A Discussion of “The Diary of Claudius” by Shiga Naoya

―Centering on Father-and-Son Relationships―

Abstract

　Shiga Naoya (1883-1971), who showed deep interest in discord between father and son, published a story named “Kurōdiasu no Nikki" (The Diary of Claudius) in 1912, which is, as the title suggests, a re-interpretation of Shakespeare’s Hamlet from the step-father’s viewpoint. It borrows extensively from the 1909 translation of Hamlet by Tsubouchi Shōyō (1859-1935), perhaps naturally, given Shiga’s often-mentioned perusal of the Japanese version.

　According to his repeated remarks on his recreation of the Hamlet story, Shiga attempted both to criticize Hamlet for accusing Claudius of the murder of his brother and to throw new light on the suspect through a certain measure of identification with the author’s own psychological condition. It seems that “The Diary” fails to work as a criticism, however, due to its inconsistency with the original play. Despite his close study of the play, Shiga omitted the confession of crime Claudius makes in the original. Yet in Shiga’s version there is no doubt that Claudius is guiltless, since the author sometimes takes the place of the diary writer, offering a persuasive and animated justification. In addition, Claudius is moulded into too idealistic, generous, imaginative and nervous a person to force his way to the throne and queen, and to be indifferent to the difficulty of his position and Hamlet’s suspicions. He shares the characteristics mentioned above with some of the son-protagonists appearing in Shiga’s novelettes which deal with struggles between fathers and sons. It is intriguing that Shiga, representative and advocate of sons, here supports a father with son-like characteristics. In that, “The Diary” is perhaps the most suggestive in its subject matter and distinctive in its mode of dealing with it among Shiga’s works. Together with his later recreation of Hamlet, “Hamuretto no Nikki” (The Diary of Hamlet), the work is worth re-consideration not only as reaction to the Shakespearean play but also as a reflection of Shiga’s recurrent problems.