Shimei Futabatei is said to bd one of those who laid the foundation of the modern Japanese literature. If it is true, I want to find out, in this note, by means of his works and life, what it really means. Generally speaking, one of the characters in a work is centered upon by the author with a deep inquiry into his inmost thought and feeling, which is characteristic of modern literature. But no individual can exist except in the society. Neither can a character of a work. Therefore an inquiry in to an individual of a work must necessarily bc based upon the inquiry into a society in which he lives. "Drifing Clouds(UKIGUMO)" was left unfinished by Futabater. This is, we here, because the work has in itself two themes incompatible with each other: one is the sevre criticism of the society in those days when European culture was uncritically brought in, the other is a deep inquiry into the in most thought and feeling of Bunzo Utsumi who dropped out of the society and went mad. I said the inguiry into an individual of a work must necessarily be based upon the inquiry into t society in which he lives. From this point of view the two themes above are by no means incompatible. Far from it these two have a great deal to do with each other. We might as well say that Shimei Futabatei is all the greater because he had the courage to tackle with so difficult a question as that without regard to the failure to fulfil what he meant. He was in trouble all his life about which way to choose, politics or literature. And this has something to do with tha fact above. Lu-xun, the founder of modern Chinese literature, tried to answer the same question. Lu-xun wrote not only about an individual but about the whole Chinese and made a searching inquiry in his works. "A-Q-Zhneg-Zhuan" is one of such masterpieces. Lu-xun succeded while Futabatei did not. This may be because of the different historical conditions. But at any rate Futabatei's failure must not be neglected as a mere failure but great attention must be paid to the importance of the question brought out by him before us. And I think it necessary to look back at modern Japanese literature from this point of view.
抄録全体を表示