemplarity. At the end of my presentation, I outline the relevance of my analysis for a reevaluation of the literary context of the 1880s decade, a moment of radical literary-historical transformation. Karyū shunwa not only considerably impacted subsequent political fiction—in particular so-called parliamentarian novels like Jōkai haran (Stormy Waves in a Sea of Passion, 1880) or Suehiro Tetchō's (1849-96) Setchūbai (Plum Blossoms in the Snow, 1886)—but also Tsubouchi Shōyō's (1859-35) project of literary reform. Through his famous treatise Shōsetsu shinzui (The Essence of the Novel, 1885-86) and his own novel writing, Shōyō critically negotiated politics and the novel's civilized need to represent, but also to control, amorous "passion" and desire.