This paper clarifies the stylistic logic of Ozaki Koyo and Ken'yūsha (The Society of Friends of the Inkstone) and discusses the process by which Izumi Kyoka created his own style within the style of Ken'yūsha. The first section identifies the original source of Kyoka's early work, Kyūchō, and the translation to which Kyoka referred, and points out that in the character who decides to commit murder in Kyūchō Kyoka applied an image of a person who takes an action based on self-judgment, which resembles a work by Victor-Marie Hugo. The second section discusses the critical method used by the members of Ken'yūsha in their joint criticism of the writings of Emi Sui'in, and points out that they avoided the narrative method used by Tsubouchi Shoyo, in which the speaker is made present, instead focusing on the reality of the text by refining the vocabulary and style.

In the third section, it is pointed out that, based on Koyo's corrections to his students, a style was needed that could help readers identify with the story. This paper then argues that by weaving unspeakable motifs into a style that could be read in a single breath, Kyoka created a suggestive style that transcended the social conventions in order to convey the inner conflicts of his characters.

Kunikida Haruko is a writer who wrote not only from the standpoint of “being seen”, characteristic of many women writers, but also from her own unique standpoint as a “widow” and “bereaved family member.” Her “tactics” can be clearly seen in Taiwan Aikoku Fujin or Patriotic Women of Taiwan. In the text, Kunikida Haruko clearly identifies herself as a “bereaved family member” by quoting and imitating the discourse of her late husband Kunikida Doppo, and she urges caution and enlightenment for women by including her sisters in the text, who offer admonitions and reflections. Furthermore, in the final contributions, Kunikida positively portrays the image of women who choose to work for their families and survive without having to re-engage after the death of their husbands. I argue that these texts by Kunikida Haruko were ideal “advertisements” for the medium that recruited women to provide relief and comfort to the families of the war dead and wounded soldiers.

This paper examines the process by which “Ashes (Kaijin),” the opening story in Tokutomi Roka's Nature and Man (Shizen to Jinsei), which became a bestseller in modern Japan, was peculiarly media-mixed with the actress Natsukawa Shizue in the boom that followed Roka's death.

After his death, “Ashes” was developed in various forms such as films, plays, and radio stories, in which O-Kiku, played by Natsukawa, gradually expanded her role in the story. Her performance and willingness to play the role played a major role in the development of the story, and it can be said that “Ashes” was remade as a result of her performance. The fact that the media mix of “Ashes” was realized after the author's death in the environment of the time in which literature and stories were distributed is noteworthy as an example of the star system in modern literature and show business, and a phenomenon that illustrates its structure.

In Osamu Dazai's Run, Melos! (Hashire Merosu), the relationship between the king and Melos has often been described as a conflict between faith and fidelity. This paper re-reads this work with a focus on the difference in the third person's perspective on this contest. In this work, the king challenges Melos in order to show his power to the people, while Melos accepts the king's contest in order to prove his morality to the God. For Melos, the God is his super-ego, which functions as an unconscious repression of thoughts of betraying his friend. This can be interpreted as follows: whether or not Melos's unconscious betrayal is realized depends on chance, but he continues to repress this notion by “denying” his own immorality, thereby concealing this chance. The king, on the other hand, anticipates the return of Melos, and the realization of his return is considered to be his true conversion. Thus Run, Melos! is a complicated critique of morality.

This paper examines shin-tanka, (new tanka) poetry in the “Shina Jihen Poetry Anthology, Senji Hen” (Kaizōsha, December 1938) and “Shina Jihen Poetry Anthology, Jūgo Hen” (Dai Nihon Kajin Kyokai, October 1941).

First, I describe the controversies from the formation to the dissolution of the Dai Nihon Kajin Kyokai and confirm that shin-tanka poets were ostracized as inappropriate to the times in terms of both form and ideology. On the other hand, I pay attention to the fact that shin-tanka were included in the above texts, and by going back to the magazines in which the shin-tanka first appeared and reproducing their contexts, I point out that the literary context of the shin-tanka was kept secret by the editors. The above findings reveal the multi-layered nature of the poetry circles of the time.

This article examines the relationship between Shunkinshō (A Portrait of Shunkin, June 1933 in Chūō Kōron, year 48, vol. 6), a novel by Tanizaki Jun'ichirō and the contemporary audio media, in a comparison with the radio drama (“Monogatari”) of this work. Shunkinshō was aired on JOBK (NHK's radio station in Osaka) as a radio programme entitled “Monogatari Shunkinshō” on December 14, 1934. Nevertheless, there has been a tendency to ignore the relationship between the text and the radio programme.

This article therefore seeks to clarify the script strategy of Okuya Kumao, the head of JOBK's Literary Arts Bureau at that time by comparing the radio script with the first edition of the published text. Furthermore, this study also considers the cinematic images of the same period evoked by the “voice” of the actress, Okada Yoshiko, who read this script when “Monogatari Shunkinshō” was broadcasted in 1934, and attempts to elucidate the issue of collaboration between Okuya and Okada in “Monogatari Shunkinshō”, while investigating the differences with Shimazu Yasujirō's film Shunkinshō: Okoto to Sasuke (June 1935).

This paper focuses on Hiroyuki Itsuki's Naoki Prize-winning novel “Aozameta Uma wo Miyo” (1967) to show how this work highlighted tensions between “politics and literature”, the central problem in post-war literature. This work shares a theme with Mitsuharu Inoue's “Kuroi Shinrin” (1966), which attempts to criticize Stalinism, the proposition that literature embodies “truth” because it is politically repressed. However, this novel made the process of demolishing the value of literary “truth” into an entertaining story by using unexpected twists in plot, as seen in popular 1960s spy novels.

Through discussing the matters above, I conclude that Itsuki is a “double spy”, from the viewpoint that he is a writer who critically alienated post-war literary values, and, at the same time, made it entertaining and prolonged its life.

Nakagami Kenji has been regarded as a writer who relativizes the institution of modern novels. However, the critical evaluation of his early short stories, which seemingly adopt a modern third-person form, remains unsettled. Therefore, this paper attempts to measure the distance between Nakagami's early short story “Shugen” (1974) and the norms of modern novels. To this end, this paper analyzes the third-person form, the narrative style of retelling folklore and rumors, and the setting of the story's stage as a “topos” burdened with historical stigma, all of which continue to be used from this novel to his later works. As a result, it was found that these elements collectively reveal the arbitrariness of the narrator's narration, suggesting that the present story could have existed in other forms. This result demonstrates Nakagami's immanent criticism within the modern novel, which seeks a narrative distinct from the normative forms of modern novels while using the third-person form.

This paper aims to reevaluate and reposition Nakagami Kenji's “Seisan (Communion)” (1983) from the perspective of cannibalism. Drawing on a variety of discourses on cannibalism from Japan at the end of the Edo Period and South America during the Age of Exploration, “Seisan” presents the mechanisms of imagination surrounding cannibalism before modern colonial discourses were established. The work also focuses on the relationship between the eater and the eaten person and calls for a “work of mourning” for the sacrifice of the other (the dead) to benefit the future other (the future dead). To contemplate the “world of cannibalism,” filled with structural violence that constantly causes sacrifice, “Seisan” offers an approach that had been pursued in the postwar literature of cannibalism but remained unsuccessful. Through this attempt, “Seisan” built upon the pioneering efforts of its predecessors and made solid progress.

This paper attempts to reinterpret Tsushima Yuko's The Child of Fortune through a new framework of queer ecofeminism. The desires of the protagonist, Koko, are shaped by the joyous days she spent with her dead brother, who had an intellectual disability. Her desires can be seen as queer in that they cross various boundaries. Through her experience of imaginary pregnancy, Koko makes visible the ambiguity of the division between the living and the dead. Additionally, by using the images of aquariums and fish, she creates fractures in the hierarchy between humans and animals. Finally, by relating environmental elements such as light and water to her own life, she brings forth a world in which everything exists as actors. In this way, The Child of Fortune can be resituated as a work that reflects the nascent queer ecofeminist character of Tsushima's literature, which highlights the entanglement between individual queer desires and the world.