This thesis provides a critical evaluation of certain selected works of Hayashi Fumiko and demonstrates the unique literary achievement of this important modern Japanese woman writer who is as yet little known in the West. This thesis contends that the element of struggle, so omnipresent in this writer's life and works, is the essence of her artistic vision. Herein, struggle is examined not only in terms of theme, characterization, imagery, and style but also as a major determining factor in the development and progression of narrative itself. Four principal struggles are discerned: (1) for art and beauty, (2) for love, (3) for maturity and independence, and (4) for survival. It is shown also that the first three of these categories of struggle belong to what in Hayashifs writings may be designated as the inner world of human feeling. This inner world is opposed to and in conflict with the outer world of hardship and necessity in which the struggle for survival takes place. Five major stages in the development of Hayashifs work are proposed, and representative works are discussed in each period to illustrate the developments and modifications of the struggle element. Chapter One, dealing with the period 1922-1930, discusses Hayashi's early poetry and her first major work, Hōrōki. Here, the inner struggle for art and beauty is affirmed amidst the hardship of the outer struggle for survival. Chapter Two discusses the period 1931-1934, and focuses on the short stories "Fūkin to sakana no machi'' and "Seihin no sho." In these works the inner struggles for love and for maturity are brought to the fore as Hayashi's early autobiographical fiction reaches the peak of lyrical expression. In Chapter Three, covering the period 1936-1942, Hayashi's change to "objective" fiction is examined, in particular her first full-length novella, Inazumaf in which the inner struggle is weakened and debilitated by the struggle with outside circumstances. Chapter Four covers the years 1946-1949, a period which represents Hayashi's full maturity. In Ukigumo, her masterpiece, the forces of the inner struggle assume demonic proportions, overpowering the outward struggle for survival and success. In Chapter Five, Hayashi's final years, 1950-1951, are examined. Here, in Meshi, the author attempts to reconcile the dichotomies of the inner and outer elements of struggle as she portrays the lives of ordinary people, striving to find self-fulfillment in the modern world. The thesis concludes that the element of struggle provides a primary tool by which the works of this author can be fully appraised and appreciated. By providing an explication of this element, this thesis not only offers an insight into the mechanisms of Hayashi's genius but also presents a much-needed introduction to and interpretation of this writer's work. / Arts, Faculty of / Asian Studies, Department of / Graduate

This dissertation examines the principal Japanese translations of Arthur Waley (1889-1966): Japanese Poetry: The Uta (1919), The No Plays of Japan (1921), and The Tale of Genji (1925-33). These works have been overlooked as English literature of the British modern period, although Waley intended most of his translations to function as modern English literature. I include a short biography of Waley's formative years and maintain that aspects of his identity—Jewish, bisexual, and socialist—were important in the choice of his occupation and in the selection and interpretation of his texts. I situate Japanese culture in the context of orientalism and Anglo-Japanese political relations. Japanese culture had a role to play in Anglo-Japanese imperialisms; this is demonstrated through an examination of the activities of the Japan Society of London, where Waley presented one of his first translations. The School of Oriental Studies in London also provided a platform for the translation and dissemination of Asian literature for the express purpose of promoting British imperial interests in the Far East. As an orientalist working through these institutions and the British Museum, Waley's positioning of himself as a Bloomsbury anti-imperialist was ambiguous. His texts, moreover, had a role to play in the presentation of Japan as an essentially aesthetic, 'feminine' nation. There are few letters, and no diaries or working papers of Waley. I rely, therefore, on his published works, as well as the memoirs, letters and biographies of family members and friends, especially those of the Bloomsbury Group with which he was associated. I make extensive use of the Transactions of the Japan Society and historical records of the School of Oriental Studies, as well as critical reviews of Waley and other translators. Social and cultural histories of the period are used to construct key. contexts: the Anglo-Jews, the Cambridge Fabians, British orientalism, and English modernism between the wars. Since I maintain that homoeroticism in Japanese literature was one of its attractions for Waley, I also look to queer theory to assist in my reading of Waley's texts. I conclude that The Tale of Genji enabled Waley to realize a personal ambition to write stories, and he produced a unique English novel that remains not only the most important modernist interpretation of Japanese culture between the wars, but a remarkable record of Edwardian-Bloomsbury language and aesthetic sensibility. / Arts, Faculty of / English, Department of / Graduate

This thesis argues that the following texts by Murakami Ryū: “Topaz” (1988), Piercing (1997), Audition (1997), and Popular Hits of the Showa Era (1997), are works of transgressive fiction in which the female protagonists respond to the hurtful restrictions and expectations of their gender roles by expressing a dissatisfaction with their “bodies” within these systems, or exacting personal vengeance against the actors of their oppression. It is through such analysis of these characters that the problems faced by women in modern Japan are scrutinized and brought to attention. Even though Murakami himself has written essays that can appear contrary to the complete liberation of Japanese women, his texts are nevertheless significant is drawing attention and sympathy to their problems.

No description available.

The end of the Second World War and Japan’s surrender are the established paradigm for understanding postwar Japanese society. The formulation of the new Constitution and the establishment of the postwar democracy mark a major historical turnaround for Japan. Since he debuted as a writer in 1958, Ōe Kenzaburō’s (1935 - ) published literary works are closely related to the postwar history of Japan. Ōe has been an outspoken supporter of the pacifist Constitution and “postwar democracy.” Ōe’s stories about the war are characterized by a realistic depiction at the same time as always narrating his stories in an imaginary world. In his works the past history and the future are intricately combined in the depiction of contemporary society. By doing so, Ōe creates an ambiguous image of contemporary Japan. Ōe’s main question in his early works is the achievement of shutaisei both in postwar Japanese society and Japanese literature. The main protagonists as well as the author protest against the emperor-centered history. They attempt to illustrate another history from their own viewpoint.

No description available.

This dissertation attempts a concomitant reexamination of two interrelated phenomena. Its primary undertaking is an analysis of mid-to-late nineteenth century gesaku commercial fiction production and its structural transformations during the first decades of the Meiji period, together with the imbrications of its narratological and rhetorical conventions with the language of reportage writing on the page of the Meiji newspaper. In conjunction with, and in order better to situate, the foregoing, its secondary task is to question the literary-historical emplotment of this period and its authors in the later 1920s, at the moment when Meiji literary history first emerges as an analytical object after the institutionalization of literature and journalism as discrete categories of discursive production. To such ends, this dissertation focuses on Kanagaki Robun (1829-1894), whose diverse career coincides what has come to be considered the transitional moment – and thereby recalcitrant to historiographical analysis not altogether fraught with ambivalence – intervening between the latter decades of the Tokugawa period and the ultimate establishment of Literature (bungaku) as an ideologically self-sufficient category of social value and discursive praxis by the first decades of the twentieth century. His survival in the annals of this later literary history proffers an occasion to reconsider the mechanisms involved in the arbitration of social, literary, and aesthetic value. Chapter I begins with a brief sketch of Robun’s early biography and career before the Restoration, through which we hope to delineate some sense of the social and literary-productive context undergirding his activity, specifically, and, more generally, the attitudes towards authorship, adaptation, and narration constituting the prevailing ethos of the time; here, we take a survey of several of Robun’s earlier works, written before his assumption of the “Kanagaki” penname and his first major success with Kokkei Fuji mōde (Ridiculous Pilgrimage to Mount Fuji, 1860-1), many of which are erotic parodies of well-known kabuki or Chinese vernacular narratives, and analyze the manner in which the author constructs his enunciative position therein, before momentarily considering how Robun, at this juncture in his career, was perceived by his peers. Then in conclusion, we anticipate both Robun’s later career, its ambivalent emplotment in literary history and the fraught evaluation of the early Meiji period in toto through a later retrospective on the part of literary critic Tsubouchi Shōyō as he looks back on the literary ecosystem of the early Meiji period and the ethical conflict, latent in his argument, between the ideological dominance of modern rubrics of literary value and incommensurate pleasures of reading as lived experience. Chapters II and III take as their focus Robun’s work in the comic hizakurige-mono genre pioneered by Jippensha Ikku’s Tōkaidōchū hizakurige (Along the Eastern Sea Road by Shank’s Mare, 1802-22), first with his success with Fuji mōde and subsequently, Seiyōdōchū hizakurige (Along the Western Sea Route by Shank’s Mare, 1872-4), a heavily intertextual updating of Ikku’s classic. Chapter II approaches Robun’s contributions to the genre through formal and narratological analysis, considering how the shift in topos, from domestic travel on foot, as in Ikku, to transpacific nautical travel via steamship, precipitates modulations in narrative structure, and weighs the ramifications of these intrageneric transformations. Chapter III shifts its focus to the intergeneric and intertextual, with attention to the modular configuration of its primary intertext in Ikku’s Tōkaidōchū hizakurige and the paratextual apparatus of hanrei, or the prefatory guidelines explicating a given text’s contents, provenance of sources, and editorial policies followed, etc. inherited from non-fictional and academic writing, and how these operate in Ikku and Robun as a space for conceptualizing social knowledge and the figure of the author. Chapters IV and V address the latter portion of Robun’s career, after the Meiji government’s promulgation of the Three Articles on Education and its efforts to conscript gesaku authors like Robun to assist in the education of the new subjects of the Meiji state. Here, we examine the simultaneous devaluation of and dependence upon popular fiction in Robun’s Bunmei kaika-inflected writing, before his relocation to the emergent newspaper industry, at which point we consider the sort of narrative and rhetoric prevalent in reportage writing in the 1870s and its phenotypical affinity with gesaku stylistics. Chapter IV concerns itself with a discussion of the political and economic factors precipitating Robun’s move away from gesaku production and his subsequent literary activity informed by his new role as a government official employed by Kanagawa Prefecture, before his move to the Yokohama mainichi shinbun (Yokohama Daily News). Chapter V then turns to the space of newspaper narrative and the emergence of tsuzuki-mono or serialized narrative, and how their early status as neither consummately fiction nor non-fiction adumbrates aspects of the epistemological economy of readerly desire and social knowledge, aspects subsequently concealed by the later ascendance of bungaku and the shōsetsu as the dominant lens through which socially valued discursive production comes to be apprehended, and the concomitant institutionalization of Journalism as Literature’s reciprocal in the early twentieth century. In the epilogue, we attempt to locate more precisely the coeval emergence of these ostensibly distinct and antagonistic categories in public discourse in the early 1900s, and the concomitant adjudication of the sociocultural value of early Meiji gesaku production and its affiliated figures, anticipating in turn the more rigorous synthesis of a systematized Meiji literary history in the years immediately following the 1923 Great Kantō Earthquake.

Musashi (1935-1939), Yoshikawa Eiji\'s novel serialized by the newspa-per Asahi Shinbun and considered by John Scott Miller (2009) as a Bild-ungsroman, it narrates from Miyamoto Musashis return from the battle of Sekigahara (1600) to his victory against Sasaki Kojir in Ganry is-land (1612), when he becomes of the best swordsmen at that age. The early seventeenth century Japan that underwent a major transition is the stage for the formation of Musashi in light of the Japanese world and his own feelings and choices. All these changes are intertwined in the decision of self-exile after the seclusion amid the range of erudition, as previously to this watershed, the protagonist himself felt misunder-stood and excluded by his family members and the other members of society. In order to develop this study, we will make a clipping of Mu-sashis path to understand the essence of his isolation, and his choice to preserve his individuality so that it makes it allowed him to exercise his creativity. Thus, based on the panorama on the Bildgunsroman (Ro-mance of Formation) made by Wilma Maas (2000), we will be able to follow the stimuli and aspirations that guides him toward his formation, until reaching a totally unique development. In order to understand Mu-sashi\'s motivation to adopt exile as a way of life, in addition to attesting his gains, we base on the studies of Kat Shichi (2012) and Edward Said (2003). / Musashi (1935-1939), Yoshikawa Eiji\'s novel serialized by the newspa-per Asahi Shinbun and considered by John Scott Miller (2009) as a Bild-ungsroman, it narrates from Miyamoto Musashis return from the battle of Sekigahara (1600) to his victory against Sasaki Kojir in Ganry is-land (1612), when he becomes of the best swordsmen at that age. The early seventeenth century Japan that underwent a major transition is the stage for the formation of Musashi in light of the Japanese world and his own feelings and choices. All these changes are intertwined in the decision of self-exile after the seclusion amid the range of erudition, as previously to this watershed, the protagonist himself felt misunder-stood and excluded by his family members and the other members of society. In order to develop this study, we will make a clipping of Mu-sashis path to understand the essence of his isolation, and his choice to preserve his individuality so that it makes it allowed him to exercise his creativity. Thus, based on the panorama on the Bildgunsroman (Ro-mance of Formation) made by Wilma Maas (2000), we will be able to follow the stimuli and aspirations that guides him toward his formation, until reaching a totally unique development. In order to understand Mu-sashi\'s motivation to adopt exile as a way of life, in addition to attesting his gains, we base on the studies of Kat Shichi (2012) and Edward Said (2003).

Musashi (1935-1939), Yoshikawa Eiji\'s novel serialized by the newspa-per Asahi Shinbun and considered by John Scott Miller (2009) as a Bild-ungsroman, it narrates from Miyamoto Musashis return from the battle of Sekigahara (1600) to his victory against Sasaki Kojir in Ganry is-land (1612), when he becomes of the best swordsmen at that age. The early seventeenth century Japan that underwent a major transition is the stage for the formation of Musashi in light of the Japanese world and his own feelings and choices. All these changes are intertwined in the decision of self-exile after the seclusion amid the range of erudition, as previously to this watershed, the protagonist himself felt misunder-stood and excluded by his family members and the other members of society. In order to develop this study, we will make a clipping of Mu-sashis path to understand the essence of his isolation, and his choice to preserve his individuality so that it makes it allowed him to exercise his creativity. Thus, based on the panorama on the Bildgunsroman (Ro-mance of Formation) made by Wilma Maas (2000), we will be able to follow the stimuli and aspirations that guides him toward his formation, until reaching a totally unique development. In order to understand Mu-sashi\'s motivation to adopt exile as a way of life, in addition to attesting his gains, we base on the studies of Kat Shichi (2012) and Edward Said (2003). / Musashi (1935-1939), Yoshikawa Eiji\'s novel serialized by the newspa-per Asahi Shinbun and considered by John Scott Miller (2009) as a Bild-ungsroman, it narrates from Miyamoto Musashis return from the battle of Sekigahara (1600) to his victory against Sasaki Kojir in Ganry is-land (1612), when he becomes of the best swordsmen at that age. The early seventeenth century Japan that underwent a major transition is the stage for the formation of Musashi in light of the Japanese world and his own feelings and choices. All these changes are intertwined in the decision of self-exile after the seclusion amid the range of erudition, as previously to this watershed, the protagonist himself felt misunder-stood and excluded by his family members and the other members of society. In order to develop this study, we will make a clipping of Mu-sashis path to understand the essence of his isolation, and his choice to preserve his individuality so that it makes it allowed him to exercise his creativity. Thus, based on the panorama on the Bildgunsroman (Ro-mance of Formation) made by Wilma Maas (2000), we will be able to follow the stimuli and aspirations that guides him toward his formation, until reaching a totally unique development. In order to understand Mu-sashi\'s motivation to adopt exile as a way of life, in addition to attesting his gains, we base on the studies of Kat Shichi (2012) and Edward Said (2003).

中國歷史上屢有異邦人士親身踏訪禹域，其中不乏有心之人將見聞感受付諸紙筆，撰文紀行。考慮到此類材料的政治意涵與文類屬性，本文採用「中國行紀」的概念指稱明治時代日本人結合親身踏訪禹域體驗撰寫的紀行文字。本文討論之日本明治（1868-1912）在時段上與中國晚清大致相當。不到五十年裏，兩國都經歷了翻天覆地但又截然相反的變動。也就是說，在日本不斷進步、日趨興盛的同時，中國卻世風日下，走向衰頹。一百多年前日本漢學者的中國行紀從異域鄰人的角度爲今人理解與進入晚清提供了嶄新的研究視角。 / 有關明治漢文中國行紀的先行研究側重於中日政治關係的歷史描繪，對兩國知識人士之間文化交流與知識轉型方面的價值則有待繼續討論。本文將集中討論被視為明治三大漢文中國行紀的竹添進一郎《棧雲峽雨日記》、岡千仞《觀光紀游》與山本憲《燕山楚水紀遊》。它們分別代表了明治前期、中期與後期日本人對中國的旅行書寫，顯示出日本漢文中國行紀逐漸走向盡頭的趨勢。上述三書不僅影響到許多同代及其後大正、昭和時期的中國行紀，而且行紀文體的親歷性與權威性也使其對於近代日本人中國認識的轉變與形塑起到潛移默化的作用。三位作者都是受到過傳統舊式教育的漢學者，通過寫作傳達出親歷中國後想像與現實的落差，又以文學家的筆調記錄了晚清社會政治與士民生活的方方面面，在近代中日文化交流與知識轉型上扮演了重要角色。筆者將以漢文筆談為切入點，討論近代中日知識人士圍繞文化交流、知識轉型、文士往來與書籍酬贈等重要議題展開的交際與互動。本文期望通過勾稽相關文獻史料，回歸晚清歷史語境，藉助異域之眼反躬自省。 / In Chinese history, there were always overseas people travelling to China, including Japanese sinologists, many of whom had recorded their impressions of China by composing travelogues. Considering the political implication and the genre application of this kind of materials, this research adopts the term "travelogues about China" to generalize all these records. The time period to be discussed in this research project is the whole Meiji era, namely, from 1868 to 1912, less than half a century, corresponding roughly to the late Qing period. These two countries had undergone tremendous but reversed revolutions during this period. That is to say, when Japan made progress everyday, China, on the other hand, was in an apparent state of decline. Travelogues about China 150 years ago provide people nowadays with a new research angle to comprehend and enter the late Qing history from Japanese sinologists’ perspectives. / Previous research about on Japanese travelogues about China in Chinese during the Meiji Period focused on historical descriptions of Sino-Japanese political relationships, however, the value of cultural exchange and transformation of knowledge between literary elites from both of these two countries remain to be discussed. This research plans to focus on Takezoe Shin’ichirō’s San’un Kyōu Nikki (A Diary of Clouds Hanging between the Mountains and Rain in the Ravines), Oka Senjin’s Kanko Kiyū (Travel Reports for Sightseeing) and Yamamoto Ken’s Enzan Sosui Kiyū (Travel Reports for the Mountains of North China and the Rivers of South China), which were regarded as the three most representative Japanese travelogues about China in Chinese. Respectively, they represented Japanese travel writing about China in the early, the middle and the late Meiji period and indicated that the ending of the traditional Japanese travelogues about China in Chinese was approaching. In addition, they also had a profound impact on the following Japanese travel literature about China. The genre of travelogue also exercised an invisible and formative influence on Japanese views of China in the modern era. All of these three sinologists were educated in the old style and had deep backgrounds of traditional Chinese learning. Through writing, they expressed the distance between imagination and reality after experiencing China for themselves, and various recorded aspects of the late Qing’s social politics and civil life. They played an important role in modern Sino-Japanese cultural exchange and transformation of knowledge. It will also discuss modern Sino-Japanese literati cultural and book exchange, transformation of knowledge and other issues centered on the practice of conversations by writing Chinese. This research hopes to return to the late Qing and reflect on China through its neighbors’ perspectives. / Detailed summary in vernacular field only. / Detailed summary in vernacular field only. / Parallel title from added title page. / Thesis (Ph.D.) Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2015. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 291-339). / Abstracts also in English.