The Failure of Freedom : : A Portrait of Modern Japanese Intellectuals / / Tatsuo Arima.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter Asian Studies Archive (pre 2000) eBook Package
• VerfasserIn: Arima, Tatsuo,
• Place / Publishing House: Cambridge, MA : : Harvard University Press, , [2013]; ©1969
• Year of Publication: 2013
• Edition: Reprint 2013
• Language: English
• Series: Harvard East Asian Series ; 39
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (296 p.)

An excellent introduction to Japanese intellectual history in the first third of the twentieth century, this is a study of the intellectual atmosphere that made the development of a constitutional form of government difficult. As heirs to the Meiji Restoration, modern Japanese intellectuals were trapped by the historical paradox that modern Japan was born not so much of the victory of the new forces over the old, as of the skillful self-transformation of the old forces themselves. To reject parts of new Japanese society often meant to reject the whole of it.Tatsuo Arima examines the period's philosophical and religious writings and the main literary figures and groups and their works and theories about literature. He finds a widespread anticonstitutional mentality and relates it to the intellectuals' political behavior. In particular, he analyzes the reasons why prewar Japanese intellectuals, who seemed to be so opposed to the rise of nationalism, took no socially effective action to prevent its emergence and subsequently became its victims.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Preface -- Contents -- I. THE REVOLUTIONARY RESTORATION -- II. UCHIMURA KANZŌ: THE POLITICS OF SPIRITUAL DESPAIR -- III. THE ANARCHISTS: THE NEGATION OF POLITICS -- IV. JAPANESE NATURALISM: THE LIMITATIONS OF EXPERIENCE -- V. THE SHIRAKABA-HA: THE TYRANNY OF ART -- VI. ARISHIMA TAKEO: BOURGEOIS CRITICISM -- VII. AKUTAGAWA RYŪNOSUKE: THE LITERATURE OF DEFEATISM -- VIII. PROLETARIAN LITERATURE: THE TYRANNY OF POLITICS -- CONCLUSION -- NOTES -- BIBLIOGRAPHY -- GLOSSARY -- INDEX