Immersed in the Fleeting World of Modernity: Edo Music and the Aestheticism of Melancholy in Nagai Kafū’s Literary World

Authors

  • Lei Hu Washington University in St. Louis

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.5195/jll.2023.298

Abstract

-

Author Biography

Lei Hu, Washington University in St. Louis

Lei Hu is a PhD Candidate in Japanese Language and Literature from the department of East Asian Languages and Cultures at Washington University in St. Louis. She holds an MA in Japanese Studies from Sophia University, Tokyo, Japan, and an MA in China Studies from The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Hong Kong. Her research interests cover modern Japanese literature of the late 19th and early 20th century, music and sound studies, affect theories, and Sino-Japanese literature of the early modern and modern era.

Bringing together music and literature, her PhD dissertation examines references to Edo-period (1603–1868) vernacular music and musical performances in early 20th century Japanese literature. Taking an approach inspired by affect studies, sound studies, and cultural studies, she explores the affective interaction between sound and text concealed in the written descriptions of song lyrics.

Lei has received multiple awards and fellowships, including the Japan Foundation Japanese Studies Doctoral Fellowship and the East Asian Studies Graduate Student Travel Award offered by Washington University in St. Louis.

References

Baudelaire, Charles. The Flowers of Evil / Les Fleurs Du Mal (English and French Edition). Translated by William Aggeler. Digireads.com Publishing, 2015. Available at: https://www.amazon.co.jp/gp/product/B00SXOUWY4/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Baudelaire, Charles. The Painter of Modern Life (Penguin Great Ideas). Translated by P. E. Charvet. London and New York: Penguin Books, 2010.

Benjamin, Walter. The Arcades Project. Translated by Howard Eiland and Kevin McLaughlin. Cambridge and London: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1999.

Edo-Tokyo Museum. Nagai Kafū to Tokyo ten (An exhibition on Nagai Kafū and Tokyo). Tokyo: The Edo-Tokyo Museum, 1999.

Ferber, Ilit. Philosophy and Melancholy Benjamin’s Early Reflections on Theater and Language. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2013.

Follaco, Gala Maria. A Sense of the City: Modes of Urban Representation in the Works of Nagai Kafū (1879-1959). Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2017.

Follaco, Gala Maria. “The Soundscape East of the River: Sonic Icons in Nagai Kafū’s Writings.” Paper presented at the IAFOR International Conference on the City 2016, Barcelona, Spain, 2016.

Goddard, Timothy Unverzagt. “Teito Tokyo: Empire, Modernity, and the Metropolitan Imagination.” PhD diss. University of California, Los Angeles, 2013.

Hayashi, Shinzō. Nagai Kafū, Zola-ism no shatei – shoki sakuhin o megutte (A Range of Zola-ism: A Comprehensive Study on Nagai Kafū’s Early Works). Yokohama: Shumpusha, 2010.

Hutchinson, Rachael. Nagai Kafū’s Occidentalism: Defining the Japanese Self. Albany: SUNY Press, 2011.

Karlin, Jason G. Gender and Nation in Meiji Japan: Modernity, Loss, and the Doing of History. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2014.

Kaneko, Hanō. Eds. Utazawa sanbyakushū ge (Three Hundreds Utazawa Songs, the Latter Volume), 240-242. Tokyo: Tomifumikan, 1920. Available at: https://dl.ndl.go.jp/info:ndljp/pid/917010

Kawatake, Mokuami. “Sato moyō azami no ironui: Izayoi seishin” in Mokuami meisaku sen (Collections of Mokuami’s Famous Plays). Vol.1. Tokyo: Sōgensha, 1952.

Matsuda, Ryōichi. Nagai Kafū: Muse no Shito (Nagai Kafū, the Disciple of Muse). Tokyo: Bensei-sha, 1995.

Matsuda, Ryōichi. Nagai Kafū: Opera no yume (Nagai Kafū, the Dream of Opera). Tokyo: Ongaku no tomosha, 1992.

Minami, Asuka. Kafū to Meiji no toshi keikan (Kafū and the Urban Landscape of Meiji Japan). Tokyo: Sanseidō, 2009.

Moriyasu, Masafumi. Nagai Kafū: Hikage no bungaku (Nagai Kafū, the Literature of the Shadows). Tokyo: Kokusho Kankōkai, 1981.

Morton, Leith. The Alien Within: Representations of the Exotic in Twentieth-Century Japanese Literature. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2009.

Nagai, Kafū. Kafū zenshū daigokan (The Complete Works of Nagai Kafū, Volume 5). Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1963.

Nagai, Kafū. Kafū zenshū (The Complete Works of Nagai Kafū). Vols. 1–10. Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1992-1993.

Nagai, Kafū. American Stories. Trans. Mitsuko Iriye. New York: Columbia University Press, 2000.

Nakamura, Kōsuke. “Chapter 4: Nagai Kafū to seiyō ongaku.” In Seiyō no oto, nihon no mimi (Sounds of the West, Ears of Japan), 219–350. Tokyo: Shunchusha, 1987.

Nakano, Mitsutoshi. “Kafū sanjin no edo – gajin no moteasobu zoku” (Kafū the Recluse, and his Vision of Edo –Vernacular Arts and Literature that an Aristocrat Plays with). In Bungaku, tokushū: Kafū botsugo gojū nen, kyozō kara jitsuzō e (Special Edition: Fifty Years after Kafū, from the virtual to the real), vol. 10, no. 2, 84–92. Tokyo: Iwanami, 2009.

Nietzsche, Friedrich. The Birth of Tragedy, Out of the Spirit of Music. Translated by Shaun Whiteside. Edited by Michael Tanner. London: Penguin Classics, 1993.

Nietzsche, Friedrich. Thus Spoke Zarathustra, A Book for Everybody and Nobody. Translated by Graham Parkes. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008. Available at: https://www.amazon.co.jp/gp/product/B01INJB6XO/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Noguchi, Takehiko. “Meijibungaku to waguna: Nagai Kafū no ongaku to kanno” (Meiji Literature and Wagner: The Music and Desire of Nagai Kafū). In Kokubungaku: kaishaku to kyōzai no kenkyū (National Literature: Text and Analysis) vol. 35, no. 2, 62–68. Tokyo: Gakutōsha, 1990.

Ito, Ken. Visions of Desire: Tanizaki's Fictional Worlds. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1991.

Iwada, Nanatsu. “Nagai Kafū kyūkon ron - Waguna Tanhoiza e no oma-jū toshite no kyūkon” (A study on Nagai Kafū’s “Old Regrets” – Viewing Wagner’s Tannhäuser as a homage to “Old Regrets”). In Kokubungaku Tsurumi (The National Literature of Tsurumi University), no. 51, 61–71. Yokohama: Tsurumi daigaku nihon bungaku kai, 2017.

Machida, Oen. Composer. Zokkyoku gakufu vol.3 hautashū (Collection of Hauta Songs, Music Scores of Japanese Vernacular Music, vol.3), 18-19. Tokyo: Seirindō, 1909. Available at: https://dl.ndl.go.jp/info:ndljp/pid/856055

Ono, Takeo. Edo onkyoku jiten (The Encyclopedia of Edo music). Tokyo: Tenbōsha. 1979.

Sano, Jinmi. “Nagai Kafū to furansu ongaku (Nagai Kafū and France Music).” In Furansu to Nihon: Tōkute chikai futstsu no kuni (France and Japan: Two Countries so far and yet so close), 182–87. Tokyo: Sōmi shupansha, 2015.

Sasabuchi, Tomoichi. Nagai Kafū – Daraku no bigakusha. (Nagai Kafū, the Aesthetician of the Decadent). Tokyo: Meiji shoin, 1976.

Sato, Isoo. “Po-dore-ru to nihon kindai shi: Bin, Ariake, Kōnosuke, Kafū” (Baudelaire and Modern Japanese Poetry, Ueda Bin, Urahara Ariake, Hinatsu Kōnosuke, and Nagai Kafū). In Kokubungaku: kaishaku to kyōzai no kenkyū (National Literature: Text and Analysis) vol. 6, no.14, 42–48. Tokyo: Gakutōsha, 1961.

Seidensticker, Edward. Kafū the Scribbler: The Life and Writing of Nagai Kafū, 1879-1959. Ann Arbor: Center for Japanese Studies, The University of Michigan, 1990.

Shindō, Masahiro. Nagai Kafū: Ongaku no nagareru kūkan (Nagai Kafū, the Space that Music Flows). Kyoto: Sekai shisōsha, 1997.

Snyder, Stephen. Fictions of Desire: Narrative Form in the Novels of Nagai Kafū. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2000.

Tada, Kurahito. Nagai Kafū (Nagai Kafū). Tokyo: The University of Tokyo Press, 2017.

Tokumaru, Yoshihiko. “Nagai Kafū to Nihon ongaku” (Nagai Kafū and Japanese Music). In Bungaku, tokushū: Kafū botsugo gojū nen, kyozō kara jitsuzō e (Special Edition: Fifty Years after Kafū, from the virtual to the real), vol. 10, no. 2, 102–10. Tokyo: Iwanami, 2009.

Utazawa, Sagami (singer). Utazawa, Toraemon (shamisen). “Fukete au yo,” 1&2. Victor Japan. Recorded June 1935. Historical Recordings Collection, the National Diet Library. Available at: https://rekion.dl.ndl.go.jp/info:ndljp/pid/1322682; https://rekion.dl.ndl.go.jp/info:ndljp/pid/1322683

Wagner, Richard. Tannhäuser. By Giuseppe Sinopoli. Unitel. 1989, The Bayreuth Festival at the Bayreuth Festival Theatre, Bayreuth, Bavaria, Germany.

Wagner, Richard. Tristan und Isolde. By ‎Jean-Pierre Ponnelle. Deutsche Grammophon Studio, 2007.

Yoshiwara, Yuki (singer). “Hauta: Aki no yoru.” Nipponphone. Recorded May 1909. Historical Recordings Collection, the National Diet Library. Available at: https://rekion.dl.ndl.go.jp/info:ndljp/pid/3575233

Downloads

Published

2023-03-23

Issue

Vol. 57 No. 1 (2023): Japanese Language and Literature

Section

ARTICLES

License

Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:

  1. The Author retains copyright in the Work, where the term “Work” shall include all digital objects that may result in subsequent electronic publication or distribution.
  2. Upon acceptance of the Work, the author shall grant to the Publisher the right of first publication of the Work.
  3. The Author shall grant to the Publisher and its agents the nonexclusive perpetual right and license to publish, archive, and make accessible the Work in whole or in part in all forms of media now or hereafter known under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Licenseor its equivalent, which, for the avoidance of doubt, allows others to copy, distribute, and transmit the Work under the following conditions:
    1. Attribution—other users must attribute the Work in the manner specified by the author as indicated on the journal Web site;
    with the understanding that the above condition can be waived with permission from the Author and that where the Work or any of its elements is in the public domain under applicable law, that status is in no way affected by the license.
  4. The Author is able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the nonexclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the Work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), as long as there is provided in the document an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
  5. Authors are permitted and encouraged to post online a pre-publication manuscript (but not the Publisher’s final formatted PDF version of the Work) in institutional repositories or on their Websites prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work. Any such posting made before acceptance and publication of the Work shall be updated upon publication to include a reference to the Publisher-assigned DOI (Digital Object Identifier) and a link to the online abstract for the final published Work in the Journal.
  6. Upon Publisher’s request, the Author agrees to furnish promptly to Publisher, at the Author’s own expense, written evidence of the permissions, licenses, and consents for use of third-party material included within the Work, except as determined by Publisher to be covered by the principles of Fair Use.
  7. The Author represents and warrants that:
    1. the Work is the Author’s original work;
    2. the Author has not transferred, and will not transfer, exclusive rights in the Work to any third party;
    3. the Work is not pending review or under consideration by another publisher;
    4. the Work has not previously been published;
    5. the Work contains no misrepresentation or infringement of the Work or property of other authors or third parties; and
    6. the Work contains no libel, invasion of privacy, or other unlawful matter.
  8. The Author agrees to indemnify and hold Publisher harmless from Author’s breach of the representations and warranties contained in Paragraph 6 above, as well as any claim or proceeding relating to Publisher’s use and publication of any content contained in the Work, including third-party content.
  9. The Author agrees to digitally sign the Publisher’s final formatted PDF version of the Work.