On The Ryunosuke Akutagawa's Historical Novel

Ryunosuke Akutagawa, one of the representative authors from "New Trends School" in Japan, whose rich life experience, keen insight and the persistent pursuit of art make his literary unique. Historical novels occupy a very important position in his literary creation. His historical novels reflect the current world through ancient stories to explore the eternal theme of humanity and art first.Therefore, this paper, via stylistics and narratology theory, aims to meticulously explore the theme of humanity and artistic supremacy presented in Akutagawa's historical novels. Firstly, taking Nose, a master work of human nature theme as example, the writer explored human nature of good, evil, and hypocrisy that embedded between the lines from perspectives of the attitude change of bystanders, inner world analyses of the protagonist and the symbolic meaning of the nose. Secondly, taking Hell Change, the masterpiece on the theme of art first as example, the writer made a profound interpretation on Akutagawa's"life for the sake of art"from the angles of art and power, art and life as well as art and reality. Finally, the writer analyzed several other works in order to comprehensively observe the full view of the theme of Akutagawa's historical novels.