This feature began with the overview article and read the three sections — “Two Kinds of Models,” “The Prose of the Short Story,” “The Prose of the Long Novel” — along with two close readings. Here we look back over the range read.
A contrast still invoked
The contrast Ōgai=simple, Kyōka=splendid is not Mishima’s invention. But formulating this pair vividly through the words “Apollonian” and “Dionysian” is one of the well-known achievements of Mishima’s Bunshō Tokuhon. As we confirmed in Close reading 1, this contrast is genuinely rooted in the concrete structural difference between the two writers’ prose (compressing time versus arranging space). The way of speaking of Ōgai and Kyōka as writers of two opposite poles — simplicity and splendor — remains, even today, a shared reference point, repeatedly invoked in writing that introduces modern Japanese literature.
Likewise, the biographical fact that Ōgai excelled at the short story and short piece and never wrote a great long novel, and that Shibue Chūsai holds an exceptional position among Ōgai’s works as his longest, are easy to confirm as matters of record.
A diagnosis reexamined
On the other hand, Mishima’s diagnosis that “the European-style roman has still not appeared in Japan” needs to be read carefully.
This diagnosis dates to 1959, when Mishima was thirty-four. Mishima himself would go on to write great long novels, such as the tetralogy The Sea of Fertility (1969–1971). This feature has not individually verified whether that later work of Mishima’s own, or the long novels of postwar writers such as Ōe Kenzaburō, satisfy the conditions Mishima called a “roman.” Still, it is worth confirming that the 1959 diagnosis, “Japan has no roman yet,” cannot simply be applied to the present as it stands.
The short story equals poetry — a hypothesis
The view we read in Article 3 — that “the Japanese short story has occupied a place close to Western poetry” — rests on the premise, from Chapter 2, that “prose and verse never split clearly.” That premise itself is Mishima’s own particular view, as we confirmed in the Chapter 2 verdict article. So this theory of the short story, too, is best read not as established literary history but as a hypothesis drawn from Mishima’s consistent theory of Japanese.
Still, positioning Kawabata Yasunari, Kajii Motojirō, and Hori Tatsuo as novelists close to “poets” is, in itself, close to a view widely shared within literary history.
The limits of applying men’s/women’s script
As we confirmed in Close reading 2, Mishima reuses one premise — “men’s script and women’s script” — repeatedly, from Chapter 2 through Chapter 3. This consistency is a structural strength of his Bunshō Tokuhon. But the premise itself — the essentializing division of logic as masculine, passion as feminine — remains Mishima’s own view, not an established theory of linguistics or literary studies. Being used consistently does not, by itself, make the premise correct.
Limits of this feature
One, this feature does not quote the texts of writers other than Ōgai and Kyōka (Shiga Naoya, Tanizaki Jun’ichirō, Kawabata Yasunari, Hori Tatsuo, Kajii Motojirō, and others), since their copyright may still be in force. In many places only Mishima’s judgment is introduced, in summary, and how far that judgment is actually borne out by each writer’s prose has not been confirmed.
Two, Mishima’s long quotation from Goethe’s Elective Affinities (translated by Takahashi Kenji) is not quoted in this feature, out of respect for the translator’s rights as well. The actual example of long-novel style itself is something readers must confirm for themselves, against the original.
Three, whether a roman in Mishima’s sense has since appeared in Japanese literature is not examined in this feature. That is, in itself, a large question of literary history, beyond this feature’s scope.
Summary
| Point | Verdict |
|---|---|
| The Ōgai/Kyōka contrast | Still invoked today. Rooted in the structure of the prose itself |
| Ōgai’s leaning toward short fiction | Easy to confirm as biographical fact |
| “Japan has no roman” | A 1959 diagnosis. Its later development is unexamined in this feature |
| The short story=poetry hypothesis | Mishima’s hypothesis, dependent on Chapter 2’s premise |
| Applying men’s/women’s script | Consistent, but the correctness of the premise itself is not guaranteed |
In a nutshell — Chapter 3 left behind a contrast, Ōgai and Kyōka, that still lives on; but its diagnosis that “Japan has no roman yet” would come to be reexamined, not least by Mishima’s own later work.