Abstract
Relatively late, towards the end of the nineteenth century and under the influence of Western scientific publications, Japanese culture came to recognize the brain as the center responsible for mental activity. Japanese literati became interested in neurological and consciousness related phenomena, as well as relating psychological issues with epistemological principles. Early-modern Japanese literati often suffered from nervous breakdowns and more than often referred this disease to cerebral malfunctions. This arguably enabled a confessional mode of literature, which in turn contributed to the emergence of new sexual subjectivities. This paper focuses on the complicity between the narrative engines of modern Japanese fiction and the available Western medical/psychological/sexological discourses.
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Notes
Japanese names are given in the order last name, first name.
According to the traditional categorization in the ancient Chinese medicine, the eleven internal organs consist of five zo and six fu (gozo roppu). The five zo are the liver, the heart, the spleen, the lungs, and the kidneys. The six fu are the gallbladder, the small and large intestines, the stomach, the bladder, and sansho. Sansho is an imaginary organ that has a function, but no substance. That is to say, it does perform a certain function, but one cannot locate the organ itself in the body.
The American translator of The Drifting Clouds omits Futabatei’s use of neurological terms. His translation reads: “He was speechless with shock and his confused mind could not fully understand what had happened, let alone register anger” (331).
According to The History of the Tokyo School of Foreign Languages, it consisted of ethics, grammar, reading, memorization, conversation, spelling, vocabulary, penmanship, dictation, mathematics, algebra, geometry, chemistry, physiology, physics, history, geography, library sciences, and gymnastics. The literature in natural sciences in Russian, however, seems to have been rather scarce at the School. Futabatei, probably, received an initial training in sciences in Russian, and then proceeded to study them further, using literature in English. Most of the textbooks in Russian that were used at the School are believed to be now stacked in the library of Hitotsubashi University in Tokyo. I have gone through the catalogue of these books, but the collection does not include substantial natural science literature in Russian. The catalogue, however, may not be exhaustive. So far, it remains unknown what were the sources for the scientific knowledge for students in the Russian department. As to Fubatei Shimei, his main source seems to have been English scientific writings, as evidenced in his diary from the student days.
It is not clear which of Bain’s writings Futabatei was quoting from. Besides, what exactly Futabatei had in his mind when he cited “swoon” as one type of consciousness is quite unclear to me.
Ryan, does not use the English word, “explanation” that Futabatei actually uses in the text, but merely renders this as “I’ve got to talk to her” (327), quite missing the point.
It is apt to remember here that, according to the author himself, in writing The Drifting Clouds he often chose to write first passages in Russian and then translated them into Japanese when he found it difficult to express his ideas in Japanese (Uchida 1925, 293).
The translation is somewhat inaccurate. The original reads: “sozo de daraku suru yamai,” which would literally translate into “my disease of degenerating in my imagination [sank in my bones].” The reference to degeneration through sexual desire suggests an influence by the theory of Max Nordau, with which Futabatei could well have been familiar.
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Yokota-Murakami, T. Narrativity and scientificity: the emergence of the genre of novel in modern Japan and its connection to psychology and neurology. Neohelicon 41, 381–390 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11059-014-0243-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11059-014-0243-z