English
1 A pronounced reaction against the methods and principles of the Bakin school of fiction was the consequence. TSUBOUCHI YUZO was the principal pro- moter of the new movement. In a work entitled Shdsetsu Shinzui (“Spirit of Fiction’) he denounced the artificial. morality of Bakin’s writings. More recently he became editor of a literary magazine called Waseda Bungaku, the organ of the newer school of criticism, which derives its principles and standards entirely from European sources. In his Shoset Katagt (“Types of Students”), 1887, Tsuboiichi has given an example of a realistic novel. It is well written, and contains some graphic and humorous sketches of modern student life viewed from the seamy side, but has little plot, portraiture of character, or dramatic incident. Tsuboiichi has also tried his hand at drama. I have not seen his /udzus Cesar, which Dr. Florenz describes as a version of hakespeare’s drama thrown into the form of Joruri, that is, with a thread of poetical narrative and descrip- tion woven into it; but I have before me two others of his plays, the Waki no Kata (1897), and the Azku to Kirt (1898). The Maki no Kata is in the Kyakubon style, that is, it depends almost wholly on dialogue. The small element 1 Among European writers of fiction whose works have been translated into Japanese may be mentioned Dumas (7vois Aousquetatres), Cervantes, Rider Haggard, and Jules Verne. 7¢démague and Robinson Crusoe (commended for its excellent moral teaching) have also been translated, RECENT FICTION 387 of Joruri which it contains is limited to one of the seven acts of which this play is composed which seemed to demand a more poetical treatment. It is one of a trilogy which deals with the history of the Hdjo regents. The time is the beginning of the thirteenth century, and the subject the crimes and intrigues into which Maki no Kata, the wife of the Regent, was led by her ambitions on behalf of a favourite son. The Maki no Kate is decidedly melodramatic. There are several murders and bloody combats, and two hara-kivi by women. But there are also some really forcible scenes, and although no supreme height of excellence is anywhere attained, there is careful workmanship and a gratifying freedom from the extravagances of the earlier school of Japanese dramatists. Of pivot-words and such-like rhetorical devices there are the merest traces. Most writers of the Tokio period show a marked tendency to dispense with these contrivances. The specialty of SUDO NANSUI is the political novel. This author belongs to the progressive party in politics and social science, and his pages bristle with allusions to “things European.” He quotes glibly, ‘To be or not to be, that is a question” (szc), and talks familiarly of Shakespeare, Dumas, Gladstone, and O’Connell. The extent and variety of his reading may be inferred from an airy reference in one of his prefaces to Lytton, Bakin, Scott, Tanehiko, Hugo, Shunsui, Dickens, and Ikku. The Ladies of New Style (1887) is a good example of his works. It is a novel of the future, when Tokio shall have become a great port, with all the appliances of an advanced civilisation, such as wharves, docks, tramways, and smoking factory chimneys. The heroine, 388 JAPANESE LITERATURE whose charms are depicted with a profuse expenditure of ornate diction, is a dairymaid. Let not the reader suppose that this occupation is meant to suggest pastoral simplicity. On the contrary, it indicates to the Japanese public that the lady is in the forefront of the progres- sive movement. Formerly cow’s milk was not used as food in Japan, and when this novel appeared none but a truly enlightened person would dare to affront the old-fashioned prejudices against ‘it. This dairymaid’s favourite reading is Herbert Spencer’s treatise on educa- tion. She is a member of a ladies’ club where croquet and lawn-tennis are played and women’s rights discussed. Other characters are—an adherent of Arabi Pasha, who, after his leader’s defeat by the “great warrior General Wolseley,” was banished from Egypt and took service with a Japanese gentleman; a Chinese cook, who is naturally assigned the réle of a subordinate villain, and a number of politicians of the Conservative and Liberal parties. Among the incidents we have a balloon ascent, a contested election, and a dynamite explosion, which is prevented from doing harm by the sagacity of a dog of European breed. All this, it will be observed, indi- cates a high degree of civilisation. In the last chapter the dairymaid is married to the advanced politician, who, on the auspicious occasion, wears a clean standing-up collar and a white silk neck- tie, with white gloves, and a small white orange blossom in the left button-hole of his coat. The Ladies of New Style has really considerable merit. There is plenty of incident and a coherent plot, and the writer can not only quote Herbert Spencer and Mill, but, what is more to the purpose, has an excellent command of his own language, more especially of the RECENT FICTION 389 Chinese element in it, which is so prominent at the pre- sent time. The Local Self Government (Sudo affects English titles) is a work of a similar character. YAMADA TAKETARO, a contemporary of Tsuboiichi’s, is the principal champion of an attempt to substitute the modern colloquial grammar for the grammatical forms and rules of the traditional literary dialect. He has pro- duced a number of novels and stories written on this principle, which, if universally adopted, would save the Japanese nation the trouble of mastering a second grammar for purposes of reading and writing, in addition to that of their ordinary speech. His Natsu Kodachi (“Summer Trees”) is a series of short stories which bear numerous traces of the author’s studies of European literature. One is a Japanese version of the story of Appius and Virginia, and another a pastoral idyll obviously suggested by a European model. Yamada’s later writings I have not seen. Dr. Florenz describes them as “cleverly written, the characters well and natu- rally drawn.” ~ This is high praise to give a Japanese novelist. YENCHO, a blind story-teller of Tokio, also composes in the colloquial style. Indeed his novels are first delivered in a spoken form, and are taken down in writing by his pupils, Their language is simple and easy, and they may be recommended to any European who is beginning the study of Japanese. Some of his plots are said to be taken from the French. One of the most popular and voluminous novelists of the present day is OzAKI TOKUTARO (KOYOSAN). In his earlier works, which I have not seen, he made great use of the pivot style, but his 7Zajd-takon (1897) is 26 390 JAPANESE LITERATURE written in the colloquial language. An acquaintance with English is evinced by the short sentences, the copious use of personal pronouns, and the frequent introduction of words which, although composed of Chinese elements, can only be fully understood when we have recognised the English word which they are intended to represent. Such English-Chinese-Japanese words are by no means peculiar to Ozaki. They now form a considerable part of the vocabulary of newspaper and magazine writers. Ozaki frequently gives the impression of having thought in English, and then presented his readers with a literal translation into Japanese. He is said to be an admirer of M. Zola. The Zajd-takon (“Much Feeling, Much Hate”) is a — study of sentiment. It opens with the lachrymose lamen- tations of a disconsolate widower. At the eightieth page the hero is still plaguing his friends and exhausting the reader’s patience with a maudlin grief, which must be even more obnoxious to Japanese feeling than to our own. One weary reader left him at this point, wiping his streaming eyes with a borrowed pocket-handker- chief, and complaining that he had now nobody to wash his own dirty ones for him. . One of the most considerable literary figures of the present day is KODA NARIYUKI (pseudonym, Rohan). He writes in the ordinary literary dialect, using the colloquial speech only for the dialogue, and in some of his writings not even for that. He has imagination, lo‘ty aims, and a fine flow of language, never descend- ing to vulgarity, and rising frequently to poetical descrip- tions of a high order of merit. But the action of his stories moves slowly, and the speeches of his personages are terribly lengthy, His //7ge-vtoko (1897) is a historical RECENT FICTION. 391 novel of the civil wars which preceded the establishment of the Tokugawa Shogunate. The general impression left by a very imperfect exami- nation of the drama and fiction of the last twenty years is on the whole favourable. The moral standards are less artificial, there are fewer offences against good taste and decency, and there is a prevailing sobriety of tone and an avoidance of the glaring improbabilities of every kind which abound in the writings of such authors as Chikamatsu and Bakin. We no longer meet with such monstrously long drawn-out stories as the Hakkenden. Comparatively much shorter than its predecessor, the recent novel shows more signs of conscientious care in its composition. The social position of Japanese writers of fiction has of late becn completely revolutionised. In the Yedo period they were Bohemians or hommes déclassés, who were in constant trouble with the police, and were classed, along with actors, among the lowest of the people. Now they are respectable members of society ; some of them, like Tsuboiichi, being graduates of the Imperial Univer- sity. Notwithstanding the low prices at which their works are issued,! a popular novelist now commands a fair income from his works.