The third section of Chapter 2, “The Historical Change of Prose Aesthetics,” races through, in about 10,000 characters, from the stylistic reform of the Meiji era to the translated style of Mishima’s own time. (Page numbers follow the edition described in the overview article. English renderings of the quotations are ToL translations.)
Futabatei Shimei, a point of rupture
The section opens with a clear declaration.
二葉亭四迷以後、われわれの文章は革命的変化を経ました。それまでの文学はすべて古典文学になってしまいました。（p.32）
(After Futabatei Shimei, our prose underwent a revolutionary change. All the literature before that became classical literature.)
Mishima says that even Meiji-era writers — Higuchi Ichiyō’s Takekurabe, Ozaki Kōyō’s pre-colloquial prose in Konjiki Yasha — now sound like nothing but words distant to the modern reader’s ear. In the world of poetry too, he says, even as modern Western poetry was being imported, old people long thought “poetry” meant Chinese verse.
Mishima cites a passage of Ihara Saikaku’s Kōshoku Ichidai Otoko as an example of gikobun (archaizing prose, the affectedly learned style of the Edo period). (As a public-domain text, that passage is not quoted in this article.)
Modern colloquial poetry, and old diction
Mishima says the same break reached poetry, too. He tells of an avant-garde modern poet who, having said “I do poetry for old folks,” ended up asked to brush a Chinese poem — a familiar kind of trouble. In poetry, too, figures like Kawaji Ryūkō opened the way to free verse in the colloquial language, but for many old people the consciousness that “poetry” meant Chinese verse remained strong.
The break between classical and modern literature, the first half of this section says, reached not only prose but the world of poetry as well.
Modern colloquial prose absorbing translation
In the latter half, Mishima moves to the history of translated style. The vocabulary of German idealist philosophy, he says, spread its influence over law, the military, every field, and we have come to use it without even thinking of it as translated language any more. Meanwhile, after the war, French concepts, of the kind seen in the prose of Sartre or of Ōe Kenzaburō, have come to fill our lives in a somewhat confused way.
Mishima adds a caveat: Ōe Kenzaburō’s prose can feel remarkably close to Sartre’s, but he is not saying Ōe’s prose is a translation of Sartre — rather, the two seem to share a similar way of thinking. With this kind of development, he says, French literary concepts have entered our lives freely, and an international confusion of concepts has been added on top.
He then gives Yokomitsu Riichi’s prose as an example.
ナポレオン・ボナパルトの腹は、チュイレリーの観台の上で、折からの虹と対戦するかのやうに、巴里の半景を歪ませながら、幽かに妃の指紋のために曇つてゐた。（横光利一「ナポレオンと田虫」）
(Napoleon Bonaparte’s belly, atop the Tuileries observation platform, as if doing battle with the rainbow that happened to be out, distorted the half-view of Paris, and was faintly clouded by the fingerprints of the Empress.)
Mishima judges that such prose, even seen today, is clearly translationese, and that we came to call it “Japanese prose” in the early period of the Shinkankaku (New Sensation) school. Translated style, he says, has now become almost an unconscious translated idiom, and the effect it once had — of adding something fresh to our sensibility — has been entirely lost.
Mori Ōgai’s work of translation
As an example of a good translation that enriched Japanese itself, Mishima names Mori Ōgai. In the same section, this passage is quoted (Andersen’s Improvisatoren, translated by Mori Ōgai).
ここはわが心の故郷なり、色彩あり、形相あるは、伊太利の山河のみなり。わがあくがれの地に来たる楽しさをば、君もおもひ遣り給へ。（p.33、森鷗外訳）
(Here is my heart’s homeland; only the mountains and rivers of Italy have color and form. Imagine, if you will, the joy of my having come to this land I longed for.)
Mishima judges that Ōgai’s Sokkyō Shijin was known for its fine prose. He says that translated prose influencing modern colloquial prose is beyond doubt, and that fine translated prose such as Ōgai’s has gone on to shape modern colloquial prose itself. (This surrounding passage is affected by heavy scanning noise; this article treats it as a summary.)
What to keep in mind when reading
First, the latter half of this section (the history of translated style) includes passages badly affected by scanning noise. In this article, the noisiest passages are treated as summary, and only the parts confirmed against images of the original (Mori Ōgai’s translation, Yokomitsu Riichi’s passage) are given as quotations.
Second, Mishima’s phrasing — “after Futabatei Shimei, all the literature before that became classical literature” — is a strong assertion. Higuchi Ichiyō and Ozaki Kōyō are not entirely unread today. Mishima’s judgment is best read as the felt sense of one writer in 1959.
Third, this article has not separately verified the copyright status of the Yokomitsu Riichi quotation. Yokomitsu Riichi died in 1947, and under Japan’s current copyright term (70 years post-mortem), his copyright expired in 2017. We treat it as public-domain prose quoted within Mishima’s copyrighted work.
Summary
| Point | Detail |
|---|---|
| Break | After Futabatei Shimei, all literature before that became classical literature |
| The world of poetry | Even after modern Western poetry was imported, old people long thought “poetry” meant Chinese verse |
| Good translation | Mori Ōgai’s Sokkyō Shijin. Fine prose that influenced modern colloquial prose |
| Translationese | Yokomitsu Riichi’s “Napoleon to Tamushi.” An example of translationese from the Shinkankaku era |
| Now | Both good translation and translationese have already worked their way into Japanese |
In a nutshell — Mishima saw a divide in Japanese prose at Futabatei Shimei, and read the century after as one in which good translation and translationese, mixed together, remade the Japanese language.