Record Nr.

UNINA9910789073603321

Autore

Arima Tatsuo

Titolo

The failure of freedom : a portrait of modern Japanese intellectuals / / Tatsuo Arima

Pubbl/distr/stampa


Cambridge, Massachusetts : , : Harvard University Press, , 1969
London, [England] : , : Oxford University Press, , [date of distribution not identified]
©1969

ISBN

0-674-28011-3

Edizione

[Reprint 2013]

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (315 pages)

Collana

Harvard East Asian Series ; ; 39

Disciplina

915.2/03/320922

Soggetti

Intellectuals - Japan

Liberalism - Japan

Japan Intellectual life

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

Front matter -- Preface -- Contents -- I. THE REVOLUTIONARY RESTORATION -- II. UCHIMURA KANZŌ: THE POLITICS OF SPIRITUAL DESPAIR -- III. THE ANARCHISTS: THE NEGATION OF POLITICS -- IV. JAPANESE NATURALISM: THE LIMITATIONS OF EXPERIENCE -- V. THE SHIRAKABA-HA: THE TYRANNY OF ART -- VI. ARISHIMA TAKEO: BOURGEOIS CRITICISM -- VII. AKUTAGAWA RYŪNOSUKE: THE LITERATURE OF DEFEATISM -- VIII. PROLETARIAN LITERATURE: THE TYRANNY OF POLITICS -- CONCLUSION -- NOTES -- BIBLIOGRAPHY -- GLOSSARY -- INDEX

Sommario/riassunto

An excellent introduction to Japanese intellectual history in the first third of the twentieth century, this is a study of the intellectual atmosphere that made the development of a constitutional form of government difficult. As heirs to the Meiji Restoration, modern Japanese intellectuals were trapped by the historical paradox that modern Japan was born not so much of the victory of the new forces over the old, as of the skillful self-transformation of the old forces themselves. To reject parts of new Japanese society often meant to reject the whole of it.Tatsuo Arima examines the period's philosophical

and religious writings and the main literary figures and groups and their works and theories about literature. He finds a widespread anticonstitutional mentality and relates it to the intellectuals' political behavior. In particular, he analyzes the reasons why prewar Japanese intellectuals, who seemed to be so opposed to the rise of nationalism, took no socially effective action to prevent its emergence and subsequently became its victims.