Japanese Literature

When the concept of "space" materializes, it surreptitiously causes the repression of temporarity and historicity. At the same time, behind the apparent plurality and collectiveness that constitute the "space," singularity and particularity also suffer repression. The spetial metaphor embodied by "space" abstracts the history before and after the moment of emergence of the "space" itself, conceals its source, and consequently confines our understanding within the limits of later-established self-evident theses. Such self-evidence, along with the distinction of genre including waka, narrative, haikai, novel, poetry, informs the understanding of such media as manuscripts (shahon), oral narrative, newspaper, printed literature, bundan, theater and classroom. In this report entiled "`Soseki' as a 'Space'," I intend to expose, to the concept of the "space," the territories of 1) newspaper as genre, 2) the naming of "Soseki," 3) printed discourses of novel, 4) language, in order to inquire into the conditions preceding and following the hypostatization of these territories as self-evident "space." This practice is supported by the preceding and subsequent orders in the "space" of General Convention.

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Currently, what dominates school and classroom as institution is the culture of letter. There can be observed a struggle between the dominant literary language spoken by teachers and the culture of voice belonging to the young people who try to break down this dominance through their "silence" and "muttering." As part of the experimental class opening to a new dimension, we have planned and carried out the "attempt at a reportage by a group." I have tried to report the process along with the examination of other practices.

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Among the dominant discourses of the sixties and the seventies were the nostalgic ethnological discourses of Yanagida Kunio and Origuchi Shinobu. As autonomous discourses, they conceal Japanese colonialism and cause "repetition" by shutting out external worlds. It is my opinion that these discourses can be summarized under the name of the Ideology of Southern Islands, which seeks the "immediate presence of the origin" in the "southern islands" (see my The Emergence of the Ideology of Southern Islands: Yanagida Kunio and Colonialism, Fukutake Shoten, 1992). This time, among Yanagida's ethnological discourses which constitute prototypes of this ideology, I propose to pursue the traces of "Sanjinron" (The Theory of Mountain People), which disappeared at the emergence of the concept of "southern islands." After Life in the Mountains, Yanagida abandons the idea of Sanjin (his theory of other races) to pick up the discussion of jomin. In my opinion, the theory that succeeds to this theory of Sanjin is Origuchi's concept of marebito. The other person who continues this thinking is Hayakawa Kotaro, the author of Hanamatsuri, the theatrical adaptation of the idea of Sanmin. I will observe the colonial aspects of "ethnology" in early Showa, which was "Shinkokugaku" (New Official Discipline), by examining the "site" of Hayakawa's "ethnology," which held a close relation to Yanagida's and Origuchi's theories, as well as by observing the positions of these three. In addition, I hope to mention, if possible, the eighteenth century dominated by Norinaga as the age of "protocolonialism." I also have to announce that these points have already been called attention to in the review of the August volume of Shino (by Yun Kowon Cha) and made subject of the jointdiscussion in the July volume of Hihyo Kukan.

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When the "common place" underlying expressions disintegrates, tales and parables are intensively collected for systematic organization, while hidden but true versions begin to be produced with unique dimension, as if to break open the irony of traditional expressions. The space giving birth to Nihongi of the Middle Ages, which reveals the intellectual countenance of its age, exists as part of this tendency. At the same time, that space is by no means unrelated to the political space around the former emperors Sutoku and Goshirakawa, or the priest Shinzei and Fujiwara Norinaga, in the process of the formation of state in the Middle Ages. In what form does the deep-rooted desire to reach the place of beginning called Nihongi appear in the discursive space around that origin in the reign of ex-emperor? In this report, I will discuss two important stories about succession to the throne: the tale of Hikohohodemi-no-mikoto and the story of fighting Shiragi. These stories concern the problem of interpreting the space in which the myths of Kojiki and Nihongi are altered and differences are born, while leading to the problems concerning the space in which one recollects those preceding old tales which, excluded from Kojiki and Nihionsyoki, have survived on the margins.I will also consider the implications of presenting the space of beginning as an immediate picture in relation to above-mentioned problems.

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