Japanese naturalistic literature is a new literature that rises against the vulgar realism of "Yanyou Society". Naturalism literature has raised the banner of completely opposing old morality and old ideas, and advocated that everything should be written as it is; In terms of artistic form, they advocate "excluding skills", and in terms of language, they have successfully completed the innovation of "consistency of words and writing".
Naturalistic literary theory has become the dominant theory in the establishment of modern Japanese literature because the bourgeois enlightenment thought has not been thorough since Meiji Restoration, which has delayed the formation of modern literature. With the rise of Japanese militaristic forces, the gloomy atmosphere of social reality is getting heavier and heavier. Before the rise of naturalism literature, the formalism literature of "inkstone Friendship Association" and the romantic literature movement pursuing positive ideals died out one after another under the destruction of dark reality. Japanese writers are generally pessimistic and disillusioned with the times, and they have found ideas that attract their interest from western naturalistic literary theory and the trend of thought at the end of the century. This is why naturalism has become a popular literary movement in Japan.
Japanese naturalistic literature was originally imitated and created by several writers according to this literary theory. 190 1, the pop songs beyond the hills, 1902 Kafka Gai Na's Flower of Hell, are all written according to Zola's naturalism theory. Xiao Shan pointed out in the preface of the work that the content described in the work doesn't matter whether it is good, evil, beautiful or ugly, and the writer's responsibility is to write it truthfully according to the "natural" phenomenon. In the postscript of his works, Gai Na advocates that writers should focus on depicting the "animal nature" brought by "ancestral industry". During this period, the writers' literary views on naturalism only stayed on the introduction of Zola's theory. During the period of 1906- 19 10, a group of naturalistic literary theorists and critics appeared, among which Hougetsu Shimamura, an aesthetician, Tanegawa Tianxi, a literary critic, and others, such as Piantian Xian, Xiang, Xinghunakamura and Jiuxiong Benji, were the most influential. Hasegawa is the most ardent advocate of naturalism, and his representative papers include Art in the Age of Disillusionment, The Game of Eliminating Logic, The Sorrow of Reality Exposure, etc. In these papers, he put forward slogans such as "breaking the truth" and "the sorrow of the awakened one". The so-called "breaking the truth" means that writers should exclude all ideals and write "truth" objectively and realistically; The so-called "sorrow of the awakened one" refers to the writer's "deep sea of sorrow behind him" after "discovering truth but not falsehood", arguing that "this growing sorrow behind him is the real life of modern literature and art". In "On Naturalism in Outlook on Life", Hougetsu Shimamura expressed absolute doubts about all morals, obligations and ideals, and advocated that writers write their own confessions. He said: "Get rid of all hypocrisy, forget all affectation and seriously stare at your own reality. First stare, then you regret it. " Hougetsu Shimamura's ideas provide a theoretical basis for the deep-rooted tradition of "private novels" in Japanese literature.
Japanese naturalist writers have produced various negative factors under the influence of this literary trend of thought. On the subject matter, they accepted the subjective idealism of "only empirical facts or empirical phenomena are' true'" on the basis of naturalism philosophy, and thought that only writing about themselves could keep the life of literature-truth. They also accepted Shimamura's thought of "self-confession", thus limiting their writing scope to personal, mediocre and trivial daily life. In terms of creative methods,
Because we insist on "experience" and "feeling", we deny the role of imagination in literature, even the role of rationality, thus rejecting typical creative methods such as generalization and exaggeration. They emphasize the role of physiological heredity or sexual desire and devote themselves to describing the dark reality under this role. Judging from the "Awakened Sorrow", their works are very gloomy and full of pessimism and despair.
However, we can't generalize all the creative tendencies of Japanese naturalist writers, nor can we completely deny the works with naturalistic tendencies. For example, Shimazaki Tōson's Breaking the precepts and Tayama Katai's Rural Teacher are both works with positive social significance and critical spirit by adopting typical methods. Although influenced by naturalism, Junichiro Shimazaki's Spring and Home and Yamada's Life, Wife and Destiny still reveal reality and criticize society. As for Shimazaki's New Life and Tian Shan's Quilt, they belong to the so-called "confession literature" that describes personal life. This shows that Japanese naturalism literature itself has complicated factors. Shimazaki Tōson's representative novel Breaking the precepts (1906) describes the development process of the protagonist Akimatsu Setagawa from observing the precepts to breaking the precepts, which reflects the entanglement between the modern concepts of eliminating hierarchical differences, advocating human rights liberation and freedom and equality and the feudal hierarchical consciousness left over from Japanese society, and also shows that awakening does not mean the change of the status quo. In the protagonist, it not only shows the resentment, dissatisfaction and resistance of modern Japanese youth to society, but also reflects their weakness.
This is the first mature naturalistic "problem novel" with Japanese characteristics. First of all, Breaking the Ring is written on the basis of field investigation of real events, and the characters and events in the novel have direct or indirect prototypes. Secondly, in this novel, Shimazaki Tōson describes the inner world of the characters and constructs the basic plot by confessing his privacy for the first time. Thirdly, the novel expresses the so-called "sorrow of the awakened one" and embodies the delicate and sentimental style unique to Japanese naturalism. Therefore, it was praised by Sosuke Natsume as "the real novel of Meiji era". At the same time, Breaking the precepts also opened a precedent of blind self-exposure and self-sadness for decadent naturalistic literature, which had a negative impact on modern Japanese literature.
see
Emile Zola
French literature