Page:Japanese Literature (Keene).pdf/106

94 Japanese to have had a good understanding of European literature, and, incidentally, made a complete translation of Shakespeare’s works which remains the standard one in Japan. He was perhaps the key figure in the development of literary taste in the country, attempting as he did to create a Japanese literature which would bear comparison with that produced in England and in other parts of Europe. He sought to find examples in the earlier Japanese literature of parallels to the things which he praised in European literature, and so to give a native tradition for writers to follow. Thus, he rejected the plays of Chikamatsu which had fantastic elements, in favour of the domestic tragedies which could more easily be compared with European plays. Realism and complexity were the two things he advocated in all forms of literature.

The great problem for Japanese who sought to write in the new style was also touched on by Tsubouchi. Western literature in the late nineteenth century was dominated by the expression of individual impressions and beliefs. A century before, Rousseau had begun his confessions with the assertion that regardless of whether he was better or worse than other men he was certainly different, and this attitude coloured the entire romantic movement. In Japan there existed no such tradition of individualism, at least not since the civil wars of the twelfth century and afterwards had led to the formation of a rigid feudal society, where the claims of the individual were sternly denied. When we read Lady Murasaki’s diary, written in the early eleventh century, we feel that she is a complex living being, whom we can understand, but even the most personal writings of the eight centuries that followed her time seldom arouse any such feeling. One has the impression always that people are acting within a situation which has implicit in it certain regular reactions. At first these reactions have to be