The vicissitudes of drama as a literary genre in Meiji-Taishō debates

decades around the Taish6 era (1912-26), drama enjoyed something of a heyday in Japanese literature.Almost eve1y writer of the day at least dabbled in this form, and many-including Tanizaki Jun'ichiro, Yamamoto Yi1z6, Kikuchi Kan, Kume Masao, Arishima Takeo, Mushanokoji Saneatsu, Nogami Yaeko and Ueda (Enchi) Fumiko, to name just a few-established themselves as playwrights before or while still settling into fiction.Some, like Y oshii Isamu and Kinoshita Mokutaro, were poets who caught the drama bug.Many more, men and women like Suzuki Senzabur6, Okada Y achiyo, Hasegawa Shigure, Kubota Mantar6, Kishida Kunio and Akita Ujaku, devoted themselves almost exclusively to writing for the stage.One of the first scholars to write a major study of modern drama in Japan, Oyama Isao, lists some eighty professional playwrights active in Japan from ca. 1900-1940; the volume of work that they produced is immense. 1 Some of the earliest modern Japanese literature to be translated into European languages was of drama by Shoy6, Tanizaki, Yamamoto, Mushanokoji, Kikuchi, Kishida and others.Kori Torahiko even wrote drama in English, and at least one of his plays, The Death of Yoritomo, was performed on the London stage.Many of these writers, particularly those who were almost exclusively playwrights, are practically forgotten today and the ones we remember are often remembered for other things.In fact, drama is a subject that has been given remarkably short shrift in Japanese literary studies over the past century or so.Tsubouchi Shoyo's Shi5setsu shinzui (The Essence of the Novel, 1885-6), for example, has amassed a significant body of criticism in English, to say nothing of Japanese, but this work was really a footnote to a life devoted to theatre and drama, which few since Sh6y6's death in 1935 have bothered to study in any great detail. 2 What is also forgotten in much discussion of the rise of naturalism in Japan is that it was the plays of Ibsen and Hauptmann and not the fiction of Zola or Maupassant that kick-started this movement in the first decade of the twentieth centu1y.To understand the rise and fall of drama as a literary genre in early twentieth-centmy Japan, however, we must go back a couple of decades f\Jrther, to the debates over theatre reform in the 1880s.Japan has one of the greatest theatre traditions in the world, and drama has played no small part in this.The counhy has produced unique forms like noh, the puppet theatre and kabuki; the latter two, in particular, played a crucial role in the rise of early modern Japanese culture.It would be no exaggeration to say that, well into the late nineteenth century, kabuki remained the dominant form of cultural expression for the Japanese.By the 1880s, however, prominent critics like Suematsu Kencho (1855-1920), Toyama Masakazu (1848-1900) and other members of the Engeki kaiiyokai (Society for Theatre Reform, 1886) took kabuki to task for its coarseness and failure to promote the Meiji project of "civilization and enlightenment" (bunmei kaika).Much of the debate sunounding this movement revolved around efforts to recognize the artistic value of the dramatic text and to reform kabuki playscripts (kyakuhon) in accordance with 1 See Oyama !sao, Kindai Niho11 gikyokushi, 4 vols.(Yamagata: Kindai Nihon gikyoknshi kankokai, 1968). 2 A recent exception is Tsuno Kaitaro, Kokkei 110 kyoji11: Tsubouchi Sh6y6 110 yume (Tokyo: Heibonsha, 2002).Poulton 165 newly imported western ideals of dramatic form.Besides noting the high social status accorded to theatre in nineteenth century Europe and America, the importance accorded there to drama as a literary genre exercised some of the best minds of the Meiji era.Nishi Amane (1826-1894), Mori Ogai's mentor, was instrumental in introducing Aristotle's Poetics and Western drama theory to the Japanese.His Hyakugaku renkan (Encyclopedia, 1870-72) identified a variety of poetic forms, including epic, lyric, ballad and drama.Drama was further distinguished into comedic and tragic forms, which were more refined than those seen in Japanese theatre, which was "a medium for the lewd and base," Nishi asserted.3 Numerous other Meiji intellectuals, from liberal politician Nakae Chomin (1847-1901) and critic Ishibashi Ningetsu (1865-1926), to novelist Futabatei Shimei ( 1864-1909) and Dostoyevsky translator Uchida Roan ( 1868-1929), served as conduits of Aristotelian drama theory, via nineteenth century aestheticians like Hegel, Lessing and Belinsky.Many recognized that, while Japan had a rich and venerable theatrical culture and even a number of illustrious playwrights, nonetheless, the dramatic text had counted for little or nothing of literary value.In large part, this move reflected a power struggle between the traditional kabuki, where actors were king, and the rising Meiji intelligentsia, who felt increasingly that external control of the theatre was needed to elevate it into a more respectable art form.Hisamatsu Sadahiro, in his Doitsu gikyoku tai'i (An Outline of German Drama, 1887), wrote that "drama harmoniously combines the two forms of epos and lyric into one genre."Indeed, Hisamatsu concludes, "drama is the most artistic of all the arts." 4 But a cardinal feature of Meiji culture was its quest for artistic and generic purity, and many critics would find fault with traditional Japanese plays for their "impure," hybrid form.Mori Ogai, one of the towering figures of Meiji Japanese culture, would reflect the desire for a more "pure" drama.In his criticism of the Society for Theatre Reform's program, Ogai argued for a clear distinction between what he called "straight drama" (seigeki) and "opera" (gakugeki), with the latter "falling somewhere between a jidaimono in kabuki and a joruri puppet play."He complained of "distracting 'operatic elements' in our national practice," advocating a "simpler and more truly artistic theatre" that did not try to "distract the audience with specious shows of 'real' stage effects."5 A play should be given life through its text: it should present poetic nuances in dialogue form (jinjo 110 gengo oto no aida 11i shiso 110 myomi wo ge11tei subeki), with the actor bringing the script to life.

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