PREFACE

With its personal narrative of the author’s experiences in London and its recounting of his motives in launching the project to construct a scientific theory of literature, the preface is the best known section of Theory of Literature. In fact, many scholars seem content to read only it, without venturing into the main body of the work. Despite the powerful emotional tone that characterizes much of the preface, it—like the rest of the book—is written in a formal, scholarly style that partakes of many elements drawn from classical forms of the Japanese language. It is quite distinct from the genbun’itchi vernacular writing style that Sōseki used in most of his fictional pieces.

N.B.: We have translated the preface in its entirety.

As I set this work before the public, perhaps I had best recount the original motive under which it germinated, the motive by which it then became a series of lectures, and the reasons I am publishing it now.

In Meiji 33 [1900], when I received orders to go to En gland as an overseas student, I was a teacher at the Fifth Higher School. At the time I harbored no Particular desire to go abroad, and I believed there were others much better suited to it than I was. I conveyed these sentiments to the then current president and head of faculty of the school. The president and head of faculty replied that whether there were others more qualified was not a matter for me to concern myself with; the school had nominated me to the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Education had approved that nomination and appointed me to serve as an overseas student, nothing more, nothing less. If I had a specific objection, that was one thing, but if not, then it would be proper and good for me to obey the order. All I could say was that I harbored no Particular desire to go abroad. Having no other reasons for refusing the order, I gave my consent and departed.

The subject I was ordered to study was English—not English literature. Feeling the need to know better the extent and details of what was expected of me in this, I paid a visit to Ueda Kazutoshi, the then chief of the Specialized Educational Affairs Section at the Ministry of Education, to ask him about this.¹ Ueda replied that there was no particular need to place tight restrictions on this; I should simply specialize in a subject or subjects that were suitable for teaching at the Higher School or University level after I returned to Japan. In this way I confirmed that there was some leeway for modifying, according to my own views, the subject matter of English that I had been assigned. I departed for the West in September of that year and arrived at my destination in November.

Upon arriving, the first thing to decide was where to study. Even in far-off Japan I had heard of Oxford and Cambridge, those august seats of learning. As I was debating in my mind between the two, I was fortunate enough to receive an invitation to Cambridge from an acquaintance there, and so I set off for a visit—partly in order to sightsee.

In addition to the man I visited, I met two or three other Japanese there. They were all the sons of wealthy families who, in their mission to acquire the status of “gentleman,” were able to expend thousands of gold pieces year after year. My government stipend was only 1,800 yen per year, a sum that—in a place where the power of money controlled everything— would make it impossible for me to carry on as if I were their equal. Even if I didn’t try to keep up and contented myself with merely trying to observe the “gentleman” style from a distance, it still wouldn’t suffice: I knew I would be hard pressed to support myself even if I refused all social intercourse and did nothing but sit in on appropriate classes. Even if I used great care and somehow managed to scrape by, I wouldn’t be able to buy any books to bring back with me to Japan—one of my goals for the trip. And so I reconsidered. My situation as an overseas student was different from the carefree life of those privileged youths. The gentlemen of England might well be an exemplary collection of model persons, endowed with noble characters and worthy of imitation. But for someone like me, who had spent his youth in the oriental fashion, chasing after much younger English gentlemen and trying to acquire their habits of conduct would be like a fully grown adult whose bones are no longer limber trying to master all the deft techniques of a lion-dance acrobat. No matter how much I might admire them, no matter how much I might worship them, no matter how much I might adore them, this belonged to the realm of impossibility—even if I resolved to cut my daily meals from three to two.

When my companions heard this, they told me they attended one or two hours of lectures in the morning, that they used the two or three hours after lunch in outdoor exercise, that at teatime they paid social calls, and that in the evening they engaged in communal dining at their colleges. I realized that, irrespective of whether it was seen from the perspective of expense, the use of time, or my character, I had no business trying to acquire the deportment of a gentleman. I permanently abandoned the notion of settling in there.

I believed the situation at Oxford would be no different from that of Cambridge, and so I did not bother going there. I considered heading north to Scotland or across the sea to Ireland, but I quickly realized that both places were ill-suited for the purpose of practicing English. At the same time, I recognized that London was the best place for me in terms of linguistic training. And so I set my bags down there.

In terms of linguistic practice, London was the most expedient choice— for obvious reasons. I believed this to be true then and find no reason to doubt it now. Yet I had not come to England solely for the purpose of improving my language skills. Orders were orders, but I had my own agenda as well. I was free to satisfy my own desires insofar as I respected the broad outlines that Ueda had suggested. I believed that carrying out research in literature in addition to acquiring linguistic proficiency was not merely a matter of following my own curiosity but, in fact, was also one way of obeying his instructions.

There is one thing I should note here to avoid any misunderstanding. The reason I chose not to devote my two years wholly to the study of language was not that I look down on linguistic ability or think it unworthy of study. Rather, it was the result of my taking it all too seriously. Two years was hardly sufficient time for acquiring proficiency even in one branch of language training—be it pronunciation, conversation, or written expression—much less to attempt to master the whole discipline! I counted on my fingers the length of time allotted for my overseas studies, considered my own lack of talent, and set to thinking about how much I might really be able to develop within the time limits I faced. After giving this careful thought, I came to the realization that it would be difficult if not impossible to produce the good results I hoped for in the short time available. Given my situation, it was unavoidable that my research agenda deviate at least partly from the terms of my orders from the Ministry of Education.

The next problem to arise was how one might go about studying literature. What specialty should one master in order to learn it?² Looking back now, I regret that I was unable to reach any conclusion regarding the naive and ill-formed question I had set myself. As a result, I ended up following a rather mechanical course of action. I headed for the university and audited lectures on contemporary literary history. Moreover, I availed myself of one other convenience: I sought out a private tutor with whom I could consult on matters that were unclear.

I gave up on the university lectures after three or four months. They were neither as interesting nor as informative as I had hoped. As for my private tutor, I recall that I saw him for about one year. During this period, I read every work related to English literature that I could get my hands on. Of course, I had no notion then of using these as materials for an essay, or of using them in a university lecture course after returning to Japan. I was merely flipping randomly through as many pages as possible. To be honest, I was not very knowledgeable about this field—certainly not knowledgeable enough to deserve selection for the honor of overseas study, as might befit the bachelor of arts in English literature that I was supposed to be. Following my graduation, I was forced to move repeatedly, meaning I daily grew estranged from the main literary circles [in Tokyo]. Not only that, but due to my personal and family circumstances, I did not have the opportunity to read as widely as I would have liked, and as a result even the famous classics that were on everybody’s lips were in the main known to me only by their titles; it was my constant regret that I had not passed my eyes over sixty or seventy percent of them. As a result, I could not think of a better policy for using this opportunity than to read through as many books as possible. After using up more than one year in this pursuit, I compared the number of books I had managed to read with the number I still needed to read—and was shocked at how little progress I had made. I came to the realization that to spend my remaining year in the same fashion would be utterly foolish. I needed to make a drastic change in my approach to studying.

(A note to young students: Some in your situation, with their whole lives still in front of them, believe that before they can make some original contribution to their field of scholarship, they must first make an exhaustive survey of the field. They therefore resolve to read through the entire canon of relevant literature, new and old, high and low, accumulated over the millennia. Should you resolve to follow this course, know that even when your hair has turned white with age, you will still not have completed your exhaustive survey. As a specialist in English literature, I have yet to make a complete survey of the canon in my field. I doubt very much that this will change even after another twenty or thirty years.)

As I increasingly felt the pressure of time constraints, there were other factors that caused me to depart from this course of action—in addition to the fact that my utterly undisciplined method of reading was leaving me in somewhat of a daze. In my childhood I was very fond of studying the Chinese classics. Despite my having studied them for only a short while, I nonetheless acquired from the Four Histories³ the vague notion that they defined what literature was supposed to be. I then simply assumed that English literature must be of a similar nature and, if that were so, I believed it was a subject that one could devote one’s life to studying without regret. The decision I made on my own to enter the English literature department, which was hardly fashionable at the time, was based entirely on this childish, simplistic reasoning. But the three years I stayed at the university were largely spent being tormented by Latin, overwhelmed by German, and acquiring only the shakiest acquaintance with French—all of which eluded my grasp, but thanks to them I had almost no time left for reading the works of what was supposed to by my area of specialization. At the time I graduated and received the lofty title of bachelor of arts, my heart was assailed by a terribly desolate feeling.

Since then I have watched ten springs and autumns slip past. I cannot claim that I had no spare time for studying; all I can do is lament my failure to study more thoroughly. Moreover, when I graduated I was bothered by a notion that lingered at the back of my mind—that somehow I had been cheated by English literature. Still harboring that troubling notion, I headed west for Matsuyama, and a year later headed farther west for Kumamoto. ⁴ After several years in Kumamoto, that troubling notion had still not dissipated—at which time I traveled to London. If I could not resolve this troubling notion even after coming to London, there was little hope that I could fulfill the main task for which I had been ordered overseas. But could I, in the coming year, conquer the doubt I had been unable to resolve over the preceding decade? If not completely impossible, this was at least highly unlikely.

Having abandoned my reading, I considered what lay before me. It was quite regrettable that, given my innate stupidity and lack of scholarly ability, I had not attained any mastery of foreign literature, my supposed specialty. Given my past record, it seemed unlikely that my scholarly abilities would improve much in the future. Faced with these poor prospects, it seemed that I must develop some other means besides scholarly ability if I wanted to enhance my appreciation. But I was finally unable to discover any such method. In reflecting on my own past, moreover, I realized that, despite lacking a solid scholarly foundation in classical Chinese, I nonetheless believed myself able to appreciate fully the Confucian classics. Of course, my knowledge of English was not particularly deep, but I did not believe it to be inferior to my knowledge of classical Chinese. For my sense of like and dislike between the two to be so widely divergent despite my having roughly equal scholarly abilities must mean that the two were of utterly different natures. In other words, what is called “literature” in the realm of the Chinese classics and what is called “literature” in English must belong to different categories and cannot be subsumed under a single definition.

In sum, it was not until I sat under the solitary lamp in my London room, years after my graduation from the university, that my intellectual worldview first encountered its home territory [kyokusho]. It may well be that others would call this childish. I myself think it childish. That I only stumbled upon this far too obvious question after traveling all the way to London was something of an embarrassment for this overseas student. But facts are facts: it may be shameful that I only then first became aware of this issue, but it is also true. Facing this situation, I decided that I must, first of all, resolve the more essential question: What is literature? At the same time, I made up my mind to use my remaining year as a first stage in carrying out research on this problem.

I closeted myself in my room. Furthermore, I shut away all books of literature in my wicker trunk. To read literary works to try to learn what literature was, I believed, was the same as trying to wash blood with blood. I vowed to determine what psychological necessity there was for literature— for its emergence, its development, and its decline. I vowed to pursue what social necessity there was for literature—for its existence, its rise, and its fall.

Because the problem I had set before me was by its nature so vast in scope—and also so new—I believed it would not lend itself to being solved in a year or two no matter who undertook the effort. I devoted all of my time to it, gathering research materials from the various relevant fields and using as much of my stipend as possible to purchase reference works. The six or seven months that followed this decision were the most ardent and diligent period of study in my entire life. It was also during this time that I received official reprimands from the Ministry of Education for failing to file my regular progress reports.

I devoted all of my energies to my task, reading the books I had acquired one after another, jotting down comments in the margins of what I read and—where necessary—taking extensive notes. After five or six months I began to feel as if I were somehow honing in on the real substance of the matter in the midst of what at first had seemed an amorphous, endless pursuit. At the time I was not a university professor, and so I did not anticipate using these as material for a course of lectures. Nor was there any urgent necessity for me to write my research up in the form of a book. At the time I calculated that it would take ten years of hard study following my return to Japan to bring this project to proper fruition, and I was prepared to hold off presenting it to the world until that time.

The notebooks I compiled during my overseas stay, written in tiny script the size of a fly’s head, amounted to a stack five or six inches tall. These notebooks were the one real asset I brought back with me to Japan. Almost as soon as I had returned to Japan, out of the blue I received an appointment as instructor at Tokyo Imperial University, where I was to lecture on English literature. It was not with this end in mind that I had traveled to the West—nor was it with this end in mind that I had returned to Japan. Not only did I lack the scholarly competence necessary for a university professor in charge of English literature classes, but I was also not pleased to have teaching responsibilities that would interfere with what had now become my real ambition: to complete work on my theory of literature. As a result, I at first thought to decline the appointment, but thanks to the good offices of a friend (Ōtsuka Yasuji), to whom I had by letter divulged my desire to find employment in Tokyo, I found that the arrangements were nearly finalized even prior to my return, and so I ended up accepting the appointment—regardless of my inadequate preparation.⁵

Prior to the beginning of my lecture course, I struggled mightily over the choice of topic. I felt that for today’s students specializing in literature, an introduction to my theory of literature would be both interesting and timely. Of course, I was a person who had long served as a teacher in a rural district, after which I had traveled to the West, only then to return to Tokyo [after many years away from the city]— in other words, there was no way that I could know at that time what the current trends were among the literati in the capital. I decided, however, that I could best bring honor to myself by placing before these youths—the future leaders of our cultural progress—the fruits of my efforts, the summit of my scholarly attainments, and so I chose this topic to present to my students, knowing I would receive their critical response.

Unfortunately, given the enormous ten-year project I had in mind for studying the theory of literature—in which my main purpose was to explain the fundamental vital force of literature primarily from the perspective of the disciplines of psychology and sociology—my project was hardly in a form suitable for classroom lectures. Moreover, for a course in literature it seemed to lean too heavily in the direction of abstract logic, deviating too far from the realm of pure literature. As a result, I expended my efforts in two directions. First, using the materials I had accumulated, I tried to bring a certain degree of practical order to my hitherto scattered thoughts. Second, in preparing my lectures I revised my arguments, which had been structured in the form of a logical system, to bring them as close as possible to the realm of pure literature.

Laboring against time limitations as well as those of my physical and mental health, I was unable to achieve either goal satisfactorily. But the actual results of my efforts are attested to by the contents of this volume. I lectured for three hours each week, beginning in September, Meiji 36 [1903], and continuing through June, Meiji 38 [1905], for a total of two academic years. I am afraid, however, that my lectures were not as stimulating for the students as I hoped they would be.

I had planned to continue work on this lecture series for a third academic year, but a variety of circumstances intervened to prevent that. Nor was I able to carry out my intention to rewrite the lectures I had already delivered in order to revise the sections that I found unsatisfactory or lacking. The lecture notes sat untouched at the bottom of my work basket for roughly two years, until I submitted them for publication in response to a publisher’s request.

Even after I agreed to publish them, I was completely preoccupied with various personal matters and could not even find the time to produce a clean copy of my old lecture notes. In the end, I was forced to entrust all preparations of the manuscript—including the arrangement of the notes into chapters and the editing of the table of contents—to my friend, Nakagawa Yoshitarō.⁶ Nakagawa, in fact, attended part of the lecture course. Possessed of wide learning and a fine character, of all the people I know he seemed the most suitable for the task of bringing order to my notes. I am deeply grateful for his kindness. I hope that his name will be remembered for as long as this book continues to exist. If not for his good offices, there is little hope that in my present situation I could have brought this book to publication. In future days, when Nakagawa has had the chance to establish his name in literary circles, I suspect that the world will remember this book in association with his name [rather than mine].

As I have described it earlier, this book has come about through my passion-driven labors. However, because I had to contract my ten-year plan down to two years (and two years in name only: apart from the time spent in making corrections for publication, what I spent on this was actually two summers), and because I had to change its fundamental structure due to its failure to meet the expectations of the students of pure literature, even now it remains an unfinished work—and it cannot but remain incomplete. But the world of academia is a hectic one, and even by the standards of this hectic world my life seems doubly hectic. If I had held off until I had filled in the missing blanks, corrected that which needed correcting, and written additional material where needed, then—barring some radical change in the circumstances of my life—I likely never could have presented it to the world, even if I had vowed to devote all of my remaining days to the task. That is why I have decided to publish it in its unfinished state.

Because this is still an unpolished draft, I have no expectations that it will instruct today’s students or provide an answer to the question of what literature is. If those who read this book, upon finishing it, find themselves taking up a related question or entertaining doubts on some issue, if they should perhaps advance a step beyond what is presented in this book or open up a new perspective and thereby point the way forward—if that should happen, I will have fulfilled my purpose. The edifice of learning is not built in a single morning, nor is it the product of any single person. I simply feel as if I have fulfilled my duty in contributing my small share of the labor needed for its construction.

The two years I lived in London were the unhappiest two years of my life. Among the English gentlemen, I was like a lone shaggy dog mixed in with a pack of wolves; I endured a wretched existence. I heard that the population of London is five million. Five million beads of oil and I the sole drop of water: I have no hesitation in asserting that I barely survived! The owner of a freshly laundered white shirt will certainly be displeased if he splashes a drop of ink on it. In London I was that drop of ink, wandering aimlessly like a beggar through Westminster. I feel sorry for the English gentlemen who for two years had to endure my drawing breath from the same thousands of cubic yards of the great city’s skies, filled as they were with man-made clouds being emitted from smokestacks. With humility I hereby pronounce the following to those Englishmen who present the model of the proper gentleman: please know that I did not head to London out of curiosity or for fun. I was under the control of a will greater than my own; I am sorry to say that it was not my wish to spend those months and years sharing in the blessing of your bread. When my two years were up, I felt like a goose returning north in spring. During my sojourn I was unable to model myself after you or live up to your expectations. Even today I regret that I am unable to become the model character that you seek among the children of the Orient. But one who goes under official orders is not like one who goes by choice. Were I to have followed my own will, I would never have set foot on English soil my whole life through. As a result, I who received your help then will likely never be in the position to receive that help again. Remembering your kindness, I regret that I will not again have the opportunity to be touched by that kindness.

The three and a half years following my return to Japan were also an unhappy three and a half years. But I am a sovereign subject of the nation of Japan. Simple unhappiness is not a reason for leaving Japan. I, who possess the honors and privileges of a sovereign subject of Japan, inhabit this land together with some fifty million others and desire, at the very least, to uphold my fifty-millionth share of those honors and privileges. If for some reason my share in those honors and privileges should be reduced to something less than a a fifty-millionth portion, this would still not provide sufficient reason for me to deny my existence or leave behind my native land. Rather, I would better labor with all my strength to restore that fifty-millionth share. For me this is not a trifling matter; it is a will [ishi] that is more fundamental than my own will [yo ga ishi ijō no ishi nari]. Given that it is a will more fundamental than my own, I cannot somehow shape it to suit my own will. This will more fundamental than my own commands me: I must face without shirking what ever measure of unhappiness may prove necessary when it comes to upholding the honors and privileges due a sovereign subject of Japan.

For an author to impose his own emotions on a scholarly work and describe them at length in its preface may seem inappropriate. But when I look back on this scholarly work and remember the unhappy circumstances under which it was first conceived, the unhappy circumstances under which it began to take shape and under which it was then delivered as a lecture and, finally, the unhappy circumstances under which it is now being published, I cannot help but feel a great sense of satisfaction that the task has reached its present state of completion—even if it does not measure up when compared to the works of other scholars. I hope the reader will more or less share in this feeling.

The English people who observed me called me neurasthenic. A certain Japanese person even sent a report back to Japan that I had gone mad. Who am I to question the pronouncements of such wise persons? I only regret that I didn’t have my wits about me enough then to express my gratitude to them.

Even after returning to Japan, I apparently remained unchanged—a neurasthenic and a madman. Even my own family accepted this view! Since my own family accepts this view, I am well aware that I, the person in question, have no leave to argue otherwise. But it was thanks to my neurasthenia and to my madness that I was able to compose Cat, produce Drifting in Space, and publish Quail Cage.⁷ Thinking about this now, I believe I owe an enormous debt of gratitude to my neurasthenia and madness.

Insofar as there is no drastic change in my personal circumstances, I imagine that my neurasthenia and madness will continue for as long as I live. So long as they persist, I have hopes of publishing any number of Cats, Driftings in Space, and Quail Cages, and so I pray that my neurasthenia and madness never abandon me.

Neurasthenia and madness have spurred me, willingly or not, in the direction of creative writing. As a result, it may well be that in the future I will have neither the time nor the means to indulge myself in writing another scientific treatise along the lines of this Theory of Literature. If that turns out to be the case, and this volume turns out to be the sole memento of my attempts at writing [literally staining my fingers (with ink)] a work of this nature, then at least for the author it is a project worthy of the print shop’s troubles—even as I acknowledge its meager value. I have tried to explain the reasons for this here.

November, Meiji 39 [1906]

Translated by Michael K. Bourdaghs