Robert Louis Stevenson was one of the writers who had special interest in Japan and the Japanese. He showed it in his letters and works, especially “Yoshida-Torajiro”, “Byways of Book Illustration”. Mitford’s Tales of Old Japan was, as he himself said, a book which had influenced him. Stevenson also expressed his admiration for Japanese prints such as those of Hokusai, Kuniyoshi and Hiroshige. His knowledge about Japan was limited (he met only a few Japanese and read minor works of Japan), but the career of Yoshida and the facts of the Rônin of Ako impressed him deeply. He admired Yoshida and his followers and gave boundless praise to those Rônin mainly from the point of morality. These facts helped him to awake his own patriotism, particularly his love of Scotland. Though it cannot be said that his wide view of humanity was wholly expressed in his works, there may be seen significant relations between Stevenson and Japan when we think of his unusual career and character.

　In 1901, Kyūkin Susukida (1877-1945), who was a Japanese romantic poet and an ardent admirer of Keats, made public his second book of verses, Yukuharu (Late Spring). This, quite as much as his former work, Botekishū, marked another striking turning point in his poetic career with his newly-devised poems― “ Odes ”. He fused into the inner texture of his odes a yearning passion for ideal beauty, painful awareness that ‘ a thing of beauty ’ must pass away, or mental agony when confronted with the antinomy between art and life.

　The following is one of such odes of Kyūkin’s, Kakko-no-Fu (Ode to a Cuckoo), as bear the obvious echoes of Keats :―

　Whither, aye, whither fled away that music ?

　Thy song shall never flow, immortal bird !

　Yet on the wings of poesy do I hear

　Thy plaintive anthem fade

　Thro’ fields, meadows, and over the hills

　Into lonely sky afar.

　Adieu ! No more thy song shall greet my ears !

　(St. vii)

　In this stanza I seem to catch a strain notably reminiscent of Keats’ Ode to a Nightingale―the sadness of mutability :―

　Adieu ! adieu ! thy plaintive anthem fades

　Past the near meadows, over the still stream,

　Up the hill side ; and now ’tis buried deep

　In the next valley-glades :

　Was it a vision, or a waking dream ?

　Fled is that music :― Do I wake or sleep？

　(St. viii, 5-10)

　It is commonly known that the New Style Poetry of the Meiji Era, called ‘ Shintaishi ’ in Japanese, started under the influence of Western Poetry. In point of style and metre, the translation poems of the Early Meiji Era seem to have given examples for the New Style Poetry. Ōwada’s Ōbeimeikashishū (Selected Poems from Famous Western Authors) published in 1894, is especially considered to be among those examples by the later Meiji poets, though there are some other previous works, such as Shintaishishō (Selections from New Style Poetry) translated by Inoue, Takayama and Yatabe.

　In Ōbeimeikashishū Ōwada translated more than one hundred Western poems into Japanese in seven-and-five syllable metre verse, just as Inoue and two others had done in their Shintaishishō. But his selection of seven-and-five syllable metre in his translation was the result of deliberate consideration and experiments of the translator, not because of his imitative instinct. Ōwada composed various styles of poems previous to his Ōbei- meikashishū and found seven-and-five syllable metre fittest for the New Style Poetry.

　Thus after many experiments by such translators, as Ōwada, the form of the New Style Poems of the Meiji Era was established, which was brought to its perfection by such poets as Shimazaki Tōson and Tsuchii. Bansui

　Lieh-Nü Chuan(列女伝), a Chinese literary work in the Han Dynasty, followed by Hsin Hsü Lieh-Nü Chuan (新続列女伝) in the Ming Dynasty, was widely read in Japan in the early modern period. We can see its influence upon Kanazōshi, literary works written in Kana (the Japanese Syllabric character) in those days.

　The educational policy of the Edo Shogunate and the feudalistic morals based on it encouraged the womanly virtues of Confucian doctrine. It is because of such a social condition that the work became popular.

　Lieh-Nü Chuan was translated into Japanese in the first year of the Meireki era (1655) and its passages were often quoted in Kanazōshi and then appeared an adaptation, while a Japanese Lieh-Nü Chuan was written after the idea of the book. The original work and the Japanese one were combined in a number of ways showing different aspects.

　As the time went on, Lieh-Nü Chuan, didactic lives of women based on Confucianism, was gradually changed into those for readers’ interest, and we can even find those of prostitutes.

　This article discusses chronologically the influence of Lieh-Nü Chuan in transition upon Japanese literature, introducing the related reference materials.

　Goethes fruchtbarste Beschäftigung mit chinesischer Literatur fällt in die Jahre 1826-27. Er las damals nicht nur die „ Chinese Courtship. In Verse ” von P. P. Thoms (1824), die „ Contes chinois ” und „ Iu-KiaoLi, ou les deux cousines ” von A. Rémusat (1826), sondern übertrug 1827 auch von den in der „ Chinese Courtship ” enthaltenen “ Gedichten hundert schöner Frauen ” (Pih-mei-she-yung) vier aus dem Englischen ins Deutsche. Über das chinesische Original dieser Gedichte ist jedoch nicht nur in Europa, sondern auch in China bisher nur wenig bekannt. Es gelang dem Verfasser, durch vergleichende Untersuchungen das chinesische Original zu entdecken (vgl. Verf. : Goethe und die chinesischen Gedichte, in: The Liberal Review VI, 1960, Tohoku Univ.). Die nicht immer bedeutenden Werke lagen Goethe vor und reizten ihn über eine bloße Übersetzung oder Nachdichtung hinaus zu einer Eigenschöpfung in chinesischer Art. Denn das Verschmelzen von Menschen und Natur, die Hingabe ans ewige Gesetz in der chinesischen Dichtung stimmte überein mit der Idee und dem Lebensgefühl des späten Goethe. Großenteils 1827 entstand der Zyklus von 14 Gedichten „ Chinesisch-deutsche Jahres- und Tageszeiten.” Was dabei die chinesischen Anregungen betrifft, so konnte der Verf. noch etwas mehr herausfinden, als der größte Teil der bisherigen deutschen Forschung. Dies ist besonders auch der Fall bei dem schönsten Gedichte dieses Zyklus: „ Dämmrung senkte sich von oben.”

　Ryunosuke Akutagawa (1892-1927) a laissé non seulement d’excellents contes, mais aussi beaucoup d’aphorismes intéressants. Shuju no Kotoba, (les Paroles d’un Pygmée), un des recueils où il a publié ses aphorismes, a joui d’une assez grande renommée à cause de ses critiques sévères concernant la condition humaine.

　Les Maximes de La Rochefoucauld ont exercé une grande influence sur ce recueil. Reconnaissons qu’il y a des ressemblances assez frappantes entre les Maximes et Shuju no Kotoba. Akutagawa, qui avait exprimé son intérêt pour ce moraliste français dans ses autres ouvrages, a introduit dans ce recueil la méthode de La Rochefoucauld. En appliquant, lui aussi, son impitoyable analyse à l’amitié, à la compassion, à la générosité, à l’humilité et à l’héroïsme, il a fait la guerre à l’optimisme paresseux et à l’orgueil humain.

　Quant à la technique de l’expression, très nombreuses y sont les traces de l’influence de La Rochefoucauld. On y retrouve presque toutes les techniques des Maximes que G. Lanson a indiquées dans L’Art de la Prose. Akutagawa a pris d’abord le contre-pied des opinions les plus courantes. Dans ses plusieurs aphorismes il a pris deux objets, l’un dans le monde moral, l’autre dans le monde physique, et les a associés adroitement. Et il a aiguisé ses aphorismes en employant la rhétorique des Maximes :la synonymie, l’antithèse et la disposition proportionnée des mots, etc.