Junbungaku

Late XIX century. - first half of the 20th century

The term was introduced into use by the poet Kitamura Tokoku in 1893 in one of his essays, published in the journal Literary World . Kitamura defined junbungaku as works whose value is determined primarily by their aesthetic qualities, contrasting them with philosophical, historical and scientific literature. Gradually, the emphasis in opposition, however, shifted, and dzyunbungaku was considered as the antipode of mass literature.

Junbungaku romantic sense, the ancestor of which was Kitamura himself, soon gave way to the pessimistic naturalism of the prose of such authors as Shimazaki Toson and Taayama Katai , which gave rise to Japanese ego-belletristism ( syshetsu ). With the latest genre, junbungku is sometimes identified altogether.

At the turn of the Meiji and Taisho epochs , the writers of the White Birch group, dominant in the literary world of Japan at that time, Musyanokoji Saneatsu , Shiga Naoya , Arisima Takeo and others, opposed the pampimism of their predecessors, naturalists, to humanistic literature, where catharsis and priscisocispris appealed to the pessimism of their predecessors, naturalists. work (especially clearly expressed in Shiga Naoya ). This model subsequently became canonical for the Japanese I-literature in general. Along with the writers of “White Birch,” staged dzunbungaku works were created by Japanese Parnassians ( Mori Ogai and others), Natsume Soseki , supporters of aestheticism ( Junichiro Tanizaki ) and others, in which the logic of plot development begins to play a key role.

At the turn of the Taisho and Showa epochs, Ryunosuke Akutagawa moved forward in major writers, whose talent was spotted early on by Natsume Soseki. Based on the tradition formed by the last and the circle of the authors of the White Birch, Akutagawa entered into a debate with Tanizaki's aestheticism, regarding beauty as such as insufficient for genuine literature. A new twist in the evolution of junbungaku is associated with the emergence of the influential Andre Gide and foreign literature in general of a group of neo-sensualists who were joined by Yasunari Kawabata , as well as by Reiti Yokomitsu . According to the author, the latest article in the article “On pure literature” (純 粋 小説 論, 1935) offered to update the dead-end, dyunbungak literature, by raising to the level of genuine art of mass literature, the realities of which were required for this purpose to be sublimated.

From post-war years to the present

Dzünbungaku experienced its heyday after the end of the Second World War . In this turbulent time for Japanese literature, in scale comparable in part to the Silver Age in Russia, the authors co-existed and in constant dialogue were so different in their artistic and social positions: older writers - Osamu Dazai , Ango Sakaguchi and Jun Ishikawa from one side and the first wave of post-war literature in the face of authors such as Shohei Ooka and Hiroshi Nome, on the other; Yukio Mishima , who continued the tradition of Japanese aestheticism in the postwar years; Kobo Abe and his experimental novels and plays, partly inspired by Kafka and the literature of the absurd ; Kenzaburo Oe , in whose early works the influence of Sartre's existentialism is evident; introspective " third new ".

A new tendency for junbungak in the second half of the 20th century was the blurring of the boundaries between pure and entertaining literature that existed relatively separately. “Pure” writers began to pay more and more attention to the narrative and plot, which is largely characteristic of entertaining literature; while writers who were considered "entertaining," began to introduce into their technical arsenal techniques of "pure" literature, which was vividly demonstrated by the works of such authors as Hisashi Inoue and Yasutaka Tsutsui . As a result, dzünbungaku in its traditional sense began to get rid of itself as such. Speaking of serious literature in Japan in recent decades, we should highlight among the writers Kenzaburo Oe , Yoshikichi Furui , Hisashi Inoue , Kenji Nakagami , Taeko Kono , Taeko Tomioka, and Yuko Tsushima , and among the critics that are adequate to them are Shitui Kato , Yoshikuzu Sakamoto , I ’m of Jesus , I, and Yuko Tsushima , and among the critics that are adequate to them are Shyuchi Kato , I’сиshiku Sakamoto , I ’m of honeys , and Iкоko Tsushima ; Makoto Oda and Kojin Karatani ^[1] .

The main literary journals focused on the publication of "serious literature":

• " Bungakukai " ( Jap. 文学界 Literary World )
• " Sinte " ( jap. 新潮 New flow )
• Subaru ( j. す ば る Pleiades )
• " Gungzo " ( Jap. 群像 Group portrait )
• Bungay ( j . 文 Fiction )

In Japan, there are a number of awards for the authors of outstanding Junbungaku works, the establishment of which began with the Akutagawa Prize, which was created simultaneously with the Naoki Prize addressed to authors of mass literature. The most significant of them are listed below:

• Akutagava Prize
• Mishima Prize
• Tanizaki Award
• Kawabata Prize
• Oe Prize
• Hirabayashi Award
• Noma Award
• Noma Prize for debutants
• Ito Prize
• Kiyama Prize