BookRags.com Literature Guides Literature
Guides
Criticism & Essays Criticism &
Essays
Questions & Answers Questions &
Answers
Lesson Plans Lesson
Plans
My Bibliography Periodic Table U.S. Presidents Shakespeare Sonnet Shake-Up
Research Anything:        
History | Encyclopedias | Films | News | Create a Bibliography | More... Login | Register | Help


Futabatei Shimei

Print-Friendly  Order the PDF version  Order the RTF version
About 1 pages (306 words)
Futabatei Shimei Summary

Bookmark and Share Questions on this topic? Just ask!

Futabatei Shimei

(1864–1909), Japanese novelist and translator. Futabatei Shimei (pseudonym of Hasegawa Tatsunosuke) was born in Edo (now Tokyo) to a samurai family. He is the author of Japan's first modern novel, Ukigumo (The Drifting Cloud, 1887–1889), which he began while still a student at Tokyo Gaikokugo Gakko (now Tokyo University of Foreign Studies). Futabatei's studies in Russian language and literature resulted in many fine translations, which he continued to produce until his death, including those of Turgenev, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Goncharov, and Chekov. He was able to achieve a literary style appropriate to the realistic fiction of contemporary Japan known as gembun itchi ("fusion of spoken and written language"). Futabatei also accomplished a psychological realism that his mentor, Tsubouchi Shoyo, had originally proposed in his Shosetsu shinzui (Essence of the Novel, 1885–1886) but could not himself realize. Futabatei had little trust in the public reception of his art and, unable to make a living from writing, took up a government post in 1889, withdrawing from literary circles but continuing to devote his time to writing. His ambivalence toward being a novelist is reflected in his choice of a pseudonym that sounds like the profanity kutabatte shimae, "go to hell." In the last years of his life, he again received critical attention for a novel on the common Japanese practice of adopting a son-in-law into a family that has no heir, Sono omokage (An Adopted Husband, 1906). The author's bitter attitude toward his literary milieu is summed up in his final novel Heibon (Mediocrity, 1907), a semiautobiographical study. Hired as a newspaper correspondent in Russia, he took ill soon after arrival and died on his return trip to Japan.

Further Reading

Lewell, John, ed. (1993) Modern Japanese Novelists: A Biographical Dictionary. Tokyo: Kodansha.

Ryan, Marleigh Grayer, trans. (1965) Japan's First Modern Novel: Ukigumo of Futabatei Shimei. New York: Columbia University Press.

This is the complete article, containing 306 words (approx. 1 page at 300 words per page).

More Information
  • View Futabatei Shimei Study Pack
  • Search Results for "Futabatei Shimei"
  • Add This to Your Bibliography
  • More Products on This Subject
    Shimon Peres
    Shimon Peres (born 1923) served as Israel's prime minister from 1984 through 1986 and again in 1995... more

    Shimei Futabatei
    Although he wrote only three novels during his career and spent most of his life in government serv... more


     
    Ask any question on Futabatei Shimei and get it answered FAST!
    Answer questions in BookRags Q&A and earn points toward
    discounted or even FREE Study Guides and other BookRags products!
    Learn more about BookRags Q&A
    Copyrights
    Futabatei Shimei from Encyclopedia of Modern Asia. Copyright © 2001-2006 by Macmillan Reference USA, an imprint of the Gale Group. All rights reserved.

    Join BookRagslearn moreJoin BookRags




    About BookRags | Customer Service | Report an Error | Terms of Use | Privacy Policy