Organizer and Chair: Rachel DiNitto, University of Washington
Discussant: Sharalyn Orbaugh, University of British Columbia
The Taishô period (1912–1926) continues to lie deep in the shadows cast by the brilliance of Meiji (1868–1912) and the dark clouds of the impending war. This critical neglect denies the Taishô period its very crucial role in the debates over expressions of subjectivity, the effects of a renewed, intense exposure to the West, the place of the premodern, and the explosion of mass culture and the accompanying proliferation of genres. This panel takes a cross-disciplinary approach in pursuing these themes as they were reflected in Taishô literary and artistic productions, namely in painting, prints, fiction and nonfiction. In order to fully investigate these issues as they span the era, we will unhinge the term Taishô from its imperial designation and expand its scope to encompass the 1910s, 1920s and early 1930s.
John Treat sets the stage with a broad examination of self-representation. Treat explores the connections between literature and portraiture with an eye to psychoanalysis and to issues of social knowledge. Focusing on early Taishô conceptions of female beauty, Gerald Marsella questions the application of Western subjective experience to the traditional and popular art of Takehisa Yumeji. Gretchen Jones looks at the interplay of fin de siècle ideas and indigenous Edo decadence in the early fiction of Tanizaki Jun’ichirô. Rachel DiNitto returns to the topic of literary self-expression and first person narration in late Taishô, by presenting the zuihitsu (miscellany) of Uchida Hyakken as a counterpoint to the truthful, serious "I-novel."
Narcissus in Taishô
John Whittier Treat, University of Washington
The Taishô period, already characterized as the heyday of the Japanese "I-novel," was also the most productive era for Japanese self-portraiture. By looking at representative work by painters Umehara Ryûsaburô and Kishida Ryûsei, as well as novelists Shiga Naoya and Tanizaki Jun’ichirô, it may be possible to develop a theory for Taishô’s broad obsession with self-representation. My argument will both draw upon psychoanalytical insights and modern Japan’s historically diverse attempts to establish the individual as the principle agent for the acquisition of social knowledge.
"Self-Expression" and the Art of Takehisa Yumeji
Gerald R. Marsella Jr., Independent Scholar
The term "self-expression" is very often used in discussion of that body of early twentieth-century art referred to by many as "Taishô art." In that context "self-expression" consistently indicates primacy given to signification of personal subjectivity in the object of art, indeed as the objective of art. Evocation of this quality is the primary definer of the watakushi shôsetsu, and of the work of men and women associated with the kokuga sôsaku kyôkai and the sôsaku hanga movement. Indeed, the notion of an art and artists of difference and subjectivity, a kosei ha, has been made the cornerstone of early twentieth-century Japanese art and literary history.
The work of Takehisa Yumeji (1884–1934), prolific both in poetry and in images of women (bijinga), is portrayed in English and Japanese-language scholarship as an epitome of this "self-expression." Regardless, there are elements of Yumeji’s visual art which, in tandem with his most famous poem, The Evening Primrose (Yoimachigusa), suggest that establishing his uniqueness as an artist was not his most fundamental concern. His chosen genre and formal sources were topical, as was an important part of his message, rumination over the fate of Japanese culture. Symbolic elements in the poem and several bijinga associated with it, not to mention the cultural significance of the genre of bijinga itself in his time, suggest espousal of an aesthetic that, while topical and vital, is deeply rooted in notions of Japanese cultural identity.
Beyond the Fetish: Masochism and East-West Dialogue in Tanizaki’s "Fumiko no ashi"
Gretchen Jones, University of California, Berkeley
Tanizaki Jun’ichirô (1886–1965) and his infamous interest in masochism have generated a substantial amount of literary commentary. For the most part, critics concentrate on his later works from the Shôwa (1926–1989) period, such as Shunkinshô (Portrait of Shunkin, 1933), Kagi (The Key, 1956) or Fûten rôjin nikki (Diary of a Mad Old Man, 1961–62). Tanizaki’s early and mid-Taishô period (1912–1926) works have generally been viewed as schematic and immature, reflecting the author’s prurient interest in decadence more than literary achievement. I examine Tanizaki’s relatively unknown Taishô era fiction by focusing on a 1919 novella entitled "Fumiko no ashi" (Fumiko’s Feet). Although even from the title it is clear that the story deals with that hallmark of sexual deviance, foot fetishism, this paper situates the story in its broader Taishô period context, looking at the way fin de siècle ideas of psychology and sexual deviance imported from the West are placed in counterpoint with elements of indigenous "Edo decadence." I argue that by using the visual metaphors of the "floating world" woodblock prints by Utagawa Kunisada and western realist painting, Tanizaki engages two disparate traditions in dialogue. Through this dialectic, he arrives at a remarkably complex and multidimensional view of masochism that is neither Eastern nor Western, but reflective instead of an aesthetic sense entirely his own.
Hyakken’s Self-mockery and Late Taishô Miscellany
Rachel DiNitto, University of Washington
Bolstered by a surge in literary journalism and a diverse and growing readership, the classical zuihitsu reemerged in the latter years of the Taishô era. The "miscellaneous writings" of this light, formless genre shared center stage with proletarian, modernist, autobiographical and popular literary modes.
The fiction writer and Sôseki disciple Uchida Hyakken (1889–1971) rose to fame during this "age of the zuihitsu" with the publication of his Hyakkien zuihitsu (Hyakkien’s Miscellany) in 1933. Alongside the dark, uncanny pieces which comprise his first two short story collections, Hyakken began producing a seemingly autobiographical narrative focused on the title character Hyakkien Sensei. His zuihitsu are noteworthy for their self-referentiality, a quality certain critics deem quintessentially Taishô.
In this paper I examine this very notion of self-expression in Hyakken’s zuihitsu and question the validity of autobiographical interpretations, in light of the first-person narration which permeates his work from the 1910s, 20s and 30s. With an eye to both Hyakken’s fiction and to Taishô literary history, I focus on the zuihitsu as a reemergent genre, on its relationship to the "I-novel," and as a mode of first-person narration which opts for the comic, the witty and the parodic over the serious and the truthful.
In the hands of Uchida Hyakken, the zuihitsu genre served as a foil to both encourage and to undermine the autobiographical reading strategy commonly attributed to his works and to the period as a whole.