Sirens of the Western Shore: The Westernesque Femme Fatale, Translation, and Vernacular Style in Modern Japanese Literature

by Indra Levy

Overview

Indra Levy introduces a new archetype in the study of modern Japanese literature: the "Westernesque femme fatale," an alluring figure who is ethnically Japanese but evokes the West in her physical appearance, lifestyle, behavior, and, most important, her use of language. She played conspicuous roles in landmark works of modern Japanese fiction and theater.

Levy traces the lineage of the Westernesque femme fatale from her first appearance in the vernacularist fiction of the late 1880s to her development in Naturalist fiction of the mid-1900s and, finally, to her spectacular embodiment by the modern Japanese actress in the early 1910s with the advent of Naturalist theater. In all cases the Westernesque femme fatale both attracts and confounds the self-consciously modern male intellectual through a convention-defying use of language.

What does this sirenlike figure reveal about the central concerns of modern Japanese literature? Levy proposes that the Westernesque femme fatale be viewed as the hallmark of an intertextual exoticism that prizes the strange beauty of modern Western writing.

By illuminating the exoticist impulses that gave rise to this archetype, Levy offers a new understanding of the relationships between vernacular style and translation, original and imitation, and writing and performance within a cross-cultural context. A seamless blend of narrative, performance, translation, and gender studies, this work will have a profound impact on the critical discourse on this formative period of modern Japanese literature.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780231137874
Publisher:	Columbia University Press
Publication date:	02/04/2010
Pages:	344
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.10(h) x 0.90(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Indra Levy is assistant professor of Japanese literature at Stanford University.

Table of Contents

Introduction
Part One Foreign Letters, the Vernacular, and Meiji Schoolgirls
1. Translation as Origin and the Originality of Translation
2. Meiji Schoolgirls in and as Language
Part Two Tayama Katai and the Siren of Vernacular Letters
3. Portrait of the Naturalist as a Young Exote
4. Literary Desire and the Exotic Language of Love: From "Shôshijin" to Jokyôshi
5. Haunting the Laboratory of Vernacular Style: The Sirens of "Shôjobyô" and Futon
Part Three Staging the New Woman: The Spectacular Embodiment of "Nature" in Translation
6. Setting the Stage for Translation
7. Gender Drag, Culture Drag, and Female Interiority
Final Reflections: Gender, Cultural Hierarchy, and Literary Style
Notes
Bibliography
Index

What People are Saying About This

Kojin Karatani

No other book has ever elucidated as brilliantly the crucial role played by translation in the formation of modern literature.

— Kojin Karatani, visiting professor of comparative literature, Columbia University

Elaine Gerbert

This is an intelligent work with some brilliant insights. The comments on the psychology of characters and authors are particularly acute, and the translations from the Japanese are handled with superb finesse.

Alan Tansman

An extraordinary work of literary scholarship.... The author traces, with stunning thoroughness and precision, subtle shifts in style within their larger contexts in literary debates, authorial intentions, and social meanings. The book offers a very fine analysis of the development of genbun itchi (meaning "reconciliation of speech and writing") and nationalism and the amalgamated languages they formed, a fascinating discussion of 'nature' and its relationship to notions of style in language and in acting, and an excellent discussion of the nature of imitation and exoticism, among other literary historical matters.

— Alan Tansman, professor of Japanese, University of California, Berkeley

Elaine Gerbert

This is an intelligent work with some brilliant insights. The comments on the psychology of characters and authors are particularly acute, and the translations from the Japanese are handled with superb finesse.

— Elaine Gerbert, associate professor of East Asian languages and cultures, the University of Kansas

Editorial Reviews

Sirens of the Western Shore takes a fresh and detailed look at the topic of vernacular style in Meiji literature.

Journal of Japanese Studies - Sarah Frederick

[An] insightful, carefully researched study... Highly recommended.

Choice

Sirens of the Western Shore takes a fresh and detailed look at the topic of vernacular style in Meiji literature.

— Sarah Frederick

Journal of Japanese Studies

Richly textured... cogently argued, lucidly written, and offers the reader insights on both theoretical and biographical levels.

— Nanette Gottlieb

Monumenta Nipponica

Richly textured... cogently argued, lucidly written, and offers the reader insights on both theoretical and biographical levels.

Monumenta Nipponica - Nanette Gottlieb