art and the artist:
“If, through the continuity of awareness which we have discussed, a correspondence is established between our work and one person in a hundred, or even one person in a thousand, and if we have made a small contribution to the enhancement of Truth, Goodness, Beauty, and the Sublime, which will illuminate the essence of our work like flashes of lightning, we will leave traces difficult to efface. If, progressing even further, we are able to attain the ecstasy that produces the reducing influence—because the spiritual power of arts and letters can exercise a great and intangible influence on society—we will have fulfilled our mission by obtaining eternal life in the human story.”
The Social Benefits of Solitude
Written near the end of the Meiji period, as Japan was reaching the zenith of its territorial expansion in Asia, Sōseki’s famous essay “My Individualism” continues in his quest to liberate the Japanese artist toward such social goals, yet this essay resonates with a more sober sense of social and political dangers facing Japanese culture as a whole. Rather than focusing on the enthusiastic imitation of the West, Sōseki is now concerned with what happens when that imitative drive is converted into a desire for national or domestic homogeneity; when a mistrust of foreigners paradoxically leads to a mistrust of Japanese citizens.
Sōseki’s concern is with a generalized “anxiety” or insecurity that may lead one to become either one of “Panurge’s sheep” (part one of the essay) or a tyrant (part two of the essay). The slavish follower will be afraid to assert his own individual opinions or perceptions, while the tyrant will not allow others their own individual perceptions. These dual dangers, it turns out, have an element in common: they both involve an inability to recognize the separation of self from others. Ironically, then, the painful recognition of our fundamental human isolation, a recognition that provoked his earlier essay “Philosophical Foundations,” serves in this later essay as the element of human existence best able to help us liberate ourselves and to allow others their freedom as well.
INGER SIGRUN BRODEY
Assistant Professor, Curriculum of Comparative
Literature University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Works Cited
Brodey, Inger Sigrun, “Natsume Sōseki and Laurence Sterne: Cross-Cultural Discourse on Literary Linearity,” Comparative Literature, 50(3), 1998, pp. 193–219.
Brodey, Inger Sigrun and Tsunematsu, Sammy I., Rediscovering Natsume Sōseki, Kent, UK: Global Oriental, 2001.
Etō, Jun, “Natsume Sōseki: A Japanese Meiji Intellectual,” The American Scholar, 34, 1965, pp. 603-19.
Natsume, Sōseki, Sōseki Zenshū, Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1965.
_____, The Tower of London (trans. Peter Milward and Kii Nakano), Brighton: In Print Publishing, 1992.
My Individualism
This is the first time I have been in this Gakushūin. It is not very different from what I have long imagined it. However, what I was imagining was a little vague.
As Mr Okada so kindly mentioned in his introduction, he asked me last spring to give a lecture or something similar. However, something stopped me from doing so at the time. Mr Okada seems to remember the reason better than I, and I found the explanations he has just provided amply sufficient to clarify the situation. Whatever the case, I was forced to decline the offer provisionally. However, not wanting to be rude, instead of refusing outright, I offered to give the lecture during the following session. This time, to be on the safe side, I asked Mr Okada when that new session would take place. He replied that it would take place in October this year. Then, mentally calculating the number of days left between April and October, I told myself that I could easily find something to say since I had so much time. “That suits me,” I said, thus confirming my agreement. However, luckily or unluckily for me, I don’t know which, I fell ill and was confined to my bed all through September. When October arrived, the month to which I was committed, I was no longer bedridden, but I was still unsteady on my legs and I would have had difficulty in giving a lecture. On the other hand, I could not ignore the promise I had given and the thought that someone would pester me some day to fulfill it was a source of anxiety.
The unsteadiness in my legs soon disappeared, but the end of the month arrived without my receiving any news of the lecture I was to give at the Gakushōin. It goes without saying that I had not told anyone about my illness, but, as two or three newspapers had broached the subject, I thought that my situation was probably appreciated and that a replacement had been found. This thought reassured me. Then Mr Okada suddenly appeared before me in flesh and blood. He was wearing boots for the purpose (of course, the fact that it had rained that day had something to do with it). He came right to the edge of the Waseda district to give me the following message: the lecture was postponed to the end of November, by which time he was sure I would be able to keep my promise. As I had assumed that I was excused from the commitment, I was, I admit, somewhat taken aback. However, there was still a month left, and I told myself that I would easily find something to say. So I responded to his suggestion by renewing my agreement with him.
In light of what I have just told you, you will assume that between last spring and October, and then between October and November 25th, I had enough time to find enough ideas to make up a coherent lecture. But I was unwell and thinking about such things was painful and stressful for me. So, until November 25th arrived, I did not worry about it and lazed around. The days passed, one after another. Finally, when there were only two or three days left and the deadline was near, I had a vague notion that I should think about preparing for the lecture. But this was such an unpleasant prospect that in the end I spent the day painting.
Perhaps you will think I have a talent for painting. In fact, I contented myself with scrawling childish things on the canvas; I put the picture on the wall and spent a couple of days contemplating my work and daydreaming. Yesterday—yes, I think it was yesterday—someone came to see me and told me that my painting was very interesting. More precisely, it was not the picture itself that was interesting, but it was like something else I had painted when I had been in an exceptional frame of mind. I told my visitor I had painted the picture not because I felt happy, but because I was sad.
I began to explain my state of mind: just as certain artists bubbling over with happiness paint pictures, do calligraphy, write poetry or prose, others, because they are in the midst of cares and worry, take a brush to do calligraphy, paint a canvas or compose a work of literature, hoping in that way to attain happiness. Although it may seem strange, when we look at the results of these two different psychological states, we realize that they are often identical. However, although I am taking advantage, completely incidentally, of this occasion to point out this phenomenon to you, it is irrelevant to the subject I have chosen for my lecture. I will not therefore pursue it. So, anyway, I contented myself with looking at this strange picture and passing the time without worrying about preparing for my lecture.
Finally the 25th arrived—the day I had to appear in public and give my lecture whether I wanted to or not. So this morning I have tried to bring together my ideas a little, but I feel that I am inadequately prepared. As this lecture will not leave you completely satisfied, with this prospect in mind I ask you kindly to be patient.
I do not know when your club began its activities, but personally I do not see any problem in your calling on outside people to give lectures. However, looking at it from another point of view, it seems to me that, whoever you invite, there is not much chance that you will hear a lecture that fulfills your needs. Is what interests you perhaps rather the novelty of someone from outside, someone different?
Here
