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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 19 February 2020
This article focuses on the life and ideas of Kuwabara Takeo, a cultural critic and scholar of French literature who became renowned for his 1946 critique of haiku as a “secondary art” in comparison with the novel. By reconstructing Kuwabara's intellectual trajectory from the mid-1930s to the mid-1940s, I show how this famous essay was in part an effort to respond to Karl Löwith's famous critique of Japanese intellectuals. Löwith argued that Japanese intellectuals were insufficiently critical towards their own culture, due to the way that they compartmentalized practices and ideas associated with either Japanese culture or Western civilization. Kuwabara resisted such tendencies through the practice of cross-cultural comparison. His work gained encouragement from and responded to Löwith's critique in a way that illuminates the role that comparisons played in the intellectual culture of mid-twentieth-century Japan.
1 Löwith, Karl, Martin Heidegger and European Nihilism (New York, 1995), 232Google Scholar.
2 The novelist Mori Ōgai often appeared in Löwith's writings on Japan as a patriotic foil for his criticism. Yet writing by another novelist, Natsume Sōseki, forms a better precedent for Löwith's critical approach to Japanese culture. Sōseki's 1914 lecture “My Individualism” could be read as a self-reflective effort to grapple with what Löwith later identified as the “two-story-house” problem. Given the chronological framing of this article around the mid-twentieth century, it is worth noting that Sōseki's writings on individualism were rediscovered by Shimizu Ikutarō in the mid-1930s, not long before Löwith's arrival in Japan. Rubin, Jay, “Sōseki on Individualism: ‘Watakushi no Kojinshugi’,” Monumenta Nipponica 34/1 (1979), 21–48CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
3 See Satō, Rui, Maruyama Masao to Kāru Rēvitto (Tokyo, 2003)Google Scholar; Barshay, Andrew, The Social Sciences in Modern Japan (Berkeley, 2004), 213–15Google Scholar; Davis, Bret W., “Dialogue and Appropriation: The Kyoto School as Cross-cultural Philosophy,” in Davis, Bret W., Schroeder, Brian and Wirth, Jason, eds., Japanese and Continental Philosophy: Conversations with the Kyoto School (Bloomington, 2011), 33–47Google Scholar.
4 On Kōno's relationship with Löwith see Kōno, Yoichi, Zoku gakumon no magarikado (Tokyo, 1986), 212–20Google Scholar.
5 Takeo, Kuwabara, “Yōroppa no nihirzumu,” in Kuwabara Takeo zenshū, 7 vols. (Tokyo, 1968–9), 7: 431–6Google Scholar, at 436 (original from Nov. 1948, place of publication unknown).
6 On essentialism and competition among cultural mediators see Tasgold, Christian, Spaces in Translation (Philadelphia, 2017), 88Google Scholar.
7 Werner, Michael and Zimmerman, Benedicte, “Beyond Comparison: Histoire Croisée and the Challenge of Reflexivity,” History and Theory 45/1 (2006), 30–50CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Damrosch, David, What Is World Literature? (Princeton, 2003), 284–5CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
8 Rimer, J. Thomas, “High Culture in the Shōwa Period,” Daedalus 119/3 (1990), 265–78Google Scholar, at 268.
9 Ibid., 269.
10 For a recent example of the former approach to comparison see Masuzawa, Tomoko, The Invention of World Religions (Chicago, 2005)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
11 The work of Benedict Anderson is a common reference point for much of the literature on comparison written by historians. For an elaboration of his approach see Sluga, Glenda, “The Nation and the Comparative Imagination,” in Cohen, Deborah and O'Connor, Maura, eds., Comparison and History: Europe in Cross-national Perspective, (Abington, 2004), 103–14Google Scholar. A wealth of critical perspectives on Anderson's approach to comparison and the nation-state can be found in Cheah, Pheng and Culler, Jonathan, eds., Grounds of Comparison: Around the Work of Benedict Anderson (Abingdon, 2013)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. An important demonstration of an approach to the history of comparisons that avoids the trap of nationalist teleology is Karl, Rebecca, Staging the World: Chinese Nationalism at the Turn of the Twentieth Century (Durham, NC, 2002)Google Scholar.
12 Sawada, Osamu, “Pragmatic Aspects of Implicit Comparison: An Economy-Based Approach,” Journal of Pragmatics 41/6 (2009), 1079–1103Google Scholar.
13 Japanese literary scholars have been more attentive to the different roles played by comparisons within these fields, particularly those that involve France and Japan. See Hutchinson, Rachel, Nagai Kafu's Occidentalism: Defining the Japanese Self (Albany, 2011)Google Scholar; and Slaymaker, Doug, ed., Confluences: Postwar Japan and France (Ann Arbor, 2002)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
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15 Ibid., 232.
16 On the Kyoto school of sinology see Tanaka, Stefan, Japan's Orient: Rendering Pasts into History (Berkeley, 1995)Google Scholar; and Vogel, Joshua, Politics and Sinology: The Case of Naitō Konan (New York, 1980)Google Scholar.
17 Kuwabara, Kuwabara Takeo zenshū, 4: 21.
18 Seiko, Okuhara, “A Case of Funpon Training in Late Edo Literati Painting,” in Jordan, Brenda and Weston, Victoria, eds., Coping the Master and Stealing His Secrets (Honolulu, 2003), 116–46Google Scholar, at 142–3. Guth, Christine M. E., “Meiji Response to Bunjinga,” in Conant, Ellen P., ed., Challenging Past and Presence: The Metamorphosis of Nineteenth Century Japanese Art (Honolulu, 2006), 177–96Google Scholar.
19 Kuwabara Takeo, “Tomioka Tessai-ten o mite,” in Kuwabara Takeo zenshū, 3: 157 (originally in Sept. 1935 issue of Kogito).
20 Ibid., 156.
21 Kuwabara Takeo, “Sutandāru no geijutsu ni tsuite,” in Kuwabara Takeo zenshū, 2: 141–59 (originally in May 1932 issue of Shisō).
22 Jacques Rancière's conceptualization of the relationship between literature and politics bears some resemblance to Kuwabara's positing of a close relationship between literary autonomy and realism. The presumed autonomy of literature as a “definite practice of writing” is what enables it to engage in a particular form of politics concerned with the “partition of the visible and the sayable, in this intertwining of being, doing and saying that frames a polemical common world.” Rancière, Jacques, “The Politics of Literature,” SubStance 33/1 (2004), 10–24CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 10.
23 Kuwabara Takeo, “‘Tōno monogatari’ kara,” in Kuwabara Takeo zenshū, 3: 159–68, at 167–8 (originally in the July 1937 issue of Bungakukai). On Kuwabara's avoidance of Japanese aesthetic concepts in his later work see Oura Yasusuke, “Bungaku riron no kenkyū o yomu,” Jinbun gakuhō, March 2011, 129–34, at 133–4.
24 Hamashita Masahiro, “Kokubungaku kara no bigaku: kokugaku kara Okazaki Yoshie ‘Nihon bungeigaku’ no seisei made,” Bungeigaku kenkyū, March 2007, 1–16.
25 In its frequent comparisons between Greece and Japan, Watsuji's travelogue Koji junrei (1919) serves as a representative work for this genre of art criticism, which he continued to explore in a chapter of his well-known Fūdo (1935). Koji junrei was translated by Hiroshi Nara as Pilgrimages to Ancient Temples in Nara: Koji junrei (Portland, 2013). Fūdo was translated by Bownas, Geoffery as A Climate: A Philosophical Study (Tokyo, 1961)Google Scholar. On Kobayashi's forays into Japanese tradition see Dorsey, James, Critical Aesthetics: Kobayashi Hideo, Modernity, and Wartime Japan (Cambridge, 2009), 159–95CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
26 Okakura, Kakuzō, The Ideals of the East with Special Reference to the Art of Japan (London, 1905), 8–9Google Scholar. Quoted in Kinoshita, Nagahiro, “Okakura Kakuzō as a Historian of Art,” Review of Japanese Culture and Society 24 (2012), 26–38CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 36.
27 Takeo, Kuwabara, “Jibatsu,” in Kuwabara Takeo shū, 10 vols. (Tokyo, 1980–81), 1: 623–50Google Scholar, at 646.
28 Löwith, Martin Heidegger and European Nihilism, 229–31. Kuwabara's biographical portraits are collected in Kuwabara Takeo zenshū, 4.
29 Gluck, Carol, Japan's Modern Myths (Princeton, 1985), 268–75Google Scholar. Born in the 1830s, Tessai was actually an “old man of Tempō,” but his prolific career spanned the generational divide associated with the “young men of Meiji,” who were born in the 1860s and 1870s.
30 Kuwabara's writings on mountaineering are collected in Kuwabara Takeo zenshū, 7.
31 Harootunian, Harry, “Figuring the Folk: History, Poetics, and Representation,” in Vlastos, Stephen, ed., Mirror of Modernity (Berkeley, 1998), 144–59Google Scholar.
32 Kuwabara, “‘Tōno monogatari’ kara,” 159–161.
33 Kikuchi Akira, “Kuwabara Takeo no Tōhoku,” Keio University Press, at www.keio-up.co.jp/kup/sp/jinbunken/0004.html, accessed 19 June 2019.
34 Ibid., 163. This is my translation of Kuwabara's translation of Alain from French into Japanese. Kuwabara notably added the verb “strive” (tsutomeru), whereas the original does not mention any effort expended to preserve what people say in this state: “Dès que l'on veut s'instruire sur la nature humaine, ce qu'on dit, absurde ou non, doit être premièrement laissé dans son état naïf, qui vaut cent fois mieux qu'un arrangement vraisemblable, dont vous ne tirerez que des lieux communs.” Alain, Les dieux (Paris, 1934).
35 Rimer, J. Thomas, “Tokyo in Paris/Paris in Tokyo,” in Takashina, Shūji, Rimer, J. Thomas and Bolas, Gerald, eds., Paris in Japan (Tokyo and St Louis, 1987), 33–79Google Scholar. See also Casanova, Pascale, The World Republic of Letters (Cambridge, 2004), 23–4Google Scholar.
36 Takeo, Kuwabara, “Bungaku-teki Furansu,” in Kuwabara Takeo zenshū, 2: 5–18, at 7 (originally published in Bungei in July 1939)Google Scholar.
37 Ibid., 14–15.
38 Ibid., 17.
39 It is worth noting that contemporary exceptions to this generalization included the successful careers of writer/politicians like Nitobe Inazō (1862–1933) and Tsurumi Yūsuke (1885–1973), whose moderate political views were not far from Kuwabara's at the time.
40 Kuwabara, “Bungaku-teki Furansu,” 9–14.
41 Takeo, Kuwabara, “Amerika jōriku,” in Kuwabara Takeo zenshū, 6: 116–21, at 120–21 (originally published in Shiki in January 1941)Google Scholar.
42 On the relationship between modernism and anti-Americanism in Japan see Harootunian, Harry, Overcome by Modernity (Princeton, 2000), 48–50Google Scholar; and Starrs, Roy, Modernism and Japanese Culture (Berlin, 2001), 103–70Google Scholar.
43 Löwith, Martin Heidegger and European Nihilism, 232.
44 Takeo, Kuwabara, “Furansu-teki to iu koto,” in Kuwabara Takeo zenshū, 2: 19–50 (originally published in Gendai sekai bungaku kōza Furansu-hen in 1949)Google Scholar.
45 Kuwabara Takeo, “Dōsatsu ni suite,” in Kuwabara Takeo zenshū, 3: 5–12 (originally published in Techō in March 1947).
46 “Senjika no Tōhokudai bunkei keishi ni igi, gakunai chōsa Abe Jirō Kuwabara Takeo-ra hankotsu shimesu,” Tokyo Shimbun, 30 April 2017, 1.
47 Kuwabara Takeo, “Gaikoku bungaku kenkyū e no hansei,” in Kuwabara Takeo shū, 1: 563–8, at 567–8 (originally published in Kyoto teikoku daigaku shinbun in 1943).
48 The only successful purges occurred within Kuwabara's division, law and letters. Three professors were purged. Tōhoku daigaku hyakunen-shi henshū iinkai, Tōhoku daigaku hyakunen-shi, vol. 8 (Sendai, 2004), 539–50Google Scholar.
49 Maurois, André, Tragedy in France (New York, 1940), 161–73Google Scholar.
50 Kuwabara, Kuwabara Takeo shū, 1: 650.
51 Takeo, Kuwabara, “Gendai Furansu hūmanizumu,” in Kuawabara Takeo zenshū, 2: 51–76, at 68 (originally published in Bunka no shōrai in 1944)Google Scholar.
52 Ibid., 76.
53 Kuwabara, Kuwabara Takeo shū, 2: 611–12.
54 Kenzō, Kitazawa, Sengo no shuppatsu: bunka undo, seinendan, sensō mibōjin (Tokyo, 2000), 25–9Google Scholar.
55 Ibid., 16.
56 For a contemporary critical account of Bashō revivalism see Hori, Tōru, Haiku to chisei (Tokyo, 1962), 77–83Google Scholar.
57 This comparison should imply that haiku poets did not also produce poems that were overtly supportive of the war effort. For a recent account of the relationship between major haiku poets and the war see Tarumi, Hiroshi, Sensō haiku to haijintachi (Tokyo, 2014)Google Scholar.
58 On the production of literature and poetry that celebrated the war effort see Shillony, Ben-Ami, Politics and Culture in Wartime Japan (Oxford, 1981), 110–19Google Scholar.
59 Takeo, Kuwabara, “Dai-ni geijutsu,” in Kuwabara Takeo zenshū, 3: 13 (originally published in Sekai in 1946)Google Scholar.
60 One might compare the tone of Kuwabara's essay with the lament for fallen soldiers in Usui Yoshimi's earlier critique of traditional tanka poetry. Usui, Yoshimi, “Tenbō,” in Usui, ed., Sengo bungaku ronsō, vol. 1 (Tokyo, 1972), 155–8Google Scholar.
61 Kōno Toshirō, “Kaidai,” in Usui Yoshimi, Sengo bungaku ronsō, 301.
62 Kuwabara, “Dai-ni geijtusu,” 27–8.
63 Adorno, Theodor, “On Jazz,” Discourse 12/1 (1989–90), 48–54Google Scholar.
64 See the comparison between Shiki and Kuwabara in Tuck, Robert, Idly Scribbling Rhymers: Poetry, Prtin, and Community in 19th Century Japan (New York, 2018), 117–18CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
65 Kuwabara, “Dai-ni geijtusu,” 22.
66 Ortolano, Guy, The Two Cultures Controversy (Cambridge, 2009), 69Google Scholar.
67 Kuwabara Takeo, “Natsukashii Dōi-sensei,” in Kuwabara Takeo shū, 10: 2–6.
68 More playfully, Nagano proposed a new science of “haiku-ology” that would study haiku as a lifeform (seimei). The field would be divided into two major research clusters (“dynamic” and “static”) and seven different specialized subdisciplines. Nagano, Tametake, Kagaku no ishō (Tokyo, 1947), 68–87Google Scholar, at 69.
69 Kuwabara, “Dai-ni geijtusu,” 28–9.
70 Ibid., 14–18.
71 Ibid., 19–20.
72 Itō believed that this guild-like arrangement had positive aspects as well. For example, the bundan establishment was conducive to the emergence of a tight-knit community that could convey advice and criticism to writers that would be difficult to communicate in a more impersonal public forum. Itō, Sei, Itō Sei zenshū, vol. 13 (Tokyo, 1973), 388–90Google Scholar.
73 Kuwabara Takeo, “Nihon gendai shōsetsu no jakuten,” in Kuwabara Takeo zenshū, 1: 239–40 (originally published in Ningen in Feb. 1946).
74 To make this point, Kuwabara pointed to an advertisement for a haiku composition course that promoted the fact that the instructor was the son of a major poet. Kuwabara, “Dai-ni geijutsu,” 20.
75 Takeo, Kuwabara, “Sengo no Miyamoto Yuriko,” in Kuwabara Takeo zenshū, 1: 494–509, at 502 (originally published in Chūō Kōron in April 1949)Google Scholar.
76 Kuwabara, Kuwabara Takeo shū, 2: 623.
77 Yamato Tarō, “Bundan hihyōka kaizu,” Yomiuri Shinbun, 25 June 1951, 4.
78 Toshiko, Matsui, Kindai hairon-shi (Tokyo, 1965), 526–54Google Scholar.
79 See the list in Toshinori, Tsubouchi, Mōroku haiku masumasu sakan (Tokyo, 2009), 112Google Scholar. This is also how Kuwabara makes his few appearances in the existing English-language literary scholarship. For an example see Keene, Donald, Dawn to the West (New York, 1999), 169–71Google Scholar.
80 Tsubouchi, Mōroku haiku masumasu sakan, 114–59. Tsubouchi suggests that the views of the major poets who dismissed Kuwabara ultimately outlasted those who responded to him by trying to take haiku in a socially engaged direction.
81 Sakae, Akagi, Sengo haiku ronsō-shi (Tokyo, 1990), 20–22Google Scholar.
82 See, for example, henshūbu, Rironsha, ed., Kokumin bungaku geijutsu undo no riron (Tokyo, 1954)Google Scholar; and kenkyūkai, Rekishigaku, ed., Minzoku no bunka nit suite (Tokyo, 1953)Google Scholar. Kuwabara discusses left-wing criticism of his argument in Takeo, Kuwabara, “Dentō to kindaika,” in Kuwabara Takeo zenshū, 3: 392–6 (originally published in Iwanami's Gendai Shisō 11, in 1957)Google Scholar.
83 Kuwabara, “Dai-ni geijutsu,” 28.
84 Seishi, Yamaguchi, “Ōfuku shokan,” in Yamazaki, Kiyoshi, ed., Gendai haiku no tame ni (¯Tokyo, 1947), 1–3Google Scholar.
85 Takeo, Kuwabara, “Yamaguchi Seishi-shi ni,” in Kuwabara, Gendai Nihon bunka no hansei, (Tokyo, 1947), 90–93Google Scholar.