7
As Dr. Kawazoe states, the Kenyūsha showed respect for the demi-novel genre and they seemed to be working towards its restoration, although, at first, their attitude was a reaction against the awkward style of foreign literary translations. Nevertheless,the failure of the Kenyūsha resulted from their misconception of what Futabatei really tried to accomplish--the creation of a new form of narrative. There is no doubt that the Kenyūsha used a more plausible plot, discarding supernatural elements in their stories, and that they sought to renovate their writing by traditional rhetoric; however, these efforts could not meet the demands of modern literature. As a matter of fact, these new techniques were acquired as a result of having been in contact with western literature. Therefore, the writings of the Kenyūsha were ridiculed for containing such a term as "Yōsō Bungaku"[1] by a group of writers who had been striving on their own accord to assimilate western concepts into their writings so as to liberate themselves from conventionalism. Tayama Katai was one of those writers who had accepted ideas from western literature as a means of awakening his mind.
In the preface of No no Hana, or Flowers of the Field, written in 1901, Katai points out that the literati of his day were "too romantic," emphasizing that "Nature is offered as a sacrifice for the sake of an author's trivial subjectivism," and he praises the writings of Maupassant and Flaubert, advocating his ideas in the following statement:
I wish Meiji literature would become a little less romantic and write more freely even of the secrets of human
- ↑ Yōsō Bungaku is a derogatory term used for Japanese writers who imitate western diction in their semi-classical style of writing, just as men of the Meiji era imitated western clothing.
