Translating Mount Fuji Modern Japanese Fiction And The Ethics Of Identity Dennis Washburn by Dennis Washburn 9780231138925, 023113892X instant download after payment.

Washburn begins with Ueda's Ugetsu monogatari (Tales of Moonlight & Rain) & its preoccupation with the distant past, a sense of loss, & the connection between values & identity. He then considers the use of narrative realism & the metaphor of translation in Soseki's Sanshiro; the relationship between ideology & selfhood in Ogai's Seinen; Yokomitsu Riichi's attempt to synthesize the national & the cosmopolitan; Ooka Shohei's post-World War II representations of the ethical & spiritual crises confronting his age; & Mishima's innovative play with the aesthetics of the inauthentic & the artistry of kitsch.

Washburn's brilliant analysis teases out common themes concerning the illustration of moral & aesthetic values, the crucial role of autonomy & authenticity in defining notions of culture, the impact of cultural translation on ideas of nation & subjectivity, the ethics of identity, & the hybrid quality of modern Japanese society. He pinpoints the persistent anxiety that influenced these authors' writings, a struggle to translate rhetorical forms of Western literature while preserving elements of the pre-Meiji tradition. 

A unique combination of intellectual history & critical literary analysis, Translating Mt. Fuji recounts the evolution of a conflict that inspired remarkable literary experimentation & achievement.

Dennis Washburn is Professor of Asian & Middle Eastern Languages & Literatures & Comparative Literature at Dartmouth College. He is the translator of Temple of the Wild Geese...