立教大学

This lecture explores the practice among Japanese writers in the modern era of composing kanshi, traditional Sinitic poetry. For Japanese, writing poetry in Literary Sinitic (also known as Classical Chinese) is an “exophonic” practice, which refers to the act of writing in a language other than one’s native language. Meiji period (1868-1912) writers, educated in Literary Sinitic like generations of Japanese before them, composed kanshi with facility, but as a result of changes in the Japanese education system following the Imperial Rescript on Education of 1890, and of shifting attitudes towards China in Japan after the Sino-Japanese War (1894-95), subsequent generations of Japanese were less and less capable of composing kanbun and kanshi. Yet, every generation of modern Japanese writers, from the Meiji period to the Reiwa period, has featured kanshi poets. Moreover, each generation of Japanese writers has turned to kanshi composition for a certain purpose and has directed it to a specific audience in an act that Keaveney refers to as “exophonic literary performance.” Interestingly, as the Japanese literary community has become increasingly multicultural, writers with roots in China have appeared, for whom the “exophonic” performance of kanshi takes on a special meaning, challenging the very idea of what it means to be a Japanese writer.