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Double Weave: The Fabric of Japanese Women's Writing

1988; University of Oklahoma; Volume: 62; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.2307/40144289

1945-8134

Amy Vladeck Heinrich,

Japanese History and Culture

the early part of the twentieth century the master short-story writer Ryunosuke Akutagawa (1892-1927) used a weaving metaphor to describe literary influence. He wrote: Modern Japanese literature, while imitating the West as its warp, aims at individuality as its woof which has its roots in Japanese soil.1 We can no longer talk of the imitation of Western literature; in the eighty years or so since Akutagawa wrote, Western literature belongs to Japanese writers by right of familiarity. They are exposed to it from a sufficiently early point in their literary careers to make it their own. We also need not accept Akutagawa's designation of the Japanese strands of the weave as forming an individuality; the variety of those strands forms part of a complex pattern. Still, we must acknowledge that modern Japanese literature is constructed from a dual heritage received from both East and West.