Death Literature: Body, Sickness, and Writing in the Meiji Period

Body, Sickness, and Writing in the Meiji Period
ぼたん
Robert Tierney
(University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, ICC Visiting Fellow)
June 21, 2016, 18:30-20:00,
Room 301, 3F, Building 10, Sophia University Yotsuya Campus
I will offer an overview of my research on modern Japanese death literature. I define "death literature" as a body of works
defined by an existential encounter with sickness and death, rather than as a literary form or genre. In my talk, I focus on
works by three writers from the Meiji period: Nakae Chōmin (1847-1901) , Masaoka Shiki (1867-1902), and Natsume Sōseki
(1867-1916). The philosopher Chōmin wrote One Year and a Half (Ichinen yūhan), and Sequel to One Year and A Half
(Zokuichinen yūhan) in 1901 after a doctor discovered a cancerous tumor in his throat and told him he had a year and a half
left.
The poet Shiki, bedridden with spinal tuberculosis from 1896, wrote daily chronicles of his life that appeared in the
Nihon Newspaper in 1901 and 1902: A Drop of Ink (Bokujū itteki) and A Sickbed Six Feet Long (Byōsho rokushaku). After a
near-death experience in Shūzenji in 1911, the novelist Sōseki came back to life and wrote Reminiscences and other matters
(Omoidasu koto nado) in 31 installments in the Asahi Newspaper. I will look at similarities and differences in the way these
writers approached sickness and death and found meaning through writing. On the one hand, they share traits that give their
different works a unity as writings of the Meiji period: death is not "medicalized" nor is it solitary, sickness has no
metaphorical meaning, they are agnostic toward religion. On the other hand, each writer experiences time and space,
physical body and pain, and writing in a highly distinctive and individual manner.
Robert Tierney is associate professor of Japanese and comparative literature in the University of Illinois at
Urbana-Champaign. This past year, he has been on sabbatical leave and affiliated with the ICC at Sophia University. His
recent publications include Monster of the Twentieth Century: Kōtoku Shūsui and Japan’s First Anti-Imperialist Movement,
(University of California Press, 2015); “Othello in Tokyo: Performing Race and Empire in Early Twentieth Century Japan,”
Shakespeare Quarterly 62(4), December 2011; and Tropics of Savagery: the Culture of Japanese Empire in Comparative
Frame (University of California Press, 2010). He is currently working on two new topics: a translation of Nakae Chōmin’s
One Year and a Half and a study of death writings in the Meiji period. He may be contacted at [email protected].
Institute of Comparative Culture (ICC) Sophia University 7-1 Kioicho, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo 102-8554, JAPAN
+81-3-3238-4082 / +81-3-3238-4081(fax) / Email [email protected] / Web: http://icc.fla.sophia.ac.jp/
余の請によりて手術の證人たるを諾せし者、書面を余の留守許に發して下阪し來り、余の投
宿せる中の島小塚に至れり、既にして衆皆癌腫切開の極めて危険にして、九死中一生無し、
寧ろ維持策を取るに如かざるを謂い、余を尼めて已まず、余固より好みて死を速やかにせん
と欲するに非ず、一息の存する必ず爲す可き有り
Death
Literature:
しかしこれは人間相互の関係である。よし吾々を宇宙の本位と見ないまでも、現在
の吾々以外に頭を出して、世界のぐるりを見回さない時の内輪の沙汰である。三世
に亘る生物全体の進化論と、
（ことに）物理の原則に因って無慈悲に運行し情義なく
発展する太陽系の歴史を基礎として、その間に微かな生を営む人間を考えて見ると、
吾らごときものの一喜一憂は無意味と云わんほどに勢力のないという事実に気がつ
かずにはいられない。
午後四時半体温を験す、卅八度六分。しかも両手なほ冷、この頃は卅八度の低熱にも苦
しむに六分とありては後刻の苦しさこそと思はれ、今の内にと急ぎてこの稿を認む。さしあた
り書くべき事もなく今日の日記をでたらめに書く。仰臥のまま書き終る時六時、先刻より
熱発してはや苦しき息なり。今夜の地獄思ふだに苦し。
雨は今朝よりふりしきりてやまず。庭の牡丹は皆散りて、西洋葵の赤き、をだまきの紫な
ど。
Sophia University Institute of Comparative Culture Lecture Series 2016

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