6 research outputs found
On the Point of View in Meian
No full textpdfIn a chapter entitled "On the Distance" in A Study of Literature (1907), Sōseki deals with the problem of narrative point of view and mentions the two major attitudes the author can take towards his work:" the critical" and "the sympathetic". Sōseki must have been conscious of his own narrative technique when he wrote Meian (Light and Darkness) (1916), the most novel -like work ever written by a Japanese novelist.
"The shadow of the author" is not altogether eliminated in Meian. The reader may feel the presence of the omniscient author throughout, and in some places hear his voice which is a "projection of (his) sensibility and intellect". In this sense Meian may be called "a critical work". Dramatic irony is effectively used in a relatively small number of places. A humorous tone is occasionally noticeable but not sustained throughout the work.
Meian may be regarded as "a sympathetic work" on the whole. Direct and narrated interior monologues are employed to make the reader sympathize and identify with character. Sōseki is more successful with Onobu than with Tsuda. His severely critical analysis of Tsuda's character somewhat spoils the reader 's interest and sympathy. And yet , the distance between the author and the character seems too short in some of Tsuda's interior monolojgues. Perhaps Sōseki's thematic concerns predominated over the artistic unity of the novel.conference pape
On Mishima Yukio's Modern Noh Play “Yuya“
No full textpdfLike some other modern Noh plays by Mishima，“Yuya” (1959) may be evaluated as an attempt“at a kind of poetic drama” 1) and “at a marriage between the drama of ideas and the poetic drama.“ 2) It is also important to note that it was an adaptation of a typical Noh play of yūgen-gentle splendour and graceful and subtle beauty.
The Kabuki dance play “Yuya”， which Mishima wrote in 1955 for Nakamura Utaemon, helps us to see how he interpreted the original Noh. We may also note there that “the flower” the main theme of the play, was successfully represented and the feelings of the play skilfully created.
Some vulgar elements were introduced into his modern Noh play, but it was still “the flower“ that the author intended to create by “modernizing”the purple passages of the original. The heroine’s words and action, replacing music, dancing and stage-setting of the classical plays, are there to show the movement of her mind and emotion. When the critical climax arrives, however, she is required to act almost like a classical Noh actor in the “iguse”sc ene, characteristically paradoxical feature that the least movement is the most powerful expression. It is not an easy play to perform.conference pape
