Work · East Asian Philosophy
Origins of Modern Japanese Literature
“Landscape”, “interiority”, the confession and the child are not timeless givens but were invented in Meiji literature; once established, the origin of these forms is forgotten.
Introduction
Karatani’s essays, collected in 1980, examine the formation of modern Japanese literature in the Meiji period. Their central argument is that concepts such as “landscape”, “interiority”, “confession”, “illness” and the “child” were not discovered by writers but constituted through an inversion that, once completed, hides its own origin. In readings of Natsume Sōseki and Kunikida Doppo, among others, Karatani shows how the modern self and its literature were historically produced. The book, translated into English in 1993, had a strong influence on literary studies in Japan and beyond.
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