Literature and Literary Theory: 16th Annual Meeting for the Association for Japanese Literary Studies - November 2-4, 2007

Chair: Joseph Murphy (University of Florida)
Discussant: Brett de Bary (Cornell University)

This featured panel commemorates the 100th anniversary of the publication of Natsume Sōseki’s theoretical treatise, Bungakuron (Theory of Literature, 1907). Bungakuron is an original work of literary theory that attempted to define literature through extensive use of psychological and sociological theories prevalent in late 19th Century England. In sharp contrast to Sōseki’s fiction, very little attention has been given to his theoretical works, primarily because they are considered to be a mere prelude to his great literary career. This is especially the case in Japanese literary studies in North America. The presenters will focus on Sōseki as a theorist in an effort to bring to the fore the important political and intellectual ramifications inherent in such lack of study of Sōseki theories, which will, we hope, help to start a debate about the way Japanese literature has been studied in the American academy. It will further question the West-East binary that shapes the hierarchy between theory and practice: Can a Japanese theorist gain legitimacy in the West?

Michael K. Bourdaghs (University of Chicago)

As part of an ongoing project to rethink the works of Natsume Sōseki in terms of modern discourses and ideologies of property ownership, in this paper, I will focus on the rise of modern copyright law and publishing royalty systems in late Meiji. In particular, I will compare the theory of literature that Sōseki expounded in his Bungakuron (1907), based on lectures he delivered at Tokyo Imperial University in 1903-5, with the theory of copyright that was being expounded in a series of lectures delivered at the same time (1905) across town at Hōsei University by Mizuno Rentarō (1868-1949), the author of the first modern copyright law in Japan. I will explore the ways in which Sōseki’s attempt to theorize literature is both resistant to and complicit with the contemporary rise of the notion of literature as a form of intellectual property. I will also explore the somewhat convoluted history of copyright ownership of Bungakuron and other works by Sōseki.

Mark Anderson (University of Minnesota)

In this essay I read Soseki’s Bungakuron (1906) in relation to late nineteenth century structures of power and knowledge, more specifically, in the light of the imperial aesthetics of Matthew Arnold. I find that Soseki translates the discourse of Arnoldian literary appreciation out of the idiom of moral edification and into a very distinct, pluralist and voluntarist discourse of evolutionary psychology largely derived from William James. While this strategy implicitly challenges imperial aesthetics, I find that Soseki’s variety of evolutionary psychology does not break away from the theory of evolutionary stages of development so deeply implicated in the politics of colonial empire. Soseki’s project, in other words, replaces the Eurocentric culture war aesthetics of Matthew Arnold's literary project with a literary psychology that is less Eurocentric and more scientific, but no less complicit in sustaining the colonial hierarchy constitutive of such evolutionary approaches.

Atsuko Sakaki (University of Toronto)

Unlike his contemporaneous compatriots, also well-versed in foreign languages, Natsume Kinnosuke (Sōseki) did not translate any of the texts that he read during his career as a student of English in England or as a teacher at the Imperial University of Tokyo. In his Bungakuron (Literary Theory, 1907) liberal quotations from English lack any Japanese rendition. While he is known to have lamented the impenetrability of the linguistic barrier in literary studies, as opposed to science, and the incommensurability of English and Chinese literature, he made no effort to compare, differentiate or find common ground between English and Japanese, assuming literary theory to be transparent regardless of language.

In this paper I will examine how Natsume grappled with textual space without striating it. I contend that for him, languages constituted a continuum rather than a grid. His quiet refusal to translate does not purport but rather invalidates the perception of equity and exchangeability of languages that some theorists of translation (Lydia Liu, Haun Saussy) have problematized. This is an issue that remains relevant in an age of the global marketing of literature. Meanwhile, his choice of (trans-disciplinary) criticism over translation resonates with our contemporary concerns with how (Japanese) literature – in relation to other literature, (literary) theory, and (Japanese) language – should be taught in the post-secondary schools, reflecting varying degrees of faith in the universality and interdisciplinarity of theory addressed by Edward Said, John Guillory, and Terry Eagleton among others.

Yuko Iida (Kobe College)

『文学論』は、漢文学の親密な読者であった漱石が、英文学の読者には容易になり得なかった体験から生まれている。その後、漱石は作家になるわけなので、『文学論』は、読者から作家への移動の痕跡をとどめているが、本発表では、作家に至る以前の読者として漱石のあり様を追ってみたい。読者論の基本的な図式では読者と作者の間のコミュニケーションを前提に、読者と作者の間に作品を置く。が、漱石は読者と作品の間に作者を挟むという図式を描く（第４編８章「間隔論」）。漱石の図式の奇妙さには、作者と読者のコミュニケーションをそもそも想定していないことが示されている。漱石にとって作家は、情報の送り手ではなく、情報の伝達に支障を発生させる障害ともいうべき位置におかれている。なぜ、作家に近づこうとはしなかったのか。そして、読めない読者として出発した漱石は、どのように作品にアクセスしようとしたのか。読者の資格を論じる第２編では、「幻惑」という契機の必要性が説かれる。この「幻惑」という発想は、どのような文脈の中から生まれ、どのような意味を含んでいるのか。コミュニケーション不全を前提に、共感の可能性をさぐる試みとして、『文学論』を読みたいたいと思う。