| The main feature of the formation of modernist literature in Japan,which began in the 1890 s with the "Unification of Language and Literature" movement,was the birth of the inner subjectivity of the human being,the modern self.However,after the establishment of modern Japanese literature,people forgot the fact that the "Language and Literature Consistency" movement existed initially as an aspect of language reform in the institutional revolution,and that its birth was somewhat political,and they came to believe that the basic ideas of rationality,freedom,subjectivity,and individual self,which are embodied in modern literature,are self-evident.They came to believe that the basic ideas related to modernity,such as rationality,freedom,the subject,and the individual self,embodied in modern literature,were self-evident and universal with historicism,and that they were oblivious to the contradictions and paradoxes of modernity and the squeezing and suppression of human life.The famous writer in the history of modern Japanese literature,Akutagawa Ryunosuke(1892-1927),on the other hand,showed his questioning and criticism of modernity from the very beginning of his literary career.His literary career was mainly focused on the Taisho period,a period marked by the establishment of the "modern self" and the mainstream of naturalistic literature,but Akutagawa began his literary work with an anti-naturalistic,anti-confessional historical novel.The fictional nature of his works,though much criticized at the time,embodied a foresight and prophetic nature different from that of the mainstream writers of the era,and his questioning and criticism of the established values and ethical systems are reflected in all aspects of his novels,which can be said to present a postmodern critique of modernity as a whole.Taking "postmodernity" as an entry point,this thesis provides a systematic examination of Akutagawa’s literature in as panoramic a manner as possible.At the operational level,it looks at the entire career of Ryunosuke Akutagawa and his literary creations,focusing on and examining the transcendent spirit of Akutagawa’s literature,which is not confined to class or hierarchy,race or nation,and which is fluid and unpredictable,in order to explore the value of Akutagawa’s literature from a new perspective and to achieve a degree of holistic and systematic research.The thesis as a whole consists of three parts: the introduction,the body,and the conclusion.The introductory section first analyzes the possibility of studying Akutagawa literature from the perspective of "postmodernity,"discusses the core issues that run through Akutagawa’s literary creation and thus clarifies the problematic consciousness of the thesis,and proposes the research methodology and significance of the thesis on the basis of sorting out relevant prior studies.Chapters 2 to 4 are the main part of the thesis,which focuses on the postmodern characteristics of Akutagawa’s literature at a micro level by selecting representative novels of Ryuunosuke Akutagawa from different periods for specific textual analysis.The works covered include Rashomon,Hell Changes,Doubt,In the Bamboo Grove,Mirage,and Gears.Specifically,in Chapter 2,"Breaking Free from the Dilemma of Perception: The Postmodernist Worldview," the discussion of the rewriting process of Rashomon and the narrative strategy of Hell Change are used to clarify the author’s position on the perception of subject and object from the modernist worldview to the postmodernist worldview.In the third chapter,"Crossing the Narrative",he discusses the process of changing his consciousness from a modernist to a postmodernist worldview.In the third chapter,"Crossing the Boundary of Narrative-Postmodernist View of Language," the author’s postmodernist view of language is clarified through the discussion of two works,"Doubt" and "In the Bamboo Grove.Unlike the modernist view of language,in which language is considered a transparent tool for reflecting reality,Ryuunosuke Akutagawa believes that reality is constructed by language and that there is no world outside of language.In "Doubt," he uses a nested structure to present an open ending in the form of the silence of the "I" who is both the listener and the narrator,while at the same time showing the fact that the "I" cannot break out of the prison of language.In the process of longing for the style of Naoya Shiga,Ryunosuke Akutagawa finally created "In the Bamboo Grove".In this novel,Akutagawa’s dramatic monologue of "objective presenting subjective" presents the impossibility of having three real murderers in parallel worlds with only one deceased,showing the truth that there is always an unbridgeable gap between what is expressed and interpreted and what is expressed and interpreted,reflecting the so-called "At the same time,the novel also profoundly expresses the absurdity of life and the unreachability of the other,giving the reader more freedom to participate in the text.It can be said that this work embodies the characteristics of postmodernism in terms of the creator’s perception,creative thinking and reader’s view.In Chapter 4,"Breaking the Illusion of the Subject: The Postmodernist View of the Subject," the essence of the "poetic spirit" promoted by Ryunosuke Akutagawa in his later years is first explained.The pursuit of "poetic spirit" is actually a questioning of the traditional view of language as a rigid,scientific and rational being,a deconstruction of logocentrism,and a manifestation of the creative subject’s pursuit of freedom of soul,which contains a sense of deconstruction of the "modern self" and reflects the postmodernist view of the subject.The deconstruction of logocentrism is also a manifestation of the creative subject’s pursuit of soul freedom.The second part of the paper discusses the works "Mirage" and"Gears",which are recognized as the best practice of "poetic spirit",and examines the postmodern characteristics of the novels in terms of their contents,language characteristics and narrative techniques,focusing on the implicit postmodernist view of the subject.The writer’s death by suicide is seen as a resolute defense against the modernity that suppresses humanity.Ryunosuke Akutagawa warns future generations to turn away from the essentialist way of life,and thoroughly reflects on and criticizes the modernist view of the subject.The fifth chapter concludes with a summary of the text and reiterates the significance of studying Akutagawa’s literature from the perspective of "postmodernity".Post-modernity is the modernity of the coming era,and the study of Akutagawa’s literature from the perspective of "post-modernity" is not only conducive to understanding the spiritual essence of Akutagawa’s literary creation from a new level,but also to re-discovering the value of Akutagawa’s literature.It is also possible to explore the modernity of Akutagawa’s time in the opposite direction,to see more clearly the contradictions and tensions,the risks and hidden worries of modernity,to understand its limits and boundaries,to understand the essence of the suppression of human vitality by modernity,which has to some extent achieved human freedom,and to reveal that the "modern self" with its strong emphasis on individual subjectivity has placed human beings in the process of establishing itself,but in the process of forgetting the meaning of existence and being"homeless.In this work,we reveal the truth that the establishment of the "modern self" with its strong emphasis on individual subjectivity has put people in a state of forgetfulness of the meaning of existence and "homelessness," identify the alternative role played by the times on Akutagawa literature,and clarify the characteristics of Akutagawa literature,which has been overlooked by the pioneering research so far in the pursuit of transcendence in the midst of repression,so as to provoke readers in the extremely uncertain postmodern and post-postmodern contexts to rethink the issues of life and existence.In the concluding section,it is also suggested that this time,the reader will be able to rethink the question of life and existence.In addition,the conclusion also presents the shortcomings of this study and the issues to be developed in the future.In the process of research,in addition to the above-mentioned texts,this thesis also takes into account the relevant works of contemporaries as well as the writers’ own letters and comments,in order to draw all the conclusions with justification and evidence.In addition to the documentary research method,we also attempt to use narratology and(post)classical narratology as the theoretical framework and synthesize the theories and methods of literature and art,stylistics,and aesthetics to conduct an in-depth three-dimensional reading of the text. |
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