Lecture: Foreign Letters, the Vernacular, and Meiji Schoolgirls
February 6, 2002
Lecture: Foreign Letters, the Vernacular, and Meiji Schoolgirls
Indra Levy (Assistant Professor of Japanese Literature, Department of Asian Languages and Cultures, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey)
403 Kent Hall, Columbia University (116th St. & Amsterdam Ave.)
6:30 PM
In July 1887, Futabatei Shimei published the first installment of Ukigumo (Drifting Clouds), and Yamada Bimyô, his rival in the creation of the modern vernacular novel, published the first installment of Fûkin shirabe no hitofushi (An air for the organ) in the women’s education magazine Iratsume. Both novels attempted to forge a new literary style based on the spoken idiom (genbun-itchi); both also focused on schoolgirls as timely new subjects for fiction.
The uncanny synchronicity of the Meiji schoolgirl’s double debut in Japanese vernacular fiction suggests that the connection between this semi-exotic female figure and new literary media was not a matter of sheer coincidence. Professor Levy will examine the relationship between
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