Suicidal Narrative in Modern Japan : The Case of Dazai Osamu / Alan Stephen Wolfe.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Wolfe, Alan Stephen, author.

Series:

Studies of the East Asian Institute.

Studies of the East Asian Institute ; 1077

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Suicide in literature.

Dazai, Osamu, 1909-1948--Criticism and interpretation.

Genre:

Electronic books.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (280 p.)

Edition:

Course Book

Place of Publication:

Princeton, NJ : Princeton University Press, [2014]

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Dazai Osamu (1909-1948) is one of Japan's most famous literary suicides, known as the earliest postwar manifestation of the genuinely alienated writer in Japan. In this first deconstructive reading of a modern Japanese novelist, Alan Wolfe draws on contemporary Western literary and cultural theories and on a knowledge of Dazai's work in the context of Japanese literary history to provide a fresh view of major texts by this important literary figure. In the process, Wolfe revises Japanese as well as Western scholarship on Dazai and discovers new connections among suicide, autobiography, alienation, and modernization. As shown here, Dazai's writings resist narrative and historical closure; while he may be said to serve the Japanese literary establishment as both romantic decadent and representative scapegoat, his texts reveal a deconstructive edge through which his posthumous status as a monument of negativity is already perceived and undone. Wolfe maintains that cultural modernization pits a Western concept of the individual as realized self and coherent subject against an Eastern absent self--and that a felt need to overcome this tension inspires the autobiographical fiction so prevalent in Japanese novels. Suicidal Narrative in Modern Japan shows that Dazai's texts also resist readings that would resolve the gaps (East/West, self/other, modern/premodern) still prevalent in Japanese intellectual life.Originally published in 1990.The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Contents:

Frontmatter

CONTENTS

PREFACE

Introduction. SAINT OF NEGATIVITY Introduction SAINT OF NEGATIVITY

PART ONE: Nation and Suicidal Narrative

Chapter One. FROM SEPPUKUTOJISATSU: SUICIDE AS NATIONAL ALLEGORY

Chapter Two. TWO TALES OF SUICIDE: SOCIO-LITERARY COMPLICITIES IN JAPANESE MODERNIZATION

PART TWO: Suicidal Autobiography

Chapter Three. NOVEL, GHOSTLY, AND NEGATIVE SELVES

Chapter Four. THE LAST OF THE I-NOVELISTS

Chapter Five. DYING TWICE: ALLEGORIES OF IMPOSSIBILITY

PART THREE: Japanese Litteraturicide and Postwar Rebirth

Chapter Six. DEATHSCRIPT: SUICIDE AS POLITICAL SURVIVAL

Chapter Seven. ALLEGORICAL UNDOINGS

Chapter Eight. JAPANESE RESSENTIMENT

Epilogue. POSTMODERN POSTMORTEM

NOTES

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

INDEX

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references (p. [247]-255).

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 08. Jul 2019)

ISBN:

9780691636351

0691636354

9780691607832

0691607834

9781400861002

1400861004

OCLC:

884013013