How was Japanese literature introduced and subsequently received in the English and French literary spheres from the Meiji period through the post-World War II era? Original Japanese texts underwent a transformation in this complicated process of textual circulation. New modes of reception emerged when the translated texts encountered the host cultures. Then the invisible hands of publishers played a crucial role in shaping the reception trajectory. The three papers in this panel focus on four eminent literary figures – Basil Bunting, Tanizaki Junichiro, Arthur Waley and Marguerite Yourcenar, and explore the textual productions and the reception of Japanese literature. By examining a diverse genre of texts, ranging from the medieval texts to the modern novella, this panel aims to shed new light on the complexities and dynamics involved in the process of Japanese literature joining the sphere of world literature.

Pradhan starts with the medieval Japanese prose Hōjōki and examines the work’s Western reception trajectory in the early 20th century. His paper pays particular attention on Bunting’s poetical creation Chomei at Toyama and explores the role socio-historical circumstances play in engendering a work’s reception pattern. Muranaka, in turn talks about French novelist Yourcenar’s reaction to Waley’s famed English translation of The Tale of Genji (1921-33). After observing the influence of Waley’s translation in the Western literary circle, her paper throws new light on how this translation formed Yourcenar’s views on art and literature. Finally, Kataoka uncovers the behind-the-scenes politics of the English translation of Sasameyuki (1957), a Japanese novel by Tanizaki Junichiro, with particular focus on its English title. By exploring correspondences and documents related to its publishing process, she explains why The Makioka Sisters was chosen as its English title, and shows how its choice influenced reception of the text in the U.S. and the U. K.

This panel, with the aforementioned papers, aims to explore the hitherto unexplored flow of Japanese literary works in the West during the early twentieth century through post world war era and their impact on Anglophone literature. Especially, the panel will seek answers to such questions as; i) how the socio-historical realities of the host culture conditioned the introduction of Japanese literature to the West, ii) why and how Japanese works transformed in the translation process, and iii) how these metamorphoses culminated in the reception of Japanese Literature as World Classics, and as a source of inspiration for contemporary novelists. By answering these questions, the panel hopes to shed light on the transnational flow of Japanese works and the making of Japanese literature as world literature.

Making an elegy of a prose – Basil Bunting’s Chomei at Toyama and transnational circulation of Japanese literature in early 20th century.

Gouranga Charan Pradhan (International Research Center for Japanese Studies)

Japanese literature was already circulating in the Western intellectual circles long before Arthur Waley translated Genji Monogatari in the 1920s. However, the success of Waley’s translation resulted for the first time wide recognition of Japanese literature as part of world literature repertoire. Indeed, in this period we observe a phase of “literary Japonism” in the Western literary spheres. There are several instances of Japanese literary works affecting Western literary production. While much works have been done on the Japanese influence on European arts, not much is known about how Japanese literature engendered Western literary productions.

This presentation offers a case study of the medieval Japanese work Hōjōki’s (1212) early 20th century circulation in the Anglophone world, and traces the marks the work left on European literature. It will focus on English poet Basil Bunting’s poem “Chomei at Toyama” (1933) and explore the roles that author, translator and the journal editor played in the genre shift of this medieval Japanese prose into a modern English elegy in the backdrop new socio-historical necessities. By doing so, the presentation hopes to shed new light on the Japanese role in shaping the early 20th century English literature.

Re/discovering “Beauty of Routine Life” – Yourcenar’s reading of Waley’s “Genji” translation.

Yumiko Muranaka (Shirayuri University)

When she was about 20 years old, French writer Marguerite Yourcenar (1903-1987) read Genji Monogatari, translated by Arthur Waley (1889-1966), and adapted it for a story, The Last love of the Prince Genghi (1937), included in her short story collection titled Oriental Tales (1938). She admired the author of this roman, Murasaki Shikibu (970/978-1019), as a writer equal to Marcel Proust (1871- 1922), in the interview of her late years. In early 20th century, Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) was also a great admirer of The Tale of Genji. Her review shows that she found the “beauty of routine life”, especially in the part of description of arts and life developed in this roman.

This paper attempts to clarify Yourcenar’s debt to the reading of Genji, in the development of her vision of literature and arts. This study explores her writings including the correspondences and the manuscripts, in order to consider the similarities between her vision of arts and the thoughts of arts developed in The Tale of Genji. The review of this roman by Virginia Woolf is also included as the corpus of this study. And this presentation shows that the “beauty of routine life” as a key factor of this roman was resonated with Arts and Crafts movement, considered as an essential factor for the formation of Woolf’s and Yourcenar’s concept of literature.

The Art and Politics Behind an English Title: Rendering Tanizaki’s Sasameyuki (“The Thin Snow”) as “The Makioka Sisters”

Mai Kataoka (SOKENDAI)

After the end of World War II, Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., an American trade publisher, initiated a translation project to introduce modern Japanese novels to the U.S. This program led by the Editor-in-Chief of the Knopf, Harold Strauss (1907-1975) was established to introduce Japanese novels of the time to a wider English audience including “general reader” (meaning upper-middlebrow in this context). As a part of the project, an English rendition of Sasameyuki, a novel by one of the Knopf’s most well-known Japanese authors, Tanizaki Jun'ichirō (1886-1965), was published under the title, The Makioka Sisters (1957; translated by Edward G. Seidensticker [1921-2007]). Why did it have to be translated into the English title so remote from the original, and who was responsible in making that decision?

By exploring correspondences and documents related to its publishing process, this presentation aims to uncover the still underexplored process of how Sasameyuki came to be rendered as The Makioka Sisters. The paper further delves into the reception of the novel in relation to its English title to demonstrate how it helped in gaining recognition by the English audience of that time. For this purpose, it offers thorough examination of book reviews including a review by a British novelist, Angus Wilson (1913-1991), who was inspired by The Makioka Sisters.