Natsume Soseki: Culture Shock and the Birth of the Modern Japanese Novel

Abstract

When an individual comes into contact with a culturally disparate society, this experience tends to have an impact on his/her personality, value system and way of thinking. The nature and extent of this change can be manifold. It can result, for example, in either total assimilation into the new culture or the total rejection of it. Some people, however, seem to be able to synthesize the various cultural influences, both at the personality and the intellectual levels. According to Ward et al, such individuals, to whom they refer as “mediating persons”, are relatively rare (C. Ward et al 2001: 31). What distinguishes them is that they are able to maintain their core cultural identities, while also learning and incorporating important features of the other culture into their identities. The following chapter describes the painful journey of an exceptional Japanese intellectual, Natsume Soseki, who journeyed to London at the turn of the twentieth century, becoming a kind of cultural mediator between East and West via the highest level of literary scholarship.

While writing this chapter the author was supported by a grant from the National Research Council (OTKA, K 77691).