The Columbia Anthology of Modern Japanese Literature: From Restoration to Occupation, 1868-1945: vol. 1 (Modern Asian Literature Series)

by J. Thomas Rimer

  TANKA

  HAIKU

  NATSUME SŌSEKI

  In addition to his poetry in Chinese, Natsume Sōseki (1867–1916) also earned a considerable reputation as a young man for his haiku. A classmate of Masaoka Shiki, Sōseki was encouraged by his friend to develop his skills as a poet in traditional forms.

  WAKAYAMA BOKUSUI

  A leading tanka poet of the Meiji period, Wakayama Bokusui (1885–1928) wrote his first poems while he was still a university student and filled with idealistic longing and romantic yearning. His later and somewhat more austere experiments have been much admired by critics but have never received the affection felt for his earlier works by general readers.

  YOSANO AKIKO

  Brought up in the town of Sakai, near Osaka, Yosano Akiko (1878–1942) worked in her parents’ candy shop and, in her teenage years, began to read classic Japanese literature. Finally she began to write her own tanka poetry. Once some of her poems had been published, she gained many friends among the young poets of her own age, including Yosano Tekkan (1873–1935), himself a poet important in the reform of tanka. Akiko’s first full-length collection of tanka, Tangled Hair (Midaregami), which appeared in 1901, formed her reputation as a poet of a sometimes erotic romanticism completely new to Japanese poetry. She went on to write more poetry of various forms, a novel, and accounts of her travels, as well as translating the classic Tale of Genji into modern Japanese.

  THE DANCING GIRL (MAIHIME, NO. 11, 1906)

  SPRING THAW (SHUNDEISHŪ, 1911)

  ESSAYS

  NATSUME SŌSEKI

  Natsume Sōseki (1867–1916) is, by common agreement, Japan’s greatest novelist of this period. His works also are the most difficult to fit into an anthology. Nearly all of Sōseki’s novels and other writings are quite long, and to include only parts of such beautifully crafted works as Kokoro, The Wayfarer (Kōjin), and Grass by the Wayside (Kusamakura) would be a disservice to both the writer and the reader. Because most of Sōseki’s major novels are now available in English translation, it is our hope that readers will seek out for themselves these remarkable accounts of their author’s spiritual journey.

  It seems more appropriate, therefore, to introduce Sōseki in this anthology as an essayist. Even though his essays are highly respected and appreciated in Japan, elsewhere their translations are not as well known. Both the essays excerpted here, in excerpted form, began as lectures but had a wide circulation when they were printed. Although the first sections are discursive and rambling, the principal issues are stated succinctly and resonate with readers even today.

  The first essay is a lecture entitled “The Civilization of Modern-Day Japan” (Gendai Nihon no kaika), which Sōseki delivered in 1911. Once his subject comes into focus, he offers an account of the spiritual pains felt by those living in a shifting society. For many Japanese readers, this essay has remained a crucial statement of the ambiguities of twentieth-century Japanese life.

  The second essay is a lecture entitled “My Individualism” (Watakushi no kojinshugi), delivered in 1914. It is as close as Sōseki ever came to a statement about his own life and aspirations as an artist.

  THE CIVILIZATION OF MODERN-DAY JAPAN (GENDAI NIHON NO KAIKA)

  Translated by Jay Rubin

  Well, then, what do we mean by “civilization”? My guess is that you do not understand the civilization of modern-day Japan. By this I mean no disrespect toward you. None of us really understands it, and that includes me. I just happen to be in a position that gives me more time than you have to think about such matters, and this lecture allows me to share my thoughts with you. All of you are Japanese, and so am I; we live in the modern age, not the past or the future, and our civilization influences us all; it is obvious that the three words “modern,” “Japan,” and “civilization” bind us together inseparably. If, however, we remain unconscious of the civilization of modern-day Japan or if we do not have a clear understanding of what it means, this can adversely affect everything we do. We will all be better off, I believe, if, together, we study this concept and help each other understand it. . . .

  I believe that this infinitely complex phenomenon we call civilization arises from the advancement, entanglement, and ongoing change of these two parallel mentalities: the conservation of our vital energies as a negative response to the stimulus of duty, and the consumption of our vital energies as a positive response to the stimulus of pleasurable pastimes. The results are immediately apparent if we witness the state of the society in which we ourselves live. The conservation of energy is obvious in the ways we contrive to labor as little as possible, to accomplish the maximum amount of work in the minimum amount of time. These contrivances take amazing shapes: not only trains and steamships, but the telegraph, the telephone, and the automobile—all of which are, finally, nothing more than conveniences developed from an unabashed desire to avoid effort. . . .

  Thanks to this kind of magic, distances are shortened, time is diminished, bother is eliminated, all compulsory effort is reduced to a minimum, then reduced again, and before we find out how far we can push this process, along comes the opposite, “energy-consuming” impulse, the desire for enjoyment, urging us to do exactly as we please, and this, too, goes on and on, developing naturally, advancing without a moment’s intermission.

  The moralists may grumble about the development of our desire for enjoyment, but that is strictly an ethical question, not a practical one. The simple fact is that the impulse to find ways to consume our energies by doing what pleases us keeps working around the clock, developing without a break. Only the existence of society causes a man to have compulsory actions thrust upon him, but give that man his freedom and he will inevitably try to consume his mental powers, his physical powers, on stimuli that please him because it is perfectly natural for him to operate from an egocentric standpoint. . . .

  In any case, we have these two intertwining processes, one involving inventions and mechanisms that spring from the desire to conserve our labor as much as possible, and the other involving amusements that spring from the wish to consume our energies as freely as possible. As these two intertwine like a textile’s warp and woof, combining in infinitely varied ways, the result is this strange, chaotic phenomenon we know as our modern civilization.

  If this is what we mean by “civilization,” a strange paradox arises, a phenomenon that at first glance seems rather odd but whose truth everyone must recognize. Why, we might ask, has man followed the stream of civilization from its beginnings to the present day, manifesting these two types of energy? The answer is simply that we are born that way. In other words, everything we have today is the result of these inborn tendencies of ours. We could not have survived if we had simply stood by with our arms folded. Pushed along from one thing to the next, we have toiled and toiled for thousands of years, finally developing to the point where we find ourselves today.

  As a result of the contrivances wrought by these two kinds of vital energy from ancient times to the present, life should be far easier for us than it was for our ancestors. But is life, in fact, easier for us? I would have to say that it is not. For you and for me, life is enormously painful. You and I both know that we live with pain no less extreme than that which was felt by the men of old. Indeed, the more civilization progresses, the more intense the competition becomes, only adding to the difficulty of our lives. True enough, thanks to the violent struggle of the two energies, civilization has attained its present triumph, but “civilization” in this sense means only that our general standard of living has risen; it does not mean that the pain of existence has been softened for us to any extent. Just as academic competition is equally painful for both the grammar school child and the university student, though at different levels, there may be a huge difference between people in the old days and people now where energy-consuming and energy-conserving mechanisms are concerned, but when it comes to relative degrees of happiness (or unhappiness), the anxieties and exertions that arise from
the struggle for existence are no less for us today than they were for our ancestors. If anything, they may even be more painful. Back then it was a matter of life and death: if you didn’t make the necessary exertions, you died and that was that. You did it because you had no choice. You didn’t think about enjoyment; the means for seeking pleasure had not been developed. People were satisfied just to stretch out their legs or let their arms hang down: It was probably all the enjoyment they could hope for.

  Today, we have long since transcended the problem of life and death. Now, it’s more a matter of life and life. I know that sounds funny, but by this I mean that now our most taxing problem is whether to live in circumstances A or in circumstances B. To cite an example of the energy-conservation type, competition now raises the question of whether a man is going to make a living by dragging a rickshaw around the streets or by grasping the steering wheel of an automobile. Whichever he chooses, this will not determine whether he lives or dies. The amount of labor involved, however, will certainly not be the same. He will sweat a lot more pulling that rickshaw. If he drives passengers around in an automobile (of course, if he can afford an automobile, he won’t have any need to drive passengers around), he can cover longer distances in shorter times. He doesn’t have to exert himself physically. As a result of the conservation of vital energy, he has an easier job. In contrast to the old days, now that the automobile has been invented, the rickshaw will inevitably fall behind. Having fallen behind, the rickshaw will have to struggle to keep up.

  In this way, when something appears on the horizon that is superior by virtue of its ability, however small, to conserve energy, and this provokes a wave of disruption, a phenomenon resembling a kind of low-pressure zone occurs in the civilization, and until its components return to a state of balance and proportion, the people of that civilization have no choice but to continue in restless motion. Indeed, it is their very nature to do so. . . .

  Assuming, then, that the momentum of civilization consists of increasingly ferocious competition in both the positive and negative areas, it would appear that we have done our utmost over the ages to wring out some bit of wisdom, developing at last to where we are today, and yet it seems to me that the psychological pain that life thrusts upon us may be no more nor less than it was fifty or even a hundred years ago. Even with all the machines we have today to reduce our labors, even with all the means of amusement we now have for the free enjoyment of our vital energies, the pain of existence is far more intense than one would have imagined. Perhaps it would not be overstating the case to call the pain extreme. What else can we call it when we fail to appreciate the sheer fact of our having been born in an age of such vastly reduced labor and when the magnified means and scope of our amusements fail to arouse in us the appropriate sense of gratitude? This is the great paradox to which civilization has given birth.

  And now the time has come to discuss the civilization of Japan. If civilization in general is as I have described it, and Japan’s civilization is simply another example, that would pretty well take care of what I wanted to say, and I could end this lecture. Unfortunately, however, Japan’s case is special and cannot be dispensed with so easily. . . .

  The question facing us is this: How does the civilization of modern-day Japan differ from civilization in general as I have been discussing it? Simply stated, Western civilization (that is, civilization in general) is internally motivated, whereas Japan’s civilization is externally motivated. Something that is “internally motivated” develops naturally from within, as a flower opens, the bursting of the bud followed by the turning outward of the petals. Something is “externally motivated” when it is forced to assume a certain form as the result of pressure applied from the outside.

  Western civilization flows along as naturally as clouds or a river, which is not at all what we see in the case of Japan since the Meiji Restoration and the opening of relations with the West. Of course, all countries are influenced to some degree by their neighbors, and Japan is no exception: We have certainly not developed separately, relying exclusively on our own vital energies. There have been periods in our history when we were profoundly under the sway of foreign cultures—of Korea, for example, or China. But overall, viewed in the long course of events, we can say with some confidence that we have advanced to where we are today with a more or less internally motivated civilization. Certainly, Japan had never experienced any foreign influence as intense as that of the sudden influx of Western culture. There we were, slumbering for two hundred years in an atmosphere of sealed ports and foreign exclusion, when it jolted us awake.

  From that time on, Japan’s civilization began twisting and turning dramatically. The impact of the West was so great that we simply had no choice but to continue twisting and turning. To rephrase it in terms I used earlier, we were a country that had until then developed according to our own internal motivation. But then we suddenly lost our ability to be self-centered and were confronted by a situation in which we could not survive unless we began taking orders from the external force that was pushing us around at will. Nor was this by any means a temporary situation. The year is Meiji 44, after all: We’ve been bracing ourselves for close to fifty years. And not only have we been pushed and shoved along from that day to this, but unless we continue to be pushed along for years to come—perhaps forever—Japan will not be able to survive as Japan. What else can we call ourselves but externally motivated?

  The reason for this is obvious. If I may return to the definition of civilization that I formulated earlier at such length, Western civilization—this civilization we first collided with some fifty years ago and are incapable of avoiding contact with today—possesses labor-conserving means many times more powerful than our own, and it is equipped, too, with the ability to utilize its vital energies in the area of amusement and enjoyment many times more actively than we can. As a rough illustration, say Japan has gone along developing by internal motivation until, at long last, it brings its civilization to a complexity level of ten. We’ve just barely managed to reach that point when, all of a sudden, out of the clear blue sky, a civilization that has advanced to a complexity level of twenty or even thirty comes along and crashes into us. Because of the pressure this new civilization exerts on us, we have no choice but to develop in unnatural ways. And so the civilization of Japan today does not plod along at its own steady pace, but instead it leaps ahead from one desperate round to the next. Lacking the freedom to climb the stairway of civilization one step at a time, we take a stitch here and a stitch there with the biggest needle we can find. For every ten feet of ground we cover, we touch down on only one, virtually missing the other nine. Now, perhaps, you see what I mean by the term “externally motivated.” . . .

  Now, if we examine the group’s consciousness as a whole, I would conclude that there exists a clear consciousness that can encompass a long unit of time—be it a month, a year, or whatever—and that this consciousness ebbs and flows, moving in turn from one event to another. We all do this individually when we look back on our lives and discover distinct units of consciousness—our middle school years, say, or our university years: periods that stand out distinctly enough to have special names attached to them. A few years ago, from 1904 to 1905, the collective consciousness of the Japanese as a whole was focused exclusively on the Russo-Japanese War. Then came the period when we were occupied with a consciousness of the Anglo-Japanese alliance. When, through induction, we thus expand the psychologists’ analyses and apply them to the collective or long-term consciousness, we must conclude that the process of the development of man’s vital energies—that is, civilization—progresses in waves, stringing one arc after another in a constantly advancing line. Of course, the number of waves thus traced is infinite, the length and height of each potentially different from all the others, but finally they must move along in order, wave A calling forth wave B, B calling forth C, and so on. Simply stated, the progress of civilization should be internally motivated. . . .


  The question facing us is whether or not Japan’s civilization is advancing by means of internal motivation, tracing a natural motion from wave A to B to C. The answer, unfortunately, is that it is not, and that is the trouble. Because of external pressure, Japan has had to leap all at once from a barely attained complexity level of twenty to a level of thirty in the two great areas of energy conservation and energy consumption. The country is like a man who has been snatched up by a flying monster. The man clings desperately to the monster, afraid of being dropped, hardly aware of the course he is following.

  In the normal order of events, wave A of a civilization yields to wave B only when people have drunk their fill of A and have become satiated, at which time new desires arise from within and a new wave develops. A new stage of life opens before us after we have tasted the old one to the full, both the good and the bad, the bitter and the sweet. Then we leave the first wave behind without regret, as a snake sheds its skin. And then whatever difficulties we may experience with the new wave, at least we never feel that we are dressing up in borrowed clothing, putting on a false front. But the waves that govern Japan’s present civilization roll in on us from the West. We who ride these waves are Japanese, not Westerners, and so we feel out of place with each new surge, like uninvited guests. There is no question of our understanding the new wave, for we have not had time to appreciate the features of the old one that we have cast off so reluctantly. It is like sitting at a dinner table and having one dish after another set before us and then taken away so quickly that, far from getting a good taste of each one, we can’t even enjoy a clear look at what is being served.