Lecture: Beyond the Genbun Icchi Movement: Natsume Soseki’s Writing in Kokoro
February 8, 2001
Lecture: Beyond the Genbun Icchi Movement: Natsume Soseki’s Writing in Kokoro
Professor Yoshihiro Ohsawa (Professor of English and Comparative Literature & Culture, Graduate School of Arts & Sciences, University of Tokyo)
403 Kent Hall, Columbia University (116th St. & Amsterdam Ave.)
6:00 PM
| The creation of new literary language was a central issue in modern Japanese literature of the Meiji period. The Genbun Icchi movement of the early Meiji period insisted that the wide discrepancy between written and spoken Japanese be removed, or at the least, diminished. Writing is, however, essentially different from speaking and literary language is fundamentally separated from ordinary spoken language. Since Natsume Soseki was a formalist in character, he envisaged literariness from a different perspective. The examination of his literature from Botchan to Light and Darkness clearly exemplifies his idiosyncratic attempts to create new literary language in his way. Professor Ohsawa will analyze his endeavors by examining his revisions of the text of Kokoro in his manuscripts. |
 Natsume Soseki |
