Literary characters in early writings of Nagai Kafû (1879-1959): Character models in literary and historical context

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Stephan Köhn
• Subject Area: Asian Studies
• Term: from 2016 to 2020
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 283636549

The project focuses on writings composed by Kafû during and shortly after his journey to America and Europe (1903-1908). They include fiction as well as non-fictional texts, e. g. diaries, essays and travelogues. Kafû thereby established himself as an author, influential critic of modernization and conveyor of European - above all French - literature upon his return to Japan. The literary characters drawn in the texts can be seen as constructions of modern man that comprise important issues as for example the encounter with the other, the critical self-reflection and the search for a modern Japanese identity.The existing research papers on Kafûs writings mostly focus on his critique of Japanese modernization, on biographical issues or the influence of French literature. The literary characters, however, have not been examined thoroughly yet. On the contrary, they have either been perceived as being typified and not complex and were therefore disregarded in favor of other aspects, or they were equated with the author and therefore not apprehended as narratively constructed characters at all. The project, however, pursues the thesis that Kafûs characters, their narrative construction and their relations to established literary models and contemporary images of human nature provide an important basis for the research on his literary treatment of the facets of modern man. The project aims at revealing new layers of the texts in two regards: First, to identify narrative strategies and conventions of characterization Kafû used, and to uncover how he is handling and combining elements from European and Japanese texts in his characters. Second, to disclose the relationships between Kafûs characters and relevant contexts: established literary models like the flâneur, that are present in cultural knowledge, and images of man that are present in contemporary Japan. The project wants to contribute (1) to research on literary characters in the sense of post-classical narratology, and (2) to studies on the Japanese search for identity in the late Meiji-Period (1868-1912), more precisely: on the forming of images of human nature and how they became manifest in literature.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants