Friday, May 11, 2012
Miss Phathupats
I have translated Miss Phathupats of Sotto for educational purposes. I hope this would be of help to teachers who need this material in their classroom. Please use this text with respect to its copyright. Try to browse the activities for the short story below if they could be implemented in your classroom.
Wednesday, May 09, 2012
A Comprehensive View to the Modern Literature of Japan
Term Paper: Prescila P.
Mangoma
I.
Introduction
Every literary work no matter how
original it is relies on what has come before. Early works then becomes the
inspiration of what follows them and the process goes on. This course continues
to flow in order to satisfy the new needs and expectations of the readers to
the writers. This is the most prominent characteristic of the modern Japanese
literature in which Japanese writers treat new ideas by finding innovative ways
to present themes by looking into what is familiar and appreciated by the
readers of the present generation.
Long
before the past, Japanese
literature collected numerous writings and with its age and variety, Japanese literature
could be one of the richest and oldest national literatures. They have compiled
surviving written works from seventh century until present and it seems that
there has never been a part of their history when no written literature is
recorded. Their unique genres such as the haiku and tanka verse and ño drama
are acclaimed in the many if not all parts of the world until today. And although
Japanese literature was greatly influenced by Chinese literature during the
past, Japan has successfully developed their own style and unique quality of
literary works. This easily took place when writers came in contact to the
Western literature.
If we look into the rich history of Japan,
we could easily track the literary history of Japan. Engagement of Japan with
the world after long years of isolation and exposure to the West encouraged new
approaches, genres, concepts and ideas that are more liberal. There is also a
great need to look into the deeper changes of Japans people, environment and
social status for us to understand the growth of the literature. These would
bring us to the right path toward the rich modern literature Japan.
This
term paper then aims to give a subtle study about the modernization of Japanese
literature from the early beginning of their modern literature up to the 21st
century. This paper only focused on the modern period and will tackle how
modern literature evolved in this part of the world and what inspired modern
era in Japanese literature. A brief
history of the existence of Japan’s modern literature and some hallmarks of
their literary growth were highlighted such as the time of the wars, end of the
World War II and the like.
II.
Body
A Brief History of the Development
of the Modern Period of Japanese Literature (1868- present)
Early modern literature of Japan
spans from 1600-1868. This started
during the Edo period when there is a rise of urban middle class, increased literacy
and the importation of Chinese vernacular literature stimulated the development
of a number of new genres, such as kabuki theater, comedy, historical romances known as “yomihon,” horror, crime stories, and
morality stories. However, in the mid-1800s an American naval
expedition demanded demanded an end to the policy of diplomatic and commercial
seclusion that Japan had followed for more than 200 years. Due to the Westerners’
military technological superiority and their weak shogunate, they did not resist.
Then again, the Westerner became discontented with the rule of the shoguns and
they overthrew the Tokugawa shogunate, paving way to the modern phase of
Japanese history and literature.
With the opening of the country shortly
after the Meiji Restoration, Japan began a process of modernization that
involved receptiveness to imported ideas and a search for new modes of writing.
The Meiji period was when Japan, under Western influence, took the first steps
toward developing a modern literature and a period of rapid industrialization.
After Japan’s defeat in World War II, literature
was one of the first fields to recover. Encouraged by freedom of the press and
freedom of expression, literature flourished, much of it depicting the
suffering and misery of war. Popular fiction, non-fiction, and children's
literature all flourished in urban Japan. Many popular works fell between
"pure literature" and pulp novels, including all sorts of historical
serials, information-packed docudramas, science fiction, mysteries, detective
fiction, business stories, war journals, and animal stories. Non-fiction
covered everything from crime to politics. Although factual journalism
predominated, many of these works were interpretive, reflecting a high degree
of individualism.
As the rapid modernization curves the
Japanese mind, two questionable literary forms began to flourish in the 21st
century - both of them causes debates but critics at present. They are the
Manga and Ketai shosetsu. Manga
(comic books) have penetrated almost every sector of the popular market and
actually altering the focus of the readers to published literature. It swiftly
manage to present almost every field of human interest, such as a multi volume
high-school history of Japan and, for the adult market, a manga introduction to
economics, and pornography. Ketai shosetsu (“cell phone novels”) also became most written by amateurs
with no previous published works which became very popular in the mid 2000’s in
Japan. These two are so popular today and in fact, the cell phone novel
phenomena and Manga publishing has given Japanese publishing industry a new
break after its suffering in the past decades although critics are still saying
that these may lower the quality of Japanese literature.
Impact of the Contact
with the West to Japanese Literature
During the Emperor Meiji’s reign, Japan
developed modern political, military, economic, and social institutions. The
Meiji years also brought advances in education, science and technology,
commerce, and industry. In the early years of the Meiji
period, Japanese intellectuals grappled with the challenges of adopting new
political and social values while the people struggled to understand the
scientific, technological, and economic systems of the West. Influential
proponents of Western-style development in Japan were indifferent or even
hostile to literature, viewing it as a diversion from urgent practical concerns.
The exposure to Western literature
influenced Japanese authors to develop more subjective, analytical styles of
writing. Novelists experimented with 'new' ideas such as liberalism, idealism,
and romanticism and were variously influenced by French, British or German
literature. The introduction of European literature brought free verse into the
poetic repertoire; it became widely used for longer works embodying new
intellectual themes. The flood of translations from Western literature that
followed induced the Japanese to give prose fiction a new direction and
psychological realism.
Foremost among the experimenters
is Tsubouchi Shouyou who
is best known for the 1885 novel Tousei
Shosei Katagi (The Character of Modern Students) and for Shousetsu Shinzui (Essence of
the Novel) in which he rejected the hoary traditions and called for a more
realistic fiction. Likewise, writers
Mori Ōgai and Natsume Sōseki are both authors studied abroad in their
youth—Ōgai in Germany and Sōseki in England—and both became well versed in
Western literary developments. Ōgai’s early writing was heavily influenced by
European-style romanticism, and he explored the shape and limitations of
Japanese efforts to adapt to Western ways in works such as Maihime (1890; The Dancing Girl, 1975) and Fushinchū (1910; Under Reconstruction, 1962). Ogai’s
novel inspired by German literature, The
Wild Geese (1912) is a poignant story of unfulfilled love, set against
the background of the dramatic social change. Later he turned his attention to materials and themes drawn
from Japanese history. Ōgai was also the
one who introduced Romanticism in Japan. Souseki, returning home from his London,
marked new heights in modern literature with his outpouring of Wagahai wa Neko de Aru (I am a
Cat).
It is a satirical portrait of human vanity and was followed by increasingly
pessimistic, brooding novels such as Kokoro
(Heart) and his unfinished masterpiece, Meian
(Light and Darkness). Soseki's works often dwell upon the alienation of modern
humanity, the search for morality. Nagai Kafū also wrote short stories influenced by French
literature, notably the works of Émile Zola. His Amerika Monogatari (1908, American Stories) and Furansu Monogatari (1909, French
Stories), two collections of short stories, were immediate successes.
Realism was
introduced by Tsubouchi Shoyo and Futabatei Shimei, while the Classicism of Ozaki
Koyo, Yamada Bimyo and Koda Rohan gained popularity. Higuchi Ichiyo, a rare
woman writer in this era, wrote short stories on powerless women of this age in
a simple style, between literary and colloquial. Izumi Kyoka, a favored
disciple of Ozaki, pursued a flowing and elegant style and wrote early novels
such as The Operating Room
(1895) in literary style and later ones including The Holy Man of Mount Koya (1900) in colloquial language.
The 1882 Shintaishi Shou (Collection of
New Style Poetry) of translated and original poetry opened up new vistas for
poetry Shimazaki Touson and Tsuchi Bansui were among the
best-known poets. In the late 19th century, Yosano Tekkan urged radical reforms in the tanka and founded Myoujou magazine in Toukyou (Tokyo) as a vehicle for such
brilliant poets as his wife Akiko,
Ishikawa Takuboku, Kitahara Hakushuu, Takamura Koutarou, and
others. About the same time, Masaoka
Shiki was compaigning for tanka and haiku able
to deal with the fantastic and grotesque in realistic terms.
As Japanese writers came in contact more
with the West, the naturalist school emerged and became very influential. The
movement known as Japanese Naturalism gained prominence with the publication of
Shimazaki Tōson's novel The Broken Commandment, (Hakai, 1906). This
was the first Japanese naturalist novel. His
confessional novel Ie (The
House, 1910–11) also explores the clash of old and new values in rapidly
modernizing Japan just like his latter novel. Yoake mae (Before the Dawn, 1935) is an account of the struggle
for the restoration of the Japanese Empire in 1862 from the perspective of a
rural community. However, Tayama Katai's short story
"The Quilt" (Futon, 1907) changed the course of naturalism. An account of a
middle-aged married writer’s hopeless infatuation with a young woman, the book
was widely assumed to be based on events in Katai’s own life. As a whole, naturalism
predominated on the literary scene until around 1910, although such authors as
Natsume Sōseki, Mori Ōgai, and Nagai Kafū were not associated with it and might
even be considered antagonistic.
The writers
of the shinkankaku-ha, or
neo-perceptionist school, were inspired by recent European developments such as
surrealism and stream-of-consciousness narrative techniques. They sought to
launch their own kind of literary revolution by incorporating experimental
modes of expression into their work. Kawabata
Yasunari and Yokomitsu
Riichi were two of the novelists who took part in the neo-sensationalist
literary movement launched by the magazine Bungei Jidai in 1924. Rebelling
at the prevailing realism, they invented new styles and forms in an effort to
stimulate both mind and spirit Even today, Kawabata is widely read for Izu no Odoriko (Izu Dancer)
and Ryoshuu (Traveler's
Sadness).
Literature
During Era of World Wars (1912-1945)
In
the 1920s, Proletarian literature was the chief literary movement supplemented
by the uniquely Japanese genre of autobiographical fiction known as the "I
novel" (shishōsetsu or watakushi shōsetsu), this type of work was a distinctive
combination of modern-style realistic elements and traditional aesthetic and
psychological patterns. Government suppression of proletarian
literature in the 1930s was attended by the publication of
"conversion" (tenkō) novels by writers compelled to renounce their
communist ideals.
By the late 1920s female
fiction writers such as Miyamoto Yuriko, Hirabayashi Taiko, and Sata Ineko had
begun attracting attention in increasing numbers. Their work commonly
concentrated on the lives of women and their efforts to gain autonomy in a
male-dominated world. Autobiographical content and leftist ideological
perspectives were major features in many of their works, such as Miyamoto’s Futatsu no niwa (Two Gardens, 1947)
and Sata’s Kurenai (Crimson,
1936).
The
period between the turn of the century and the domination of militarism in the
1930's produced one of the greatest Japanese writers, Akutagawa Ryūnosuke, initially won
acclaim for short stories such as “Rashōmon” (1915). Akutagawa added a modern
psychological element to reworkings of traditional tales. Later he turned to
satirical fantasy in Kappa
(1927) and to a series of harrowing self-portraits of a spirit on the verge of
collapse, including Haguruma
(1927; Cogwheels, 1965). In
his book of short stories, he questions the values of his society, dramatizes
the complexities of human psychology, and studies, with a taste for Zen-like
paradox, the precarious balance of illusion and reality. Akutagawa’s suicide in 1927 was the
first in a series of suicides over the next few decades by first-rank Japanese
writers. Among the theories for this pattern of suicides are the crisis of
coping with modernity, the predicament of artists unable to find a secure
position in the modern world of Japan, and the Japanese tradition that looks
upon suicide as an acceptable—and sometimes even necessary—way out of a
difficult conflict or dilemma.
During the mid of this period,
social tensions gradually increased as Japan felt the effects of the worldwide
economic depression and politics took on an increasingly militarist and
threatening tone. This led to the emergence of several new movements. The
proletarians, a group of writers committed to using their work to advance the
revolutionary agenda of Marxism achieved a brief but spectacular prominence in
these years. Kobayashi Takiji’s Kanikōsen (1929; The Cannery Boat, 1933) centers on
the abuses suffered by workers aboard a floating crab cannery is one example.
As the unconventional
movements faded away by the mid-1930s, established writers such as Shimazaki,
Tanizaki, Nagai, Shiga, and the naturalist Tokuda Shūsei reclaimed the
limelight with major new works. At the same time, former Marxists who had
renounced their convictions—often while imprisoned—tried to come to terms with
their abandonment of Socialist and Communist ideals in a series of works that
came to be known collectively as tenkō
bungaku (recantation literature).
After the outbreak of
war with the United States and its allies in 1941, government control over
cultural activities in Japan was virtually complete. Publication of works
deemed unsupportive of the war effort became almost impossible. Many writers
participated, with varying degrees of enthusiasm, in government-sponsored
literary activities, including trips to report on life in Japan’s newly
conquered territories. A few authors, such as Nagai, refused to do so and
passed the war years in silence.
Japanese
Literature after the World War II (1945- 1970)
After
Japan finally admitted defeat and surrendered to the American militia, World
War II ended and this brought widespread change in Japanese life. A new
personal freedom and the promise of a peaceful, democratic society coexisted
with a deep despair caused by wartime devastation, desperate poverty, chronic
food shortages, and the disillusionment created by the collapse of the
country’s political, social, and cultural order. During these years, Japan
experienced a rush of literary activity, as writers’ pent-up energies were
suddenly released and readers eagerly sought out new works. As things settled down after the
war and more people started reading again for purposes that are more diverse,
the wide rift between pure literature and popular literature narrowed, and a
very popular form developed called in-between novels. Mysteries and other
mass-appeal literature entered a golden age.
A
series of younger writers captured the spirit of the times more accurately by
striving to come to terms with the drastically changed social conditions. The
novels Shayō (1947; The Setting Sun, 1956) and Ningen shikkaku (1948; No Longer
Human, 1958) by Dazai Osamu express the difficulty of enduring in a world where
conventional values have become meaningless. Sakaguchi Ango, in a series of stories and
essays such as Hakuchi (1946; The Idiot, 1962) and Darakuron (On Decadence,
1946), affirmed the need for spiritual and social regeneration based on human
nature rather than on tradition or ideology. Other writers who shared fame with
Dazai and Sakaguchi as members of the burai-ha, or outlaw school, include
Ishikawa Jun and Oda Sakunosuke.
Aside
from the new and young writers, older authors such as Tanizaki, Nagai, Uno, and
Shiga were quick to reappear on the scene. Tanizaki’s Sasameyuki is a nostalgic
account of changes in the lives of a merchant family in the 1930s. He is mainly concerned with the conflict
between modern ideas of love and beauty and traditional values. The novel The Makioka Sisters (1943-48; trans. 1957)
also concerns the encroachment of modern life on traditional values.
Some
authors, especially those who had spent the war years participating in or
observing the fighting, examined the meaning of their wartime experiences. Ōoka
Shōhei’s Nobi (1951; Fires on the Plain, 1957) reveals the depths of physical
and spiritual degradation to which the Japanese army was reduced in the war’s
final stage. Takeyama Michio’s Biruma no tategoto (1948; Harp of Burma, 1966)
depicts one soldier’s pursuit of redemption.
Additionally, in the closing days of World War II,
the United States dropped atomic bombs on two Japanese cities, Hiroshima and
Nagasaki. More than 100,000 people were killed or missing as a direct result of
the bombings, and the attacks prompted many documentary and literary responses.
The most celebrated of these is Kuroi ame (1966; Black Rain, 1969) by Ibuse
Masuji. Ibuse was not in Hiroshima at the time of the bombing, but he based his
novel closely on eyewitness reports and diaries of survivors. In addition, Dazai Osamu's novel The
Setting Sun tells of a returning soldier from Manchukuo.
Wartime
destruction and the dislocations of postwar life play a less direct part in the
postwar writing of Kawabata Yasunari. However, in a series of his lyrical
novels, including Sembazuru (1952; Thousand Cranes, 1959) and Yama no oto (1954;
The Sound of the Mountain, 1970), a war-induced sense of loss forms a backdrop
to sensitively rendered characters, lonely individuals who attempt to find some
consolation in love, nature, or artistic traditions.
Meanwhile,
many female writers in Japan tended to depict various aspects of women’s lives
without addressing explicitly political themes. Hayashi Fumiko, Uno Chiyo, and
Enchi Fumiko, who began their careers before the war, became more prominent
during the postwar years. Their major successes include Hayashi’s Ukigumo
(1951; Floating Clouds, 1965) and Enchi’s Onnazaka (1949-1957; The Waiting
Years, 1971) and Onna men (1958; Masks, 1983). The works of postwar novelists
such as Ariyoshi Sawako, Kōno Taeko, and Kurahashi Yumiko have continued to center
on the contradictions and difficulties of women’s lives in modern Japan.
Japan
entered a period of recovery and then sustained rapid economic growth after
1950. During this period the sense of urgency that marked the immediate postwar
years gradually dissipated. Many writers sought a happy medium between serious
and popular literature in the form of chūkan shōsetsu (in-between fiction),
much of which explored social issues such as family life and relations between
the sexes. Mass-media culture became an increasingly powerful force, and many
writers contributed to the market for entertainment and reportage.
Autobiographical fiction continued to have its adherents in the postwar era,
but it lost the dominant role that it had enjoyed since early in the century.
One
of the first writers to emerge as a major presence in the second half of the
20th century was the versatile and prolific Mishima Yukio, whose works depict a
modern Japan in which the triumph of materialism and careerism leaves a gaping
spiritual void. Mishima was also well known for his outspoken and controversial
political views. He was greatly influenced by his distaste for the sterile
realities of 20th-century Japanese society. On the other hand, Abe Kōbō’s familiarity with
Western literature, existentialism, surrealism, and Marxism influenced his
distinctive treatment of the problems of alienation and loss of identity in
postwar Japan which is seen in her novel such as his acclaimed Suna no onna
(1962; Woman in the Dunes, 1964) and minimalist plays such as Bo ni
natta otoko (The Man Who Turned into a Stick, 1969). Another major writers were
Ōe Kenzaburō and Tanizaki Jun’ichirō. Ōe created a richly imagined fictional
universe that incorporates political and social criticism and deep-seated
personal concerns while Tanizaki mainly concerned with the conflict between
modern ideas of love and beauty and traditional values. His first short
stories, among them “The Tattooer” (1910), show the influences of the French
symbolists and the American short-story writer Edgar Allan Poe. Some Prefer Nettles (1929) juxtaposes
an unhappy marital relationship against changing cultural values in Japan. The
novel The Makioka Sisters
(1948) also concerns the encroachment of modern life on traditional values. His later novels explore antinuclear and ecological
issues especially that pollution has become very rampant due to Japan’s rapid
industrialization.
Although fiction continued
to overshadow poetry and drama in the postwar years, the traditional tanka and
haiku forms were still composed in great quantities. Occasionally a distinctive
figure, such as female tanka poet Tawara Machi, succeeded in capturing the
public imagination.
Modern Japanese Literature of Recent
Years (1970- Present )
By the 1970s, although modern Japanese writers covered a wide variety of
subjects, one particularly Japanese approach stressed their subjects' inner
lives, widening the earlier novel's preoccupation with the narrator's
consciousness. In Japanese fiction, plot development and action have often been
of secondary interest to emotional issues. There was a growing emphasis on
women's roles, the Japanese persona in the modern world, and the malaise of
common people lost in the complexities of urban culture. Prominent writers of the 1970s and 1980s, were identified
with intellectual and moral issues in their attempts to raise social and
political consciousness.
Writers such as Inoue Hisashi and
Tsutsui Yasutaka combined language and conventions from popular culture with
imaginative experiments in fictional structure, while still preserving a
coherent narrative and moral framework. Meanwhile, Inoue
Mitsuaki had long been concerned with the atomic bomb and continued in the
1980s to write on problems of the nuclear age, while Endo Shusaku depicted the
religious dilemma of Japanese Christians especially of Roman Catholics in feudal Japan, as a
springboard to address spiritual problems. Iesyu no shogai (Life
of Jesus, 1978) is one of his novels.
As literature took a new turn with works
depicting a new breed of Japanese who rejected the old values and moral
standards fiction writers such as Haruki Murakami, Tsushima Yūko, Ryū
Murakami, and Banana Yoshimoto, also turned away from the modern novel’s quest
to find meaning in individual lives within a structured society. They traced
the seemingly directionless courses of characters in a world with no center and
little past, where the traditional support structures of family, state, and
workplace are weakened or absent.
Ryu Murakami is known for dark novels such
as Coin Locker Babies (1980), which includes a character who drops gas
bomb on Tokyo; Miso Soup (1997), about a psychopath set loose on
Tokyo’s red light district; and Piercing, a story that revolves around
an ice pick. Ryu Murakami sensational debut, Almost Transparent Blue
is about young people, sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll which reflects the social
problems of Japan.
Characters in novels such
as Haruki Murakami’s Sekai no owari to hādoboirudo wandārando (1985; Hard-Boiled
Wonderland and the End of the World) and Yoshimoto’s Kitchin (1987; Kitchen)
seem as much at home in a world of multinational media culture as in Japan. Murakami’s
Noruwei no mori (1987; Norwegian Wood, 1989) takes its title from
a popular 1960s song by the rock group the Beatles; the song serves to cue up
memories for the novel’s main character. Similar references to pop music and
other Western cultural elements are prominent in Ryū Murakami’s novel 69 (1987).
Many of Haruki Murakami’s works focus on the challenges that the modern world
poses to individuals and society.
Due to long time problem of Japan in the
concerns of the status of women, works of Natsuo Kirono published works that
strengthens the womens role and status in the society. She even created a
female detective named Miro Murani who solves crimes. Her novel, Out is also about a group
of female friends who make a business out of disposing of abusive men. Moreover,
Todo Shizuko’s Ripening Summer is a story capturing
the complex psychology of modern women. Other award-winning stories at the end
of the decade dealt with current issues of the elderly in hospitals, the recent
past (Pure- Hearted Shopping District in Koenji, Tokyo).
Kazuo Ishiguro is a Japanese-British who
wrote Never Let me Go which was a favorite for the Booker Prize in
2005. It was about love between clones and a search for song that had touched a
female clone in her youth.
III.
Conclusion
Briefly,
numerous world and national events and social milieu and issues that greatly
shaped, modified or even changed the ideas, beliefs and understanding of the
Japanese populace brought the growth of modern Japanese literature.
Firstly, the opening of the ports of Japan to the West
and to other countries of the world has a very great impact to their
literature. Aside from gaining liberal and radical minds, Japanese writers were
educated with the Western culture and literature and some of them develop
passion to the modern literary philosophies of the West such as realism,
classicism, naturalism and the like. Because of this historical event, the
Japanese started embed their Western learnings to their writings while still
dealing with the pressing social issues of their country.
Secondly, Japanese literature flourished into a more bold
writings during the wartime. Social tensions, militarism and economic recession
due to the war led some writers to the use of Marxism, however, the government
suppressed this movement.
Thirdly, Japan's defeat in the World War II had a great influence to the
modernization of Japanese literature. Stories of disaffection, loss of purpose,
and the coping with defeat similar to the pessimistic themes of modern writers
in America and Europe were written by the post war authors due to their
experiences and observation during and after the war.
Fourthly,
the growing concern on the changes of Japan’s cultural values also affected the
themes of the authors. Some of the writers had serious problems in coping with
the changes in the way of living in Japan and this was very evident in their
works where they focused on the class of the classical and modern culture of
Japan. Urbanization has also great connection to this, where many Japanese
decided to move to the urban regions of Japan because of the thought that life
is easier in the urban than in the rural where farming was their only
livelihood. The growing population in this part of Japan was portrayed in most
of their works, desperate poverty; chronic food shortages
were only some of the issues that rose. The discontentment of the common people
in the complexities of urban culture is also present in their works.
Lastly, modern literature was also shaped by the growing
technology and economy of Japan which also have caused the increase of social
issues or social problems of Japan. Issuis of prostitution, drugs, sex, and the
changing values of the youth are only some of the social issues. Thus, modern
works were written to help in the awakening of social realities and political
consciousness of the Japanese people. Religious dilemma was also one of the
theme of their due to the feud between the traditional religion of Japan and
the coming of Christianity and the problem in the spiritual degradation of the
people brought by materialism and careerism. Status of women was also in
question although this was a problem from Japan’s antiquity. The number of
female writers increased and this was a great help to strengthen and lift the
women’s status in the society. Moreover, issues on environment due to
unrestrained pollution brought by Japan’s rapid industrialization were also touched by
Japanese modern writers.
As a whole,
Japanese modern literature developed because the writers of the modern period
opened their eyes widely while extreme changes and events of their society are
shifted the course of almost all aspects of Japanese life. Keen observation
made them see realities and they present these realities to the readers without
bias. They have seen the need for more brave liberal thinking so they chose to
change or modify the path of literature. They did not suppress the idea of
modernizing literature since no one really could change the fact that all is
changing. Instead of suppressing it, they focused on the themes concerning
modernity and tried to be an agent in treating the negative impacts of
modernity itself. Although they were somewhat culture- shock due to the
cultural orientation of their country, they stayed optimistic and enthusiasm in
producing masterpieces which will guide the people in coping with the great
demands of the present world. Therefore, just like any other national
literatures of the world, Japanese modern literature gave birth to its own
wonderful account of literary transformation- from the great classics of the
past to the radical modernist works for the modern world.
IV.
References
Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2009. © 1993-2008 Microsoft
Corporation.
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