Page:Modern Japanese Novels and the West.pdf/13

 impossible today to decipher the allusions. Such traditional novels as The Tale of Genji or The Tale of the Heiké had occupied the attention of great scholars and even emperors, and were at times the chief object of a lifetime of study. But by 1868, when the new era in Japanese history began, serious men had reached a point where they showed nothing but contempt for contemporary novels. Indeed, novels were considered unworthy to be read, let alone studied. Fiction tended to be of the order found in this country in the worst sort of magazines.

There is no way to predict what course Japanese literature might have followed had contact with the West been further delayed. It might have revived of itself by discovering neglected subjects even within the traditional materials. This, however, seems improbable. An innate ability to write fine novels may have been dormant in the Japanese people, but without the sudden shock of European literature, no awakening was likely. The eagerness with which translations into Japanese were greeted in the 1870’s and 80’s surely indicates this. The new Japanese literature did not, however, spring into the world simultaneously with the Restoration of 1868. Novelists and playwrights were not able to alter their styles and subjects as easily as other