A study of Kunikida Doppo: 'Musashino' and three short stories

Kunikida Doppo, a Meiji period writer, died at age thirty-eight, having written for only ten years. "Musashino," Doppo's most well-known work, is essentially a nature sketch that draws from literary traditions but also from modern concepts, including influences from William Wordsworth and Ivan Turgenev. Doppo composed "Musashino" as a collage built on various sources that range from old poems to contemporary letters. Others of Doppo's works are relatively obscure because they do not deliver a similar sense of beauty. His short stories "The Bonfire," "A Beggar," and "The Stars" are works that, like "Musashino," feature Doppo's prose poetry and also reveal western influences. Close reading of these four works demonstrates Doppo's development of prose poetry, his use of the collage as a literary technique, his inclusion of people in the natural landscape, the use of fire as a symbol of mediation between nature and culture, and a cast of common everyday characters, such as beggars and wanderers, who are treated with sympathy.