64 - Between the Western and the traditional: Mori Ōgai, Nagai Kafū, and Tanizaki Jun’ichirō

Summary

Mori Ogai was one of the foremost figures conversant in Western literary thought, and occupied the seat of leadership in the circles with which he associated. The journal Subaru offered Ogai an opportunity to come to the literary scene. Nagai Kafu made the first entry in his extended diary Danchotei nichijo, which he would continue until his death. Kafu, having spent five years in America and Europe and possessing an awareness of the interrelationship between Western civilization and its historical tradition, had worked toward a rediscovery of Edo. Tanizaki Junichiro's writing in the twentieth century, incorporating vestiges of a classical world, demonstrated similarity to Kafu's in its critical appraisal of contemporary civilization. Tanizaki's best project was a modern translation of the eleventh-century The Tale of Genji, though the massive undertaking would not be completed until the end of World War II, when the author restored passages that had been considered slanderous to the imperial house during wartime.