This dissertation discusses Japanese modernism in prose literature in the 1920s and 1930s. Introducing the social, artistic, and literary milieu of Japan at the time, it examines different aspects of Japanese prose modernism through the works of the four following writers: Yoshiyuki Eisuke (1906-1940), Murayama Tomoyoshi (1901-1977), Yumeno Kyusaku (1889-1936) and Okamoto Kanoko (1889-1939).
Yoshiyuki portrays the beautiful facade of urban life and its dark and corrupted nature in Dada-influenced narratives that are often bizarre and unconventional. Despite his fierce criticism of capitalism, he remained opposed to proletarian literature and supported the "art for art's sake" movement.
Murayama, who was originally an avant-garde visual artist, came to participate in the proletarian literature movement. Yet, his writing style is as experimental and metaphorical as that advocated by the "art for art's sake" movement, and it goes beyond the simple categorization of proletarian literature.
Yumeno, an ultra-nationalist writer, wrote a series of detective stories from a village in Kyushu. Through these works, Yumeno denounced urbanism and intellectualism and metaphorically warned that modern Japan, in its rush to Westernization, was losing its national identity.
Okamoto developed a highly personalized psycho-analytical framework and described reality constructed by human subjectivity. She also used abstracted images to portray landscapes; thus, her long and detailed descriptions of scenery establish what would seem to be visually unimaginable worlds that are made real through language.
In spite of the considerable political and artistic differences that distinguish these writers, they share a common "modernist" ground in their attempts to develop new and experimental images, visions, and narratives in their works. Inspired by both modern Western culture and Japanese traditional culture, Japanese prose modernism is a product of simultaneity in world culture and of a special generational focus on narrativity. Thus, in its conclusion, this dissertation seeks to define the Japanese literary modernist movement in the context of both Japanese literature and modernism in the universal sense.