The Contradictions in Shinpei Kusano’s View of “Shinbungaku” in The Context of Japanese Imperialism in Nanjing ：Focused on The Local Japanese Journal Nightingale

Abstract

In light of Shinpei Kusano’s perspective on the promotion of Shinbungaku in the Japanese newspaper Tairiku Shinpo, this paper discusses three contradictions displayed by the Japanese journal Nightingale during the same period. Tairiku Shinpo propagated Kusano’s ideals of Shinbungaku, while the texts in Nightingale constituted the execution of his ideas in Occupied Nanjing. Firstly, Kusano expected differences in ideals to promote literary collaboration with Chinese intellectuals in occupied Nanjing. However, through an analysis of reviews of Chinese writers’ works by the editors of Nightingale, a discrepancy over the understanding of Shinbungaku was found. Secondly, Kusano paid close attention to the genre of the novel, but there was a contradiction between his ideas on pure literature, which he believed should focus on daily life in Japanese occupied Nanjing, and on propaganda literature, which lied about the Japanese ideology of Toa ShinChitsujo (New Order in East Asia). Lastly, Kusano insisted on the need for the spirit of Douujinshi to improve the Japanese literary environment for his contemporaries in occupied Nanjing, but meanwhile he also attempted to impose this spirit on local Chinese intellectuals. Due to the above three contradictions, the Shinbungaku movement ended with no practical result, but these contradictions clarify Kusano’s struggle to present his ideal of literature under the auspices of an imperialist ideology. Consequently, the output of Nightingale should not be overlooked.