Research On Literature And Art Of Yokomitsu Rieichi

Yokomitsu Riichi was the first representative writer of modern literature in the history of modern Japanese literature who,by combining the western theory of modern literature and art with the existing literary form in Japan,contributed to the taking hold of the new sensory literature in Japan and turned it into the first literary form of modern significance in Japan.In New Sensualism he pointed out,“Of futurism,cubism,Dadaism,symbolism,constructivism,and realism,I think I belong to the New Sensation School.” He argued that an author's world outlook should be based on the consciousness,spirit and feeling of his age.He advocated the use of the technique of symbol to describe and symbolize the characters.According to Kawabata Yasunari,the most common method in Yokomitsu literature was the technique of personification to break the subjective thoughts into innumerable fragments.These “thoughts” then took shapes in the characters,and endowed all things with vital signs through man's subjective initiative.It is based on such a concept that the author,while engaging in his artistical practice of New Sensation School,presented the world he perceived through symbolism and other means,along with his perspectives into human existence,and the distortion of society and his age.By doing so,he achieved breakthroughs in conceiving his creative ideas based on his meticulous observation and description of man's value.This paper,by focusing on the author's works during and after the New Sensation School practice,offers an in-depth and systematic analysis of the narrative space built up by the author,and an overall interpretation of his works through detailed analysis of texts against the framework of the times.Stylistics,narratology,gender criticism are the main methods used in this paper.This paper discusses and studies his works from the perspective of novel narration,out of consideration of the nearly 100-year study span.Yokomitsu attached great importance to the style and form of novels,as well as the sensationalization of words and sentences,as is evidenced by his heavy use of personification,metaphor and other techniques.These styles and ways of expression which are different from the traditional Japanese literature,namely the private fiction,suggested the importance of text research on his works.In this paper,examination is conducted of the narrative strategy used by the author during the period,with a view to revealing the ties between the form of his novels and the context of his age,and exploring the ideological and cultural connotation behind his novels,based on analysis of his innovative methods of expression.Further,the paper offers a peep into the inheritance and breakthrough of the author's literary theory to the narration mode of the traditional Japanese literature,by studying the author's writing of “new sensation”.Based on such methods as narratology,comparative literature,and intertextuality,the paper examines his works during that period against the background of the world literature,the times and the discourse.And studies of the above contents are carried out in five chapters,based on the texts of his works.In chapter one,analysis is conducted of the ties between his personal experience and the context of his age,coupled with a summary of his overall creation and development.A country boy who loved writing and started his career from the primary imitation writing,Yokomitsu gradually grew into a flagbearer of the new sensation literary movement.The paper presents how the author,during this period,broke away from the traditional Japanese private novels and started the creation of new sensory literature through continuous attempts.Also,the paper demonstrates the significance of his growth for the cultural context of the time,and his influences on development of Japanese modern literature and Japanese postmodern context.Following an overall review of his life and the ties between his overall creation and western postmodernism,chapter two focuses on his novels.Of his lots of essays,essays,and novels,writing of novels is undoubtedly at the core of his literature creation.Therefore,a study of his narrative features is carried out in terms of forms of art,based on an overall review of naturalistic literature.Following the introduction of modernism into Japan,Yokomitsu was the first to accept and apply it.In this paper,we examine his Fly to offer a new interpretation of his texts,thus offering an important approach to his literature world,with a focus on the narration of “desire space” in the work Sun,which described the devastating price women paid for equal power and status with men,by presenting the confrontation between women and men.Chapter three is about “disease” and narration from female perspective,with a specific text research on his “tales of sick wife”.In ideological content and artistic forms,his novels showed the characteristics of traumatic narration in female description.In the “sick wife” series,features different from other works of new sensory literature were displayed,showing his artistic breakthroughs in narrative.In this chapter,an analysis is conducted of his attention and description of the deepest principles in human nature,such as humanity and conjugal love.Additionally,the paper shows his interpretation of “happiness” through a unique narrative of trauma,by highlighting the entanglement and confrontation between “institutions” and human nature as revealed by Modernism.In chapter four,a focus is placed on cross-border narrative and multivariate presentation of history.As an intellectual with Chinese experience among modern Japanese writers,the author also travelled Europe in an attempt to try new themes and space exploration in his novels.This chapter,by selecting his work Shanghai as the text research object,analyzes the narration in the work.Further,the paper examines his efforts to describe the construction of urban language space,by regarding him as a Japanese writer of modern and contemporary urbanism.Finally,the paper draws a conclusion that the author's attention to historical events is not only different from the historical novels which used historical events as materials,but different from the modernist literary works which used historical texts.The history demonstrated in his novel is not so much a reflection of history,but an attempt to acquire a deeper understanding of the self,and explore the relationship between the self and the others.The paper finds out that,by means of metaphorical description,the author presented a modern Chinese city,as well as the European civilization from a different perspective,while allowing the readers a right of choice and judgment,thus creating an open reading structure and a unique cross-border narration.Chapter five focuses mainly on Dreaming Of Home And Mother,and the space of the eastern and western heterogeneous cultures in the text.Yokomitsu inherited the important theme of “self-exploration” from modern Japanese literature,while paying attention to the situation and history of modern east and Asia,so as to present a deeper self-understanding and interpretation of his times.Based on his experience in Europe,he projected his interpretation of oriental and occidental cultures into the romantic relationship between the hero and the heroine.In this way,the protagonist's consideration about culture was demonstrated with the entanglements and disputes of “love” as the presentation of narration.In addition,the author's cross-border narrative was thus developed.