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PREFACE

This is a book of ideas that span Eastern and Western cultures. Literature is a fundamental discipline for the knowledge of man, one that treads the deeper and vaster fields of humanism. It is in literature that we can find a full outlook of man, the life and ideas of a generation, the ideals and values of a society or of a civilization. Here, too, we can discover the true image of a country, understand its life, its social atmosphere, the functioning of its institutions. I have looked to Japanese literature with the aim of discovering the fundamental ideas which link Japan as a great country of the East to the culture of the West.

If it is subject to contradiction to make comparisons between certain writers and certain works, much more controversial will it be to compare the cultural nature of two civilizations in their essential manifestations. Yet we are forced to make such a comparison to answer the question–what is the Japanese contribution to world literature? When we attempt a comparison of cultural values, the controversy begins with the question of whether there exists an objective scientific approach for the estimate of cultural values at all.

My main purpose is not to make comparisons, but to bring out the main lines which draw together Japanese and Western literary creations: to discover the fundamental ideas of two civilizations in the field of literature. Through this approach one can bring out new aspects of works, new dimensions of literary genres, and deeper understanding of the horizons a writer can pursue in his exploration of man. Only through the study of what between East and West is different and similar will we be able to bridge the chasm that separates them. For this reason, to know the differences is as important as to find the similarities.

Japanese literature offers one of the most impressive examples of culture change, both because it was closed to Western influences until the end of the last century and because of the remarkable results brought about by the combination of tradition and Western novelty after that time. In the Orient Japan is the country that has reacted most constructively to Western culture and its tremendous challenge.

When we read any book on general literature, or on the theory of literature, very seldom do we find a reference to the literature of Japan. Studies of a general nature about the modern novel or about poetry are written as if Japanese literature did not exist. The same cannot be said of the Japanese arts-the great artistic works produced by Japan in more than one thousand years are acknowledged in any valuable book on the general history of art. This difference is, in my mind, due to the fact that the knowledge of Japanese literature has been kept closely within the domain of Japanese specialists, philologists, or the small number of experts who can penetrate the intricate secrets of one of the most difficult languages. Few people in the West are aware that Japan has made valuable contributions to world literature.

Western studies on Japanese literature have produced thorough, sometimes illuminating studies on the mediaeval epic ballads, on court poetry, and particularly on Noh. Yet there is not a serious comprehensive history of Japanese literature in English, with the exception of that written by Aston seventy years ago. This is too old and has all the noble defects of a pioneer work. Other studies which came afterwards are brief and descriptive accounts of major works, with no room to deal with literary currents or debate wider problems.

As to the translation of Japanese literary works, we have, at one extreme, the translations of Arthur Waley, more preoccupied with beauty than with strict literal fidelity, and which give us a delightful and impressive idea of Japanese creations; and, at the other extreme, scrupulously literal translations, deeply erudite, respectable and scholarly, but from the point of view of literary pleasure, cold and dull.

I am not a specialist, but rather a student of universal culture, particularly of its European values. The knowledge accumulated by experts in Oriental studies can never be praised enough, and the merit of specializing is, of course, that it probes deeply into its particular field. It was on the basis of the translation by Richard Wilhelm that C. G.Jung, although completely ignorant of the Chinese language, wrote the deepest and clearest interpretation of the classic Secret of the Golden Flower, for which interpretation he saw the widest implications in the field of general culture and science. The deepest and most far-reaching sociological and philosophical studies about Chinese and Indian religions and religious writers were written by Max Weber and Karl Jaspers, who did not know Chinese, Sanscrit, Pali, or any other language in which those sacred books are written.

In Japan there is the case of James Murdoch, who wrote a monumental and still the most extensive history of Japan in English, based, as he declares, on thousands of pages of translations from Japanese books and manuscripts.

Examples like these are many. There is a line where the knowledge accumulated by the specialist has to be taken by the humanist so that wider implications may be found and its deep humanistic value be assessed. If this is not done with. Japanese literature, it will never really enter into the wide circulation of universal culture. And it is indeed time it should.

I have been a student of literature all my life. As I love great Japanese books, I thought it would be interesting to do what no specialist has done-share my delight with others by dealing here with Japanese creations in comparison with the literature of the West. This confrontation raises a complex and vast array of unexpected new ideas, a provocative debate of problems involving issues of Eastern and Western cultures. Besides the fertility in new ideas, this method has the advantage of allowing us to penetrate more easily into a literature generally unknown by the West, as it is easier to understand through comparison with what we already know.

The present book has no pretensions to erudition or scholarship. Like J. B. Priestley in the opening of his Literature and Western Man, I also can say here that I never had in mind a purely literary study, and if in Priestley's work the final emphasis was not on literature but on Western Man, the final emphasis here is on Universal Man.

From the Japanese point of view, this book can be taken as the reaction and appreciation of a Westerner, a Westerner as lucidly and deeply conscious of his European culture as of the universalism of his views; it is an appreciation of the great creations of Japanese literature.

It has been written that all great Japanese literary works have been translated. It is also true that Japanese literature has had the good fortune of having had excellent translators, particularly in English and French. All the writers mentioned in these pages, with the exception of some modern poets and playwrights, have been translated into Western languages.

Although much poetry has been translated into Western languages already, it has been deemed better to translate literally anew the examples given here. In an effort to have the reader grasp their essence and subtle beauty, the aim was to bring him as near as possible to the flavour of the original. It will be seen that both classic and modern Japanese poems seem very much like the most modern Western poems. Most of the young poets treated here are translated for the first time in English. The quotations of prose works, particularly fiction, are made from the translations indicated in the Bibliography. My very modest knowledge of the Japanese language was always supplemented by a group of Japanese collaborators, who helped me to read or make translations of passages and chapters, and résumés of whole books.

To be able to understand thoroughly Japanese literature it is indispensable, as Florenz emphasized, to know several languages—ancient Japanese, Chinese, the various mixtures of these two in different periods and styles, modern Japanese, and numerous local dialects. Instead of embarking on an endless linguistic study, I decided to enter directly into cultural comparisons, relying on a large selected bibliography and the valuable help of collaborators who possess the knowledge I would never be able to attain. I know the serious shortcomings this implies, but I also know that a book dealing with such a wide plane of ideas could never be written by a specialist.

The present book will be the first work in a Western language in which, in the light of the rich past of Japanese literature, modern works are discussed at length. I hope that the appearance of this book (for which I began to collect notes fifteen years ago) will be timely. The Nobel Prize given to Yasunari Kawabata called universal attention to the importance of Japanese literature, showing at the same time that the works of a writer can be appreciated and judged through translation.

I felt that this study of the Japanese literary experience­after all, literature is basically an attempt to grasp fully the wonders of life and to fathom the mysteries of death—would not be complete without delving into the perplexing life and work of two audacious pioneers: Lafcadio Hearn and Wenceslau de Moraes, Without an account of their experiences, a study of this kind would be incomplete. Both Hearn and Moraes tried to explain the things that Japanese writers have been writing about for centuries—life and death in Japan. Both Western authors left lasting works, not in specialized fields where today more serious experts discover greater verities, but in the field of literature, where no one from the West has equalled them in grasping that form of human truth for which they gave their lives. No theoretical sociologist has yet explored so deeply into the roots of Japanese life as they did.

It was my constant fear that I should fall into a facile enumeration of names and titles as happens in other books connected with similar subjects. Above all I followed my taste and kept the scope of my work limited. This principle also governed the compilation of the bibliography. I quote only those references which had. direct relation to my contentions, and which offer real interest for further reading.

Emphasis has been placed on those particular aspects of Japanese literature showing originality and marked differences from Western literatures. This happens, as we shall see, mainly when Buddhist thought runs deep in the writer's convictions and inspires his vision of man and of the universe.

This is not a book of literary criticism, and much less one of literary history, but a study of literary thought. Japanese literature is infinitely richer than can be indicated here. It embraces more valuable works and names than I have mentioned. A student should not be content with this book unless he is looking for only the essential. The book is written for the Westerner interested not in history, but in substantive literary culture.

The greatest event of our time is the meeting of East and West. The purpose of this book is to make a modest contribution. It is part of a larger project of finding common ground in the ideas and the artistic and literary creations on which East and West have been building their particular cultures. From the beginning, the great works of men are rooted on the same labours, hopes, and joys. Despite their differences and peculiar aspects, all men are kin. This is why we can go ahead with confidence, working for a universal humanism.

It should be mentioned here that Japanese names given in the text appear in the order of given name followed by family name, in accordance with Western custom. Titles of works in Japanese are followed by approximate English equivalents. The romanization of Japanese words follows the Hepburn system, the exception being that long vowels are not marked.

The listing of translations of Japanese works into languages other than English is far from complete, but perhaps serves to indicate the extent of the impact of Japanese literature throughout the Western world.