Decadent Literature in Twentieth-Century Japan [Paperback]

Decadence is a concept that designates a given historical moment as a phase of decay and valorizes the past as an irretrievable golden age. This study offers an innovative examination of a century of Japanese fiction through the analytical prism of decadence.Introduction: The Making of Decadence in Japan 1. Immature Decadents: The Waste of Useless Men in Indulgences - Two Novellas by Oguri F?y? and Iwano H?mei 2. The Decadent Consumption of the Self: Naturalist Aestheticismin Morita S?hei's Sooty Smoke 3. Decadent Returnees: The Dialogic Labor of Sensibility in Nagai Kaf?'s Sneers and Ueda Bin's The Vortex 4. Taish? Malaise as Decadence: Self-Reclusion and Creative Labor in Sat? Haruo's A Pastoral Spreen and Tanizaki Jun'ichir?'s A Fool's Love 5. Decadence Begins with Physical Labor: The Postwar Usethe Body in Sakaguchi Ango's The Idiot and Tamura Taijir?'s Gateway to the Flesh 6. Decadence as Generosity: Squander and Oblivion in Mishima Yukio's Spring Snow 7. Capitalist Generosity: Decadence as Giving and Receiving in Shimada Masahiko's Decadent Sisters Conclusion: Toward Japanese Decadence: The Dynamics of Energy from Waste to Living Labor

Skillfully blending literary, philosophical, historical, and economic issues, Ikuho Amano's exploration of Japanese decadence is groundbreaking and compelling. This brilliant analysis of non-productive, subversive labor as resistance to mainstream social and aesthetic values highlights new fascinating connections between European and Japanese modernity...a crucial reading for anyone interested in East-West literary and cultural relations. - Nicoletta Pireddu, Associate Professor of Italian and Comparative Literature, Georgetown University, USA

This book is an exceptionally fine study of how decadence as a theme can be understood as a counter trope to the major aesthetic currents (including collectivity and conformity) that dominate twentieth century Japanese fiction. Ikuho Amano's brilliant, close relÃM