Since childhood, Mishima was drawn to the history and cultural traditions of Japan. As a young writer, he became acquainted with the Japanese romantics, a group of writers and intellectuals who rejected literary modernism—including the genres of naturalism and realism—and advocated the reading of Japanese classics. Mishima supported their literary theories, for example, expressing a decided disinterest in realistic, banal dialogue. Mishima's early stories and his first novel demonstrate elements typical of this school of literature, such as beautiful young lovers who die a romantic death, and the sea. Such elements would be seen again in Mishima's later works but more often as ironic symbols. Mishima's early work also lacked his later renowned contemporary social vision, drawing more deeply on Japan's past.

With his second novel, Confessions of a Mask (1949), Mishima first raised some of the themes that he would continue to...