Great Fire in Library: Issues on Hauntology of Modern Times

Abstract

In recent years while the reception of foreign cultures has been developing without historical consciousness, it is necessary to consider literary history in order to keep literature alive. Yet the existing traditional literary history was not without problems. This paper looks over the transformation of narration / predication / descriptive system in literary history from a historical perspective. There are seven stages: (1) modernism and its before-and-after, (2) modernism and modern Asia, (3) literary history of anti-modernism, (4) modern economic growth, (5) Maruyama Masao's Nihon no Shisō (Japanese Thoughts), (6) Karatani Kōjin and his thoughts, and (7) Japanese postmodernism. This paper attempts to prove that modern Japan, as a literary subject, has continually drifted between two forms of absence: “not yet” and “no longer.” The absence in modernism will continue to haunt the literary history like a “ghost”, and then, encourage other “ghosts” to return to the scene.