The first section of Chapter 2, “Men’s Script and Women’s Script,” begins with the division of scripts in the Heian period. Short, at about 5,400 characters, but the core of Mishima’s view of Japanese appears here. (Page numbers follow the edition described in the overview article. English renderings of the quotations are ToL translations.)
The literature of women’s script
Mishima first confirms that Heian-period literature was mostly the work of women writers. Japan’s pure classic is written in kana. From the “soft, curled” shapes of hiragana, he says, one feels little that is boldly masculine.
In the Heian period, kanji was called men’s script, hiragana women’s script. Poetry collections in Chinese, like the Wakan Rōeishū, were mostly the work of men; meanwhile, in the world of the thirty-one-syllable waka, women held a leading place. The opening line of the Tosa Diary, “Men, too, are said to keep diaries,” is, according to Mishima, a kind of excuse — for its author (Ki no Tsurayuki, a man) had disguised himself as a woman in order to write in women’s script.
Logic and feeling, divided by gender
From here Mishima widens the discussion to Heian society itself. Logic and feeling, intellect and passion, he says, were clearly divided between men and women. Women represented feeling and passion; men represented logic and intellect. In the extension of logic and intellect lay politics, economics, social concerns; in the extension of feeling and passion lay ardor, love, jealousy, the pain of unrequited love, sorrow.
By the common sense of modern literature, literature weighs toward the side of feeling and passion. But in the age under the influence of old Chinese culture, Mishima says, this was not necessarily so. Rhetorical prose extended into politics and economics; writing carried both a public function and a private one.
Logic and intellect were foreign
In the latter half of the section, Mishima puts forward a large view of Japanese history. Japan’s masculine culture — the culture of logic and intellect — was, he says, almost entirely something that came from outside.
The cultivation of Chinese and Chinese letters in the Heian period was, in the age of the warrior class, replaced by the influence of Zen, then of Confucianism. And after the Meiji Restoration, this structure did not change.
この影響は明治維新以後にもあいかわらず払拭されませんでした。ドイツ観念論哲学の用語が嵐のごとく日本の知識階級の用語になって流入し、あらゆる抽象概念はドイツ観念論の用語で代用されました。（p.18）
(This influence was not shaken off even after the Meiji Restoration. The terms of German idealist philosophy flowed in like a storm to become the vocabulary of Japan’s intellectual class, and every abstract concept was substituted by German-idealist terms.)
And whatever might correspond to a peculiarly Japanese abstract concept, Mishima writes, was always wrapped in a mist of emotion, soaked in the humidity of feeling, and could never gain independence, autonomy, or clarity.
Shiga Naoya’s An’ya Kōro
Mishima says even modern writers cannot escape this structure. As an example, he names Tokitō Kensaku, the protagonist of Shiga Naoya’s An’ya Kōro (A Dark Night’s Passing).
志賀直哉氏の『暗夜行路』の主人公時任謙作は、彼が行動的人間であると同時に、異常な官能的人間であることで、西洋の近代小説から劃然と離れております。（p.20）
(Tokitō Kensaku, the protagonist of Shiga Naoya’s An’ya Kōro, stands sharply apart from the modern Western novel in that he is a man of action and, at the same time, an extraordinarily sensory man.)
Mishima judges that Tokitō Kensaku entirely lacks abstract concepts, and is a man only in action and love, only in sense and the senses. Here, he says, one sees a certain extreme of the image of masculinity Japanese writers have made.
And since Japanese people use Japanese, Mishima concludes, they cannot escape this long tradition and Japan’s peculiar character. Rather, he says, Japanese literature may be said to stand unrivaled in the world in its feminine ideal, the ideal of feeling and passion.
What to keep in mind when reading
First, the claim that “Japanese had no abstract concepts of its own” is Mishima’s essayistic view, not an established theory of linguistics. That much of Japan’s abstract vocabulary consists of Sino-Japanese words or of translation terms coined in the Meiji period is a widely known fact. But the part that concludes from this that “Japan’s own abstract concepts cannot gain autonomy and clarity” is Mishima’s own judgment, not a linguistically proven claim. We examine this further in this feature’s close reading.
Second, Mishima’s account of the Tosa Diary (that Ki no Tsurayuki disguised himself as a woman) is a widely known, general understanding; this article has not verified it further.
Third, the judgment of Shiga Naoya’s An’ya Kōro is Mishima’s criticism, not Shiga’s own words. This article does not quote Shiga’s text.
Summary
| Point | Detail |
|---|---|
| Men’s and women’s script | In the Heian period, kanji was called men’s script, kana women’s script |
| Division | Men represented logic and intellect; women represented feeling and passion |
| Mishima’s view | The culture of men’s logic and intellect was almost entirely foreign (Zen, Confucianism, German idealism) |
| Result | Japan’s own abstract concepts were wrapped in emotional mist and never gained clarity |
| Example | Tokitō Kensaku in Shiga Naoya’s An’ya Kōro. Lacking abstract concepts; a man only in action and love |
In a nutshell — Behind the division of kanji and kana by gender, Mishima saw a history in which Japan’s culture of logic and intellect had come, almost entirely, from outside.