Abstract

This study seeks to shed new light on a well-known contradiction: why did Natsume Sōseki start writing novels (shōsetsu) despite his suspicion, if not dislike of the genre? A major reason for his suspicion was the novel’s representation of love and romance, conforming to the new Meiji concept of literature (bungaku) derived from Western models. This focus greatly differed from the traditional notion of literature to which Sōseki was still attached, which emphasized the social, moral, and political mission of literary texts. Through a rereading of his novel Sorekara (And Then, 1909), I argue that Sōseki paradoxically sought to retrieve the traditional mission of literature through the novel’s focus on male-female romance. Sorekara reflects on the loss of ethical values, associated with the Edo past, as the civilizational crisis of Meiji modernity, but it also presents an adulterous love as the locus where ethical and heroic activity is recovered. Solving the crisis of modernity and the nation, this love briefly reinstitutes literature’s social and political mission, but the conflation of adultery and ethical heroism also leads to an affective and narrative breakdown. Ultimately, this article uncovers Sōseki’s self-conscious and artistic negotiation between irreconcilable notions of literature within his novelistic plots.

摘要

这项研究试图阐明一个众所周知的矛盾：为什么夏目漱石不顾他的怀疑（如果不是不喜欢）而开始写小说（shōsetsu）？他怀疑的主要原因是爱情和浪漫小说的代表性，符合文学（新概念明治bungaku西方模型得出）。这种关注点与 Sōseki 仍然依附的传统文学观念大不相同，后者强调文学文本的社会、道德和政治使命。通过重读他的小说Sorekara（然后，1909），我认为 Sōseki 自相矛盾地试图通过小说对男女浪漫的关注来恢复文学的传统使命。Sorekara将与江户过去相关的伦理价值的丧失视为明治现代性的文明危机，但它也将通奸的爱情作为伦理和英雄活动恢复的场所。解决现代性和民族性危机，这种爱情短暂地重新确立了文学的社会和政治使命，但通奸与伦理英雄主义的混杂也导致了情感和叙事的崩溃。最终，本文揭示了漱石在其小说情节中不可调和的文学观念之间的自我意识和艺术协商。