Japanese realism and naturalism

Around 1900 the Japanese novel ceased to be entertainment and became the examination of a conscience. Sōseki staged a man who carries the secret of a student betrayal and writes it in a long letter before dying. Mori Ōgai, an army doctor trained in Germany, wrote restraint and regret; Shimazaki Tōson took as subject a schoolteacher who hides his burakumin origin; Tayama Katai founded the I-novel by confessing a man's desire for his pupil. The country had just opened, and its literature was learning to say I.

works 6

• NovelJapan's First Modern Novel: Ukigumo浮雲Futabatei Shimei · 1887A novel published in three parts, about a young civil servant who loses his post and sees an ambitious colleague supplant him.Literature
• NovelThe Broken Commandment破戒Shimazaki Toson · 1906Novel of 1906 about a schoolteacher who, on his father's orders, hides his birth into a caste of outcasts.Literature
• NovelThe Quilt蒲団Tayama Katai · 1907A narrative of 1907 in which a married writer takes a young woman as his pupil and loves her without saying so.Literature
• NovelThe Wild Geese雁Mori Ōgai · 1913A novel serialised from 1911 to 1913, about a kept woman and a student who greet each other every day.Literature
• NovelKokoroこころNatsume Soseki · 1914A novel from 1914 in which a student befriends a silent man who promises to tell him everything one day, in writing.LiteraturePublic domain
• CinemaFloating Clouds浮雲Mikio Naruse · 19551955 film based on a book, about a woman who cannot bring herself to leave the man she loved during the war.Cinema