The Quest for Contingency and Poesy: From the perspective of Yokomitsu Riichi's “Theory of the Pure Novel”

Abstract

This paper is an attempt to reconsider the contingency theory of the early Showa period through the perspective of Yokomitsu Riichi's essay “Theory of the Pure Novel” (1935). Traditionally, contingency has mainly been discussed from the epistemological point of view, as the accidental nature of human existence. On the other hand, in this paper, I focus on the methodology of how contingency is expressed in the novel as I trace the process through which Yokomitsu composed his “Theory of the Pure Novel.” I begin by establishing the fact that the epistemology of contingent human existence is related to the literature of Gide and Dostoyevsky. In addition, as a methodology, contingency implies the problem of symbols that become the focus of prose poetry, and presents new possibilities for considering the development of narrative in the early Showa period.