Reception of Western Literature in Japan and Its Influence in Japanese Literature and Film

Abstract

The article explores the reception of Western literature in Japan during the Meiji and Taishō eras (1868–1912 and 1912–1926) and its repercussion in the development of Japanese literature and film. Modern Japanese literature started to develop at the end of the
nineteenth century under the direct influence of Western literature after being isolated for more than two centuries. Writers adopted artistic ideas and styles imported from the West, creating a new type of literature radically different from the previous one. Western literature contributed likewise during both periods to the development of two new forms of theatre, Shinpa (‘new school’) and Shingeki (‘new drama’), which coexisted with the classical forms such as Kabuki, Noh, and Bunraku. Shingeki theatres presented on the stage translations of plays or adaptations of novels by remarkable Western authors. At the beginning of the
1910s, the emergent film studios started to produce short adaptations of plays performed previously on the Shingeki stages, simultaneously launching a process of Westernization of Japanese cinema. This process was crucial to Japanese film since it facilitated its evolution, contributing to the emergence of the ‘Pure Film Movement’. This movement championed the
use of new narrative techniques, contributing enormously in that way to modernizing Japanese cinema.