Shorthand Transcription and the Meiji Political Novel

Seth JACOBOWITZ

탈경계인문학Trans-Humanities

2015, 8(3), pp.67-83
Publisher : Ewha Institute for the Humanities: EIH
Research Area : Other Humanities

Seth JACOBOWITZ ¹

¹Yale University

ABSTRACT

This paper offers an analysis of Yano Ryūkei’s political novel Sēbe Meishi Keikoku Bidan (Illustrious Statesman of Thebes, 1883–1884). This best-selling text, which was set in ancient Thebes and strove to represent the possibilities of political transformation espoused by the People’s Rights Movement, was also a striking demonstration of the possibilities of shorthand for re-conceptualizing the relations of political thought and literature. Yano employed a mixed style based on classical Japanese grammar, for which enlisted the participation of two shorthand reporters to transcribe the two volumes of the text. Although his novel was unable to become a template for the mainstream of modern Japanese, it is precisely here and in Yano’s later writings on language and script reform that the phonetic foundations of the Meiji episteme come more clearly into focus. Accordingly, it is my primary aim to explore Yano’s advocacy of shorthand and its contributions to the transformation of modern Japanese literature, language, and script. However, I also wish to gesture toward some of the broader shifts toward phonetics that spread to China and Korea by the 1890s that are indicative of a regional shift in the relationship to Chinese literacy.
KEYWORDS

Meiji, political novel, media history, Japanese literature, script
REFERENCES (12)

[journal] 亀井秀雄 / 1991 / 間作者性と間読者性および文体の問題 — ｢牡丹灯籠｣と｢経国美談｣の場合 / 北海道大学国語国文学学會 89 : 49~60

[journal] Hill, Christopher / 2007 / How to Write a Second Restoration: The Political Novel and Meiji Historiography / Journal of Japanese Studies 33(2) : 337~356

[journal] 稲葉継雄 / 1987 / 井上角五朗と『漢城旬報』『漢城周報』: ハングル採用問題を中心に / 文芸言語研究 (言語編) 12 : 209~225

[book] 前田愛 / 1974 / 明治政治小説集: 日本近代文学大系 / Kadokawa Shoten

[book] Mertz, John / 2003 / Novel Japan, Michigan Monograph Series in Asian Studies

[book] 越智治雄 / 1970 / 矢野龍渓集 / Chikuma Shōbō

[book] Oh, Young Kyun / 2003 / One into Many: Translation and the Dissemination of Classical Chinese Literature / Rodopi : 179~200

[book] Sampson, Geoffrey / 1985 / Writing Systems / Standford UP

[book] 三遊亭圓朝 / 1884 / 怪談牡丹燈籠 / Tokyo Haishi Shuppansha

[book] Tsu, Jing / 2010 / Sound and Script in Chinese Diaspora / Harvard UP

[book] 矢野龍渓 / 1884 / 斉武名士経国美談 Vol. 2 / Yūbin Hōchi Shimbunsha

[book] 矢野龍渓 / 1886 / 日本文体文字新論 / Hōchisha
KCI Citation (0)

KJC Korea
Journal Central

Statistics

Tools