Overview

Dazai Osamu (1909-1948) is one of Japan's most famous literary suicides, known as the earliest postwar manifestation of the genuinely alienated writer in Japan. In this first deconstructive reading of a modern Japanese novelist, Alan Wolfe draws on contemporary Western literary and cultural theories and on a knowledge of Dazai's work in the context of Japanese literary history to provide a fresh view of major texts by this important literary figure. In the process, Wolfe revises Japanese as well as Western scholarship on Dazai and discovers new connections among suicide, autobiography, alienation, and modernization. As shown here, Dazai's writings resist narrative and historical closure; while he may be said to serve the Japanese literary establishment as both romantic decadent and representative scapegoat, his texts reveal a deconstructive edge through which his posthumous status as a monument of negativity is already perceived and undone.Wolfe maintains that cultural modernization pits a Western concept of the individual as realized self and coherent subject against an Eastern absent self--and that a felt need to overcome this tension inspires the autobiographical fiction so prevalent in Japanese novels. Suicidal Narrative in Modern Japan shows that Dazai's texts also resist readings that would resolve the gaps (East/West, self/other, modern/premodern) still prevalent in Japanese intellectual life. Originally published in 1990. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Full Product Details

Author:   Alan Stephen Wolfe
Publisher:   Princeton University Press
Imprint:   Princeton University Press
Dimensions:   Width: 15.20cm , Height: 1.80cm , Length: 22.90cm
Weight:   0.567kg
ISBN:  

9780691636351

ISBN 10:   0691636354
Pages:   280
Publication Date:   19 April 2016
Audience:   College/higher education ,  Professional and scholarly ,  Tertiary & Higher Education ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Manufactured on demand  
We will order this item for you from a manufactured on demand supplier.
Language:   English

Table of Contents

*FrontMatter, pg. i*CONTENTS, pg. vii*PREFACE, pg. xiii*Introduction. SAINT OF NEGATIVITY Introduction SAINT OF NEGATIVITY, pg. 3*Chapter One. FROM SEPPUKUTOJISATSU: SUICIDE AS NATIONAL ALLEGORY, pg. 21*Chapter Two. TWO TALES OF SUICIDE: SOCIO-LITERARY COMPLICITIES IN JAPANESE MODERNIZATION, pg. 48*Chapter Three. NOVEL, GHOSTLY, AND NEGATIVE SELVES, pg. 79*Chapter Four. THE LAST OF THE I-NOVELISTS, pg. 97*Chapter Five. DYING TWICE: ALLEGORIES OF IMPOSSIBILITY, pg. 120*Chapter Six. DEATHSCRIPT: SUICIDE AS POLITICAL SURVIVAL, pg. 147*Chapter Seven. ALLEGORICAL UNDOINGS, pg. 165*Chapter Eight. JAPANESE RESSENTIMENT, pg. 185*Epilogue. POSTMODERN POSTMORTEM, pg. 212*NOTES, pg. 225*SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY, pg. 247*INDEX, pg. 257

Reviews

Author Information

Tab Content 6

Author Website:  

Customer Reviews

Recent Reviews

No review item found!

Add your own review!

Countries Available

All regions