Sirens of the Western shore : the westernesque femme fatale, translation, and vernacular style in modern Japanese literature / Indra Levy.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Levy, Indra A.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Women in literature.

Japanese literature--1868---History and criticism.

Japanese literature.

Japanese literature--Western influences.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (343 p.)

Place of Publication:

New York : Columbia University Press, c2006.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Indra Levy introduces a new archetype in the study of modern Japanese literature: the "Westernesque femme fatale," an alluring figure who is ethnically Japanese but evokes the West in her physical appearance, lifestyle, behavior, and, most important, her use of language. She played conspicuous roles in landmark works of modern Japanese fiction and theater. Levy traces the lineage of the Westernesque femme fatale from her first appearance in the vernacularist fiction of the late 1880's to her development in Naturalist fiction of the mid-1900's and, finally, to her spectacular embodiment by the modern Japanese actress in the early 1910's with the advent of Naturalist theater. In all cases the Westernesque femme fatale both attracts and confounds the self-consciously modern male intellectual through a convention-defying use of language. What does this sirenlike figure reveal about the central concerns of modern Japanese literature? Levy proposes that the Westernesque femme fatale be viewed as the hallmark of an intertextual exoticism that prizes the strange beauty of modern Western writing. By illuminating the exoticist impulses that gave rise to this archetype, Levy offers a new understanding of the relationships between vernacular style and translation, original and imitation, and writing and performance within a cross-cultural context. A seamless blend of narrative, performance, translation, and gender studies, this work will have a profound impact on the critical discourse on this formative period of modern Japanese literature.

Contents:

Front matter

Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Part One: Foreign Letters, the Vernacular, and Meiji Schoolgirls

1. Translation as Origin and the Originality of Translation

2. Meiji Schoolgirls in and as Language

Part Two: Tayama Katai and the Siren of Vernacular Letters

3. Portrait of the Naturalist as a Young Exote

4. Literary Desire and the Exotic Language of Love: From "Shōshijin" to Jokyōshi

5. Haunting the Laboratory of Vernacular Style: The Sirens of "Shōjobyō" and Futon

Part Three: Staging the New Woman. The Spectacular Embodiment of "Nature" in Translation

6. Setting the Stage for Translation

7. Gender Drag, Culture Drag, and Female Interiority

Final Reflections: Gender, Cultural Hierarchy, and Literary Style

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references (p. [303]-312) and index.

ISBN:

9780231510745

0231510748

OCLC:

818856100