The cross fertilization of languages cultures and literary forms that produced modern Japanese literature also gave birth to a new literary archetype the Westernesque femme fatale an alluring figure who is ethnically Japanese but evokes the West in her physical appearance lifestyle behavior and use of language Tracing the genesis of this archetype from her first appearance in the vernacularist fiction of the late 1880s to her role in Naturalist fiction of the mid 1900s and her embodiment by the modern Japanese actress in the early 1910s Sirens of the Western Shore identifies the Westernesque femme fatale as the hallmark of an intertextual exoticism that prizes the strange beauty of modern Western writing By illuminating the exoticist impulses that informed this archetype Indra Levy offers a new understanding of the relationships between vernacular style and translation originality and imitation and writing and performance Indra Levy introduces a new archetype in the study of modern Japanese literature the Westernesque femme fatale an alluring figure who is ethnically Japanese but evokes the West in her physical appearance lifestyle behavior and most important her use of language She played conspicuous roles in landmark works of modern Japanese fiction and theater Levy traces the lineage of the Westernesque femme fatale from her first appearance in the vernacularist fiction of the late 1880s to her development in Naturalist fiction of the mid 1900s and finally to her spectacular embodiment by the modern Japanese actress in the early 1910s with the advent of Naturalist theater In all cases the Westernesque femme fatale both attracts and confounds the self consciously modern male intellectual through a convention defying use of language What does this sirenlike figure reveal about the central concerns of modern Japanese literature Levy proposes that the Westernesque femme fatale be viewed as the hallmark of an intertextual exoticism that prizes the strange beauty of modern Western writing By illuminating the exoticist impulses that gave rise to this archetype Levy offers a new understanding of the relationships between vernacular style and translation original and imitation and writing and performance within a cross cultural context A seamless blend of narrative performance translation and gender studies this work will have a profound impact on the critical discourse on this formative period of modern Japanese literature

Sirens of the Western Shore PDF

The list of books you might like