Chapter 2 of Bunshō Tokuhon, “Varieties of Prose” (Bunshō no samazama), is the longest chapter in the book. Its body runs to about 22,000 characters, roughly a fifth of the whole (the overview article). Here Mishima Yukio looks at the character of Japanese prose through four windows. In the seven articles beginning with this one — features 2 through 4 of this series — we read those four windows in order.
Four sections
| Section | Pages | Content |
|---|---|---|
| Men’s script and women’s script | p.14–21 | The division of language by gender: kanji and kana, logic and feeling |
| Prose and verse | p.22–31 | The history of verse and prose in the West and Japan. Man’yōshū alliteration, the 7-5 meter tradition |
| The historical change of prose aesthetics | p.32–41 | The break after Futabatei Shimei. The history of translationese |
| The habit of savoring prose | p.42–48 | How modern reading habits changed. Prose you “walk” versus prose you “savor” |
The four sections, in a nutshell
Men’s script and women’s script — In the Heian period, kanji was called men’s script, kana women’s script. Logic and intellect belonged to men, feeling and passion to women. And Mishima says that nearly all of Japan’s masculine culture — logic, intellect, abstract concepts — was foreign in origin (Article 2).
Prose and verse — Western literary history began with verse, but Japanese has neither alliteration nor rhyme. Even so, the Man’yōshū achieved an alliteration-like effect through makurakotoba (pillow words). The thirty-one syllables of 5-7-5-7-7, “the golden ratio of Japanese,” carried the 7-5 meter tradition from war chronicles through jōruri to modern advertising slogans (Article 3).
The historical change of prose aesthetics — After Futabatei Shimei, prose underwent a revolutionary change. Everything before, Higuchi Ichiyō and Ozaki Kōyō alike, became classical literature. At the same time, translated style worked its way into Japanese itself (Article 4).
The habit of savoring prose — From kabuki’s “shall I do some reading now” to an age when weekly magazines are thrown away. Mishima says modern people read novels the way they drive a car, no longer looking at the scenery piece by piece (Article 5).
One thread through the chapter
The four sections look like separate topics, but one thread runs through them. It is Mishima’s view that Japanese abstract concepts were not born from within the language, but came from outside.
This view is voiced in “Men’s script and women’s script,” where logic and intellect are entrusted to foreign thought. At the end of “The habit of savoring prose,” it appears again in Mishima’s account of Itō Sei’s invention of writing kanji terms in katakana — a comic effect that strips abstract concepts of their pomposity (examined in detail in the close reading, Article 6).
This chapter’s relation to the first feature
Chapter 5, which we read in the first feature (overview), spoke of “the thinness of logic in Japanese” as the difficulty of critical prose. The argument of “Men’s script and women’s script” is another root of that same view. For Mishima, the idea that Japanese is weak in logic is a consistent theme running across several chapters.
What to keep in mind when reading
First, much of this chapter’s argument is Mishima’s own essayistic view, not an established theory of linguistics. The claim that “Japanese had no abstract concepts of its own” is examined carefully in this feature’s close reading and verdict articles.
Second, the classics quoted (the Man’yōshū, the Tale of the Heike, the Tale of Genji, Kōshoku Ichidai Otoko, and so on) are all public-domain works. They can be checked as originals, apart from Mishima’s copyright. This feature confirms their gist where possible.
Summary
| Point | Detail |
|---|---|
| Size | About 22,000 characters. The longest chapter in the book |
| Four sections | Men’s/women’s script / prose and verse / historical change of aesthetics / habit of savoring prose |
| One thread | The view that abstract concepts came from outside Japanese, not from within |
| Relation to earlier chapter | Another appearance of the same theme as Chapter 5’s “thinness of logic in Japanese” |
In a nutshell — Chapter 2 shows Japanese prose through four windows — gender, meter, history, and reading habit — tied together by one thread: the view that abstract concepts are foreign in origin.