Natsume Soseki’s Thanatopsis And Chinese Buddhism Taoism

Natsume Soseki was a leading authority in the Japanese modern Literature. Since the Sino-Japanese cultural exchanges and his love for Chinese Literature, Natsume Soseki was heavily influenced by traditional Chinese culture, including his attitudes and notions towards death. The thesis mainly perspective from thanatopsis to explore the relation between Natsume Soseki and traditional Chinese culture. The thesis composed of three chapters, chapter1probes into Soseki’s Thanatopsis. The Thanatopsis of Soseki changes with times, The connotation Includes following aspects:positive life and happy death, the same life and deathand death values more than life, moreover, three aspects, social environment, family and his own reasons, emotional experience and his friends, have been discussed to clarify the reason of it. Chapter2focuses on relation of Soseki’s Thanatopsis to Chinese Buddhist. The mainstays of Chinese traditional culture are Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism, therefore, the descriptions of the relation was emphasis on Chinese traditional culture and Soseki’s Thanatopsis. Two sections had been divided to describe the Soseki’s Thanatopsis which had been influence by "seeing life and death as one form" and "Zen" from Buddhism. The writer also use Xin to discuss the origin of Soseki’s Thanatopsis and Buddhism. In Chapter3, in order to analyze the relation of Soseki’s Thanatopsis to Taoism, The writer take Chinese poetry for example. The influence by Taoism can be found in Soseki’ideology and works, especially in the "positive life and happy death" and "Nature",and also dig into the idea that" to seek Tao " and " to become an immortal" from his Chinese poetry by this chance. Chapter4is conclusion. This part summarizes three characteristics of Soseki’s Thanatopsis:epoch characteristics; personality characteristics; Chinese characteristics. By this intelligible describe of the relation between Chinese traditional culture and Soseki’s Thanatopsis, The writer expect to let us a deeper understanding of Japanese literature.