2
points resembled Bakin's style."[1]
The shortcomings of Shōyō, pointed out in the above quotation by Dr. Okazaki, were refined by Futabatei's Ukigumo, or The Drifting Clouds. In 1886, Futabatei wrote this story in the colloquial language adopting both Shōyō's and Russian literary theories. In order to understand the scope of Futabatei's theory, let us read how Shōyō recalls Futabatei in his autobiography:
When I first met him in January of 1886, he was perhaps our leading authority of Russian literature. Among critics, he favored Belinsky, and among authors, he was fond of Pushkin, Lermontov, Gogol, Turgenev, and Goncharov. Of these, he esteemed Turgenev and Goncharov most highly....His very personality was markedly influenced by Russian literature.
I myself was quite inexperienced at the time. I had been made to read the standard classics at the university, but my own favorites were primarily from English nineteenth-century fiction. I was just beginning to read the great popular writers from Scott, Lytton, and Dickens to Dumas and Marryat. When I encountered Futabatei, I heard completely new literary theories and saw a completely new type of personality.[2]
Shōyō's reminiscence of Futabatei elucidates the stature of Futabatei and outlines his Russian literary theory. Futabatei's knowledge of Belinsky and Kalkov imprinted so striking an impression
- ↑ Okazaki Yoshie, ed., Japanese Literature in the Meiji Era, trans. by V. H. Viglielmo (Tokyo: Ōbunsha, 1955), p. 119.
Bakin was a novelist who, before he died, was the accepted leader of Edo literature. His favorite genre was the moralistic novel.
- ↑ Tsubouchi Shōyō, "Futabatei no Koto," translated by Marleigh Grayer Ryan in Ukigumo of Futabatei Shimei (New York: Columbia University Press, 1967), pp. 74–75.
