The Style and Genre of the Ogai Shiden : The Horoscope of Ogai Mori's Historiography

Abstract

It has been often said that it is in the second year of the Taisho Period that Ogai Mori started his peculiar historiography generally known as the Ogai Shiden. Fixing the date this way, however, has some problems. Indeed, earlier in the 31st year of the Meiji Period, the author completed Nishi-Amane-Den, a biography written in the form of historiography. In this sense, the style and genre of the Ogai Shiden were already anticipated by the aesthetics of history which the author cultivated during the late 2nd and early 3rd decades of the Meiji Period.