Women Writing Japan

Abstract

Images of British women posing languidly in kimono, imitating geisha, and fluttering Japanese fans have long served as evidence of their involvement in the important movement of Japonisme, which reached its peak in the years covered by this volume. Students of late-Victorian and early-modern literature typically learn about the popularity of Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Mikado, Oscar Wilde’s musings about Japan being ‘a pure invention’, Yeats’s use of Nō drama, the importance of haiku to the Imagist movement, and the work of Lafcadio Hearn, among other Japonisme-related topics associated primarily with male writers. Yet to suppose British women’s involvement in Japonisme was limited to consumerism and cultural cross-dressing underestimates their power as cultural producers and organizers, as well as the empowerment they found through Japanese cultural exchange. Their literary contributions were so extensive that this essay can only touch briefly on a selection of the more important writers whose work dealt with Japan.