Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 1997. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves [268]-280).

The famous Japanese critic, Kobayashi Hideo (1902–1983), passed through five broad stages up to 1945. In the first stage (1929–32), he sought to reinstate the claims of “the man,” the feeling, thinking human being, in writing, in place of the various literary dogmas adopted from the West: “Behind literature, see the man.” In the second stage, (1933–37), he attempted to define the “modern individual” in a Japanese society of change, anxiety and chaos, adopting the term the “socialized I” to explain his sense of a self integrated into society. In this period he sought a model in the West and found Dostoevsky. The impetus behind this stage can be summed up in the saying, “Behind the man, see society.” In Stage 3 (1938–39), Kobayashi concluded that the “silence” of Japanese people expressed a “wisdom” that accepted the “inevitable” or their “fate” in history. This stage can be summarized in the dictum “Behind society, see history.” Kobayashi’s key direction in stage four (1940–41) is “Behind history, see nature,” the latter term meaning nature (fused with humankind). In the fifth stage, from 1942 into the postwar period, Kobayashi adopted a Dostoevskian “harmony and serenity” in espousing a transcendence of the human realm, when the human organism in its greatest struggles sees the need for beauty in art. This stage can be summed up in the saying “Behind nature, see (that which inspires) beautiful literature.” The thesis charts these five stages with biographical material, some of it gleaned from interviews, and with analyses of Kobayashi’s works, as well as works by Dostoevsky, the alter-ego of Kobayashi from 1933–43. Kobayashi emerges as a figure who lived a complex series of intellectual and personal changes, in strong reaction to the revolutionary political and cultural transformations in prewar Japan. / PhD Doctorate

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Chicago, Dept. of East Asian Languages and Civilizations, August 2002. / Includes bibliographical references. Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--The University of Chicago, 2002. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Chicago, 2002. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 384-397). Also available on the Internet.

What do we mean by “seeing”? Although we may see the same object in front of us, we each consciously or unconsciously select what we wish to see, eliminating information we find unnecessary. An artist or poet can see in even a tiny flower, which others barely notice, a wealth of colors or countless words. How then do our own eyes and those of others differ? This thesis aims to explore how the act of seeing shapes one’s life and influences it through a consideration of the works of Kobayashi Hideo 小林秀雄 (1902-1983), a literary critic in modern Japan. In 1949 Kobayashi published a long essay entitled “Watakushi no jinseikan” 私の人生観(My View of Life), originally given as a speech in 1948 when he was forty-six years old. In this work Kobayashi analyzes the word kan 観 (vision) with reference to more than forty historical figures from both the West and the East. The thesis selects for discussion two of these in particular, namely Miyamoto Musashi 宮本武蔵(1584-1645), a Japanese warrior of the early Edo era, and Henri Bergson (1859-1941), a major French philosopher of the twentieth century upon whom Kobayashi places special significance. While the primary focus is on interpreting this speech of Kobayashi’s, the thesis also discusses his earlier and later works in order to show the various transitions his philosophy went through over the course of his long career. The strong belief to which Kobayashi held on throughout his life as a literary critic is that the only way to see the essence of any object is to reject all rational and analytical interpretation and instead to unite one’s self with the objects: this was the ultimate approach that Kobayashi adopted in order to understand the word kan. This thesis finally addresses the question of whether this vision enabled Kobayashi to achieve his potential as a critic and as an individual.