The "Ideals Of The East" And "Awaking Of Japan" Of Kakuzo Okakura

As a modern Japanese thinker, artistic educator and historian, Kakuzo Okakura(1862-1913)who had long devoted himself to promoting and rejuvenating Japanese traditional culture and art,owned a series of full and original insights and theories on the culture and art of the East,even of the whole Asia.His major works,in which Okakura introduced Chinese, Indian, Japanese and Asian history and culture as well as elaborated his comprehension and evaluation about those aspects mentioned above,are The Ideals of the East,The Awaking of Japan and The Book of Tea ,and they are also what we depend on to discuss most of the problems and statements in this thesis.Starting from his life and mostly depending on those major works,this thesis tries to elaborate and analyze Okakura's thoughts and theory systematically.This paper may be divided into three main parts:Mainly starting from the era,the family,in which kakuzo Okakura lived,and his expiriences,the first part shows the readers Kakuzo's life and the impacts it produced consequently.Mostly depending on his major works named The Ideals of the East,the second part elaborates and analyzes kakuzo's idealism embodied in the book. Mainly depending his books titled as The awaking of Japan and The book of Tea,the third part exposes and analyzes the theoretical logic by which Okakura transferred from idealism to nationalism which is also showed and discussed one of the aspects of the cause of formation, characteristics and impacts.We can draw a certain conclusion that Okakura's thoughts and theory presents a complex state.On the part of the cause, Okakura's character, experiences and the time in which he lived all impacted the formation of this thoughts and theory; with respects of the process, his theory was originally develoved from his practice; on the part of its nature, Okakura's theory was a system combining with idealism and nationalism as well as some relaxion of the two components mentioned above; with respects of the constuction and logic, after praising the culture of the East,his theory set off from the quanlity of the unity of the Asia,and then addressed and propagated the superiority of Japan, at last she stated that Japan should have been the speaker and leader of the culture of the East; on the part of the impacts,his theory finnaly provided the theoretical basis for the Asian war started by Japanese militarists.So, Kakuzo Okakura should have taken responsibilities for his theory on the subjective and objective.aspects.