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Theory of Literature and Other Critical Writings

Theory of Literature and Other Critical Writings PDF Author: Sōseki Natsume
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231518315
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 301

Book Description
Natsume Soseki (1867-1916) was the foremost Japanese novelist of the twentieth century, known for such highly acclaimed works as Kokoro, Sanshiro, and I Am a Cat. Yet he began his career as a literary theorist and scholar of English literature. In 1907, he published Theory of Literature, a remarkably forward-thinking attempt to understand how and why we read. The text anticipates by decades the ideas and concepts of formalism, structuralism, reader-response theory, and postcolonialism, as well as cognitive approaches to literature that are only now gaining traction. Employing the cutting-edge approaches of contemporary psychology and sociology, Soseki created a model for studying the conscious experience of reading literature as well as a theory for how the process changes over time and across cultures. Along with Theory of Literature, this volume reproduces a later series of lectures and essays in which Soseki continued to develop his theories. By insisting that literary taste is socially and historically determined, Soseki was able to challenge the superiority of the Western canon, and by grounding his theory in scientific knowledge, he was able to claim a universal validity.

Theory of Literature and Other Critical Writings

Theory of Literature and Other Critical Writings PDF Author: Sōseki Natsume
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231518315
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 301

Book Description
Natsume Soseki (1867-1916) was the foremost Japanese novelist of the twentieth century, known for such highly acclaimed works as Kokoro, Sanshiro, and I Am a Cat. Yet he began his career as a literary theorist and scholar of English literature. In 1907, he published Theory of Literature, a remarkably forward-thinking attempt to understand how and why we read. The text anticipates by decades the ideas and concepts of formalism, structuralism, reader-response theory, and postcolonialism, as well as cognitive approaches to literature that are only now gaining traction. Employing the cutting-edge approaches of contemporary psychology and sociology, Soseki created a model for studying the conscious experience of reading literature as well as a theory for how the process changes over time and across cultures. Along with Theory of Literature, this volume reproduces a later series of lectures and essays in which Soseki continued to develop his theories. By insisting that literary taste is socially and historically determined, Soseki was able to challenge the superiority of the Western canon, and by grounding his theory in scientific knowledge, he was able to claim a universal validity.

Kokoro

Kokoro PDF Author: Natsume Soseki
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1684513758
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 258

Book Description
"The subject of 'Kokoro,' which can be translated as 'the heart of things' or as 'feeling,' is the delicate matter of the contrast between the meanings the various parties of a relationship attach to it. In the course of this exploration, Soseki brilliantly describes different levels of friendship, family relationships, and the devices by which men attempt to escape from their fundamental loneliness. The novel sustains throughout its length something approaching poetry, and it is rich in understanding and insight. The translation, by Edwin McClellan, is extremely good." —Anthony West, The New Yorker

And Then

And Then PDF Author: Soseki Natsume
Publisher: Tuttle Publishing
ISBN: 1462900151
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 256

Book Description
"A Japanese writer of genius."—Japan Quarterly Soseki Natsume is considered to be one of Japan's most beloved and respected authors. And Then is ranked as one of his most insightful and stirring novels. Daisuke, the protagonist, is a man in his twenties who is struggling with his personal purpose and identity as well as the changing social landscape of Meiji-era Japan. As Japan enters the Twentieth Century, ancient customs give way to western ideals, and Daisuke works to resolve his feelings of disconnection and abandonment during this time of change. Thanks to his father's wealth, Daisuke has the luxury of having time to develop his philosophies and ruminate on their meaning while remaining intellectually aloof from traditional Japanese culture and the demands of growing industrialization. Then Daisuke's life takes an unexpected turn when he is reunited with his college friend and his sickly wife. At first, Daisuke's stoicism allows him to act according to his intellect, but his intellectual fortress begins to show its vulnerabilities as his emotions start to hold greater sway over his inner life. Daisuke must now weigh his choices in a culture that has always operated on the razor's edge of societal obligation and personal freedom.

Sanshiro

Sanshiro PDF Author: Natsume Soseki
Publisher: Penguin UK
ISBN: 0141938072
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 288

Book Description
One of Soseki's most beloved works of fiction, the novel depicts the 23-year-old Sanshiro leaving the sleepy countryside for the first time in his life to experience the constantly moving 'real world' of Tokyo, its women and university. In the subtle tension between our appreciation of Soseki's lively humour and our awareness of Sanshiro's doomed innocence, the novel comes to life. Sanshiro is also penetrating social and cultural commentary.

Botchan

Botchan PDF Author: Natsume Soseki
Publisher: Penguin UK
ISBN: 0718194799
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 169

Book Description
Botchan is a modern young man from the Tokyo metropolis, sent to the ultra-traditional Matsuyama district as a Maths teacher after his the death of his parents. Cynical, rebellious and immature, Botchan finds himself facing several tests, from the pupils - prone to playing tricks on their new, naïve teacher; the staff - vain, immoral, and in danger of becoming a bad influence on Botchan; and from his own as-yet-unformed nature, as he finds his place in the world. One of the most popular novels in Japan where it is considered a classic of adolescence, as seminal as The Catcher in the Rye, Botchan is as funny, poignant and memorable as it was when first published, over 100 years ago. In J. Cohn's introduction to his colourful translation, he discusses Botchan's success, the book's clash between Western intellectualism and traditional Japanese values, and the importance of names and nicknames in the novel.

The Three Cornered World

The Three Cornered World PDF Author: Natsume Soseki
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1684513766
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 186

Book Description
The Three Cornered World is the novelistic expression of the contrast between the Western ethical view of reality and the Eastern ethical view by one of Japan's most beloved authors. Natsume Soseki tells of an artist who retreats to a country resort and becomes involved in a series of mysterious encounters with the owner's daughter. Intricately interwoven with the author's reflections on art and nature, conversations with Zen monks and writers of haiku, are a plethora of unique Japanese characters offering the reader an exquisite "word painting."

Sōseki

Sōseki PDF Author: John Nathan
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231546971
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 321

Book Description
Natsume Sōseki (1867–1916) was the father of the modern novel in Japan, chronicling the plight of bourgeois characters caught between familiar modes of living and the onslaught of Western values and conventions. Yet even though generations of Japanese high school students have been expected to memorize passages from his novels and he is routinely voted the most important Japanese writer in national polls, he remains less familiar to Western readers than authors such as Kawabata, Tanizaki, and Mishima. In this biography, John Nathan provides a lucid and vivid account of a great writer laboring to create a remarkably original oeuvre in spite of the physical and mental illness that plagued him all his life. He traces Sōseki’s complex and contradictory character, offering rigorous close readings of Sōseki’s groundbreaking experiments with narrative strategies, irony, and multiple points of view as well as recounting excruciating hospital stays and recurrent attacks of paranoid delusion. Drawing on previously untranslated letters and diaries, published reminiscences, and passages from Sōseki’s fiction, Nathan renders intimate scenes of the writer’s life and distills a portrait of a tormented yet unflaggingly original author. The first full-length study of Sōseki in fifty years, Nathan’s biography elevates Sōseki to his rightful place as a great synthesizer of literary traditions and a brilliant chronicler of universal experience who, no less than his Western contemporaries, anticipated the modernism of the twentieth century.

The Gate

The Gate PDF Author: Natsume Soseki
Publisher: New York Review of Books
ISBN: 1590175875
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 257

Book Description
An NYRB Classics Original A humble clerk and his loving wife scrape out a quiet existence on the margins of Tokyo. Resigned, following years of exile and misfortune, to the bitter consequences of having married without their families’ consent, and unable to have children of their own, Sōsuke and Oyone find the delicate equilibrium of their household upset by a new obligation to meet the educational expenses of Sōsuke’s brash younger brother. While an unlikely new friendship appears to offer a way out of this bind, it also soon threatens to dredge up a past that could once again force them to flee the capital. Desperate and torn, Sōsuke finally resolves to travel to a remote Zen mountain monastery to see if perhaps there, through meditation, he can find a way out of his predicament. This moving and deceptively simple story, a melancholy tale shot through with glimmers of joy, beauty, and gentle wit, is an understated masterpiece by one of Japan’s greatest writers. At the end of his life, Natsume Sōseki declared The Gate, originally published in 1910, to be his favorite among all his novels. This new translation captures the oblique grace of the original while correcting numerous errors and omissions that marred the first English version.

Ten Nights Dreaming

Ten Nights Dreaming PDF Author: Natsume Soseki
Publisher: Courier Dover Publications
ISBN: 0486807231
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 96

Book Description
A murderer discovers his true nature from a talking infant, a samurai is frustrated in his attempts to meditate, and a dying man bestows his hat on a friend in these surrealistic short stories. The dream-like, open-ended tales by the father of Japanese modernist literature offer thought-provoking reflections on fear, death, and loneliness. Their settings range from the Meiji period of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, the era in which the tales were written, to the prehistoric Age of the Gods; the twelfth-century Kamakura period, in which the samurai class emerged; and the remote future. A scholar of British literature, author Natsume Sōseki (1867–1916) was also a composer of haiku, kanshi, and fairy tales. The stories of Ten Nights Dreaming, which were originally published as a newspaper serial, constitute milestones of Japanese fantasy. Like Sōseki's other writings, they have had a profound effect on readers, writers, and filmmakers. This edition features an expert new English translation by Matt Treyvaud, who has translated the story "The Cat's Grave" for this work as well.

Soseki Natsume's I Am A Cat: The Manga Edition

Soseki Natsume's I Am A Cat: The Manga Edition PDF Author: Soseki Natsume
Publisher: Tuttle Publishing
ISBN: 1462922392
Category : Comics & Graphic Novels
Languages : en
Pages : 212

Book Description
Japan's beloved literary masterpiece brought to life in manga form! Soseki Natsume's comic masterpiece, I Am a Cat, satirizes the foolishness of upper-middle-class Japanese society in early 20th century Tokyo. Written with biting wit and sardonic perspective, it follows the whimsical adventures of a rather cynical stray kitten. He finds his way into the home of an English teacher, where his running commentary on the follies and foibles of the people around him has been making readers laugh for more than a century. This is the very first manga edition in English of this classic piece of Japanese literature. The story lends itself well to a graphic novel format, allowing readers to pick up on the more subtle cues of the expressive cat, while also being immersed in the world of his perceptive narration. It is true to classic manga form, and is read back to front. Beautifully illustrated by Japanese artist Chiroru Kobato, this edition provides a visual, entertaining look at a unique period in Japan's history--filled with cultural and societal changes, rapid modernization and a feeling of limitless possibility--through the eyes of an unlikely narrator.