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Paper short abstract:

In this paper, I challenge the later-invented image of Tsubouchi Shōyō as one of the founders of Japanese modern literature and his position as a modernizer who rejected the Japanese literary tradition through close-reading of his first novel Tōsei shosei katagi.

Paper long abstract:

In this paper, I challenge the later-invented image of Tsubouchi Shōyō (1859-1935) as one of the founders of Japanese modern literature and his position as a modernizer who rejected the Japanese literary tradition through close-reading of his first novel Tōsei shosei katagi (Characters of Present-day Students, 1885-86). Nowadays, Tsubouchi Shōyō (1859-1935) is famous for his literary theory Shōsetsu shinzui (The Essence of the Novel, 1885-86), in which he calls for literary reform according to Western realism and naturalism. He is also known as a novelist, translator, and a play reformer. Tōsei shosei katagi is Shōyō's first novel, and it was composed around the same time as his literary theory Shōsetsu shinzui and is often considered as Shōyō's experiment of his theory. In this paper, I argue that the long-neglected Shosei katagi is neither a book full of evil according to Shōyō's self-mockery nor a failed experiment of modern literature as some scholars suggest. Rather, this work should be considered as a carefully structured hybrid of the old and new, and an attempt to reform the old gesaku genre by embracing the new Western novel theory while preserving gesaku's advantages.

I begin by locating my position in the academic discussion and examining the significance of studying Shosei katagi through a review/summary of the previous scholarship on Shōyō and the canonization and de-canonization of Shōsetsu shinzui. Next, I compare the depiction of shosei in Shosei katagi and shosei under Kanagaki Robun's pen to see how Shōyō shifted his focus from a traditional gesaku writer's general interest in the new phenomenon to a more careful exploration of shosei's behaviors, motivations, and their function as an embodiment of the problematic civilization process. However, this does not mean he wanted to discard the gesaku tradition. The next section will explore how Shōyō constructed the modern interiority through pre-existing literary forms and concepts by closely reading some visual and verbal texts. I conclude that that the interiority constructed in Shosei katagi is more closely related to the rich premodern Japanese literary heritage than modern Western literary theory.