4 A GUIDE TO JAPANESE REFERENCE AND RESEARCH MATERIALS for a higher destiny, and that man contributed most by striving for his own perfection. The emphasis was on man's relationship with the whole of humanity or with the universe, with very little attention paid to "society." 5. The Neo-realist School (Shin-genjitsuha Xr it t ( ) The various idealistic schools were answered by the Shingenjitsuha or Neo-realistic school, which held a prominent place in literature from about 1918 to 1923. Except for Kikuchi Kan, most of the writers were influenced by Natsume in their literary style and in their view of life. Writing, it was felt, should not be merely autobiographical. As men in society, most of the authors of the Neo-realist School tended to enjoy themselves and to regard physical health and wit as attributes of a good life. They believed that technique and art were needed to heighten reality. They also went not only to society but to the older legends of the nation in their search for interesting subject matters. In addition to Kikuchi the major writers included Kume Masao, Akutagawa Ryunosuke, Toyoshima Toshio, Yamamoto Yiuz, Hirotsu Kazuo, Kasai Zenzo, Satomi Ton, Sat6 Haruo, Uno K6ji, and Muro Saisei. Akutagawa, the author of the two stories Rashomon (The Rashomon gate) and Yabu no naka (In the the thicket) which went into the movie Rashmon, paid close attention to the details of writing. His works exhibit a high degree of intellectual control over his materials, which tend to run to the strange, grotesque, unreal, and fantastic. Kikuchi too found his subject matter in past history, but after 1920, when he published Shinju fujin (Madame Pearl), he became more and more a writer of popular fiction. As editor of the magazine Bungei shunji (Literary annals), he became the arbiter of the Japanese literary world. One word of praise from Kikuchi virtually opened the doors to success for any ambitious young writer. The high degree of intellectual control exercised over their materials by Akutagawa, Kikuchi, Kume, Toyoshima, and Yamamoto led to their being named the Shinrichiha (Neo-intellectual School) and Shingik6ha (New Technique School). Also, their association with the third and fourth revivals of the magazine Shinshicho (New trends of thought) gave them the name Shinshich6ha. 6. Proletarian Fiction and its Offshoots Japan, like most of the nations of the world, was caught in the economic depression which followed World War I. In literature the major result was the development of a vigorous proletarian movement which threatened for a time to monopolize the activities of an entire generation of writers. Proletarian literature in Japan had for its background the growing concern with human rights which came with the breakdown of feudalism in the Meiji period. As early as 1902, Tokutomi Roka in Kuroshio (Black current) had exposed corruption in government as controlled by the Satsuma and Choshuii clans, and had suggested that the lesser classes should throw off the fetters which tied them to a freedom-less existence. Shimazaki T6son's Hakai (The breaking of the pledge) had pictured the life of a young man unfortunate enough to be born into a family of eta, the most conspicuous of the pariah groups in Japanese society. The Japanese Socialist Party was founded in 1906 by Sakai Kosen. Kinoshita Naoe had written socialistically inclined novels and had fought for human rights in the courtroom. The poet Ishikawa Takuboku too had sung of the poverty of the farmers of northern Japan, and of his hardships as a struggling young teacher in the city of Morioka. From the literary historian and critic Homma Hisao had come an essay on the meaning and value of a people's literature, and Osugi Sakae, after translating a treatise on "people's drama" by Romain Rolland, had written about "an art for a new world." Writers like Miyaji Karoku and Miyajima Sukeo had already come from the laboring class and a democratic poetry inspired by Whitman had been written by poets like Fukuda Masao. On the social scene Japan had also witnessed a series of rice riots and strikes in the period of depression that followed World War I, and the time was ripe for the coming in of Communism. a. Proletarian Fiction It is generally agreed that proletarian literature per se came into being when the magazine Tane maku hito (Planters of seeds) was established in 1921 to publish a literature of the working class. From the beginning this magazine included the writings of advance guard thinkers, including anarchists. Gradually it took on a Communist coloration and became an organ for anti-capitalist intellectuals rather than the anarcho-syndicalists who were vocal at that time. Hirabayashi Hatsunosuke,Muramatsu Masatoshi, and Aono Suekichi were the chief theorists. The Japan Communist Party was established in 1922. Attacked by traditionalist thinkers and by authors like Kikuchi Kan who proclaimed the value of literature as art, proletarian literature declined in the nationalistic period following the great earthquake of 1923. It was at this time that Tane maku hito and its sister journals Bungaku sekai (Literary world), Shink5 bungaku (Newly rising literature), and Kaiho (Emancipation) were forced to stop publication, at least temporarily. However, Bungei sensen (Literary battleline) appeared in 1924 and the Nihon Puroretaria Bungei Remmei or Japanese Proletarian Literary League was formed in 1925. The subsequent history of proletarian writing in Japan is marked by many fissions among the authors and by the successive rise of new groupings most of which boasted a magazine in which their compositions could be published. Proletarian literature was by its very nature a literature of social problems rather than of art. Communists, socialists, and anarchists were involved; their purpose was to incite the proletariat into a class struggle against the bourgeoisie. The principal theorist writing for Bungei sensen was Aono Suekichi, who argued along Marxist lines. Hayama Yoshiki, Kuroshima Denji, Hayashi Fusao, and Satomura Kinz6 were some