Natsume Soseki made it clear from the beginning that his "self-orientation" is definitely not the kind of egoism that is always self-centered, but a fair and just way to develop self-personality. It is one's personal right to develop one's own personality and pursue one's own happiness, but one cannot deprive others of the right to develop one's own personality and pursue happiness for no reason. Finally, he declared that his individualism is by no means the kind that harms the country and others, but an individualism based on "morality" and respect for the existence of others. He summed up the characteristics of this "self-centered" thought as three points: (1) If you want to develop your own personality, you must respect the personality of others; (2) If you want to use the power you have, you must understand the obligations that accompany this power; (3) If you want to show the power of your money, you must pay attention to the responsibilities that come with the power of money. At the same time, he warned young people that if a person does not have a certain degree of "moral cultivation" as the basis, then he has no need to develop his personality and has no value in exercising financial power.
Natsume put forward the theory of "inhuman feelings" in The Grass Pillow. The proposition and meaning of "non-human" are closely related to Zen thought. In the Meiji era, when western Europe was widely studied and imitated, Su Shi put forward the theory of "non-human" literary creation, aiming at calling on Japanese writers to create literature with their own national characteristics.
In addition, in the theoretical construction of Natsume Soseki's literary theory, there is an obvious feature: the method of argumentation is western empiricism philosophy and psychological theory, but the ideological basis is the "useful learning" of Sinology (Cao Pi's Dian Lun). The main western theories used in the book are: Spencer's empiricism philosophy, T.A. Lipper's psychology of emotion, Lloyd Morgan's comparative psychology and William James's stream of consciousness. When discussing the artist's creative attitude and ideal, he used the dichotomy of "things and me" in psychology, dividing "things" into the world of nature, people and extrasensory, dividing the spiritual function of "I" into "knowledge, emotion and meaning" and further dividing it into "truth, goodness, beauty and solemnity".
When discussing the fourth spiritual function, he thinks that "will" and "practice of will" (here refers to morality) are inseparable, and he puts forward his own unique ideal of literary artists based on Confucian morality-"solemnity", because this is the focus of Natsume Soseki's discussion, from which we can understand the true face of Natsume Soseki's thought. He said that this "strong" ideal, combined with the moral ideal of "serving the country, serving the road and being a man", can produce a "particularly noble sentiment", that is, the so-called heroism. "To achieve true heroism, you can produce an extremely heroic emotion." Later, he said with regret: "among writers and artists, there are few people who take this emotion as their ideal." From his understanding, it is not difficult for us to understand the characters with high sense of social responsibility and strong ethical and moral cultivation in comfortable literature.
The purpose of "realistic literature" in summer is not to pursue truth. His literary thought takes "ego as the standard" and pursues "goodness, beauty and solemnity" as the ideal. The root of his "self-orientation" thought is still based on eastern Confucianism, and the intervention of western thought and philosophy only provides a way for him to choose the road of life and construct literary theory. Natsume loved China literature all his life. Before his death, China's poems remained in the world until the disaster of Jianshan Temple. This shows the important position of China's poetry in Natsume Soseki's life. Natsume is a great novelist, an outsider and a rare China poet since Meiji. I have experienced English literature and been deeply influenced by western literature, and I have shown my excellent Chinese literacy many times in my works. Advocating the Edo feelings in Xie Wucun's haiku, he heard the essence of "China". He was born in the background that the whole country was learning from the West after the Meiji Restoration, and actively or passively responded to the call of the state to introduce western learning, which is undoubtedly contradictory to Sosuke Natsume, who was familiar with Tang and Song poems since childhood. This can also be clearly seen from Natsume's China poems.
As a student, Natsume Sasaki wrote 38 Chinese poems, including 1 unfinished poems and 6 Chinese poems, which was the first period. In the early days, I loved reading China's poems comfortably and fell in love with the cultivation of China's ancient books. The China characters in this period even mentioned in the Book of Sawdust that "when I was a child, I used thousands of words of happiness in the Tang and Song Dynasties as articles or engravings with good intentions ... so I wanted to stand on my own feet with words". It can be seen that Natsume's early Chinese poetry creation mainly focuses on the adaptation of accepted Tang and Song poems, and still stays at the life level of theme, history, farewell, old friends, etc. In the second period, 19 Chinese poems were written, but no Chinese poems were handed down from generation to generation. 1892 In May, 25-year-old Shu Shi became a lecturer in Tokyo Special School, and wrote an oriental philosophy paper "The Philosophy of Laozi", advocating egalitarianism. During the period, due to neurasthenia, I began to have a tendency to be world-weary. In the poems of this period, most of them are about enlightenment, meditation and indifference to fame and fortune, and the words "Zen", "Tao" and "Baiyun" appear repeatedly in the poems. In Japanese academic circles, Natsume Soseki's study of Chinese poetry has been paid more and more attention. Japanese scholars pay attention to evidence and materials, and carve the details of Natsume Soseki's Chinese poems with their good sensibility. However, due to the influence of the work itself or China literature (such as Tao Yuanming), it is limited to a certain angle, which greatly restricts the depth and breadth of his thinking field.
Natsume Soseki, who has a knowledge background in China literature and English studies, can not be limited to any seemingly established literary concept, but also has a non-historical literary view, which is of great practical significance in any era. Therefore, Natsume Soseki can really be called the first person in the history of modern Japanese literature.