"History as It is or History Ignored? The Search for a New Historical Fiction in Meiji Japan"

This paper focuses on a brief analysis of the overall significance that modern Japanese historical fiction, inheriting a long and florid tradition, came to represent for the literary establishment. The modern historical novel developed fully between the XVIIIth and XIXth Centuries, taking the form of rekishi shōsetsu (historical novel) which stimulated, decades later, the subgenre of Jidai shōsetsu (popular historical romances). Comparison with the early efforts in the genre highlights how the modern eye reaffirmed the need to shift the focus from recording faithfully historical matters (ko-ji) ‘as these have been passed over’ to interpreting history by means of fictionalization; the former being a habit which traces back to the origins of Japanese literature and the its first literary documents. The newly found awareness of Meiji Writers marks the difference in that, in contemporary historical novels, the dichotomy between ‘actual’ truth and historical fictionalization is complete: the developing debate around the value of the novel (shōsetsu) as a literary genre of distinction, along with the specific conditions that arouse within the framework of Japan’s cultural achievements, carve out a portrait of Japanese writers of historical romances as eager to preserve the country’s cultural dimension while correcting superficial trends of that time’s literary fashions.