Although until late in the nineteenth century it was hoped that “young men” would be the leaders of the new Japan, by the early twentieth century, the scientific discourse of adolescent psychology had begun to redefine them as a dangerously unstable generation. In the new century, they were encouraged to discipline themselves and get on in the world. The age of self-improvement had begun. At the same time, this meant the appearance of those whose youth was already over; in other words, the middle-aged. In this paper, I position middle-aged writers as the main supporters of the naturalist movement in literature, and show how their philosophy of acceptance of the “natural” self was diametrically opposed to the contemporaneous craze for “self-discipline” and “self-improvement.” After Futon (1907), Tayama Katai's novel of middle-aged love, naturalistic literature was the product of a middle-aged mindset.

In this paper, I show how Nakano Shigeharu's novel A Fantasist and The Scenario is related to the debate on social realism during the 1930s, as well as the concept of Weltanschauung (understanding of the world), utopian socialism, and the reterritorialization of capitalism. Weltanschauung was one of the key concepts in the debate on social realism, and traces of this debate can be seen in the novel. I also examine the different meanings that Weltanschauung had for Nakano and Tosaka Jun in relation to the debate on technology (gijutsuron ronsō), and argue that the concept of fantasy (kūsō) is derived from utopian socialism (kūsōteki shakaishugi). Although from the point of view of historical materialism, utopian socialism is regarded as retrogressive, Nakano takes a more positive view of it in the novel. I also point out the persistent antagonism toward capitalism in the novel. Finally, I examine the relationship between fantasy and the movement of the reterritorialization of capitalism, which is close to Miki Kiyoshi's concept of Einbildungskraft (imagination), and show that the discrepancies in the novel work against the reterritorialization of capitalism.

From the late 1960s, Terayama Shūji edited the literary column in the test-preparation magazines Ko-3 Course and Ko-1 Course, a job that also served as inspiration for his own creative work. His book of poetry criticism, Sengoshi (Postwar Poetry, 1965), was based on his experiences with this literary column, and work submitted to the column became the basis for the Tenjō Sajiki theater troupe's production Sho wo Suteyo, Machi e Deyo (Throw Away Your Books, Rally in the Streets, 1968). In this paper, while referring to Terayama's theories of poetry and artistic creation, I present an intrinsic analysis of what actually happened in this column, which provided a creative space for the submitting writers. The act of writing in this column enabled these young writers to relativize their own environment, and to create their own original space while actually on the move. I also show that spaces for creation like this literary column were directly connected to the “streets” young people “rallied in” during the 1960s.

This paper examines Mizumura Minae's Shishōsetsu from Left to Right (1995) in terms of plurilingualism, which assumes that both writer and reader are proficient in multiple languages. Specifically, I consider the question of why Minae, the protagonist, decides to write in Japanese rather than English. I approach this issue by imagining the books Minae could have written in English but chose not to. I discuss the question of how and why she made this decision not only in terms of Minae's education in American schools, but also with reference to several relevant contexts, such as the fall of “the West” and the rise of multiculturalism in American academia, Japanese Studies in the United States, narrative temporality in the novel, and the self-referential use of the shishōsetsu (I-novel) genre. Mizumura's novel shows that the question of language choice in pluralingual conditions raises a series of fundamental questions about linguistic expression in general.