Worlding the Japanese Literature. The Long Road from the Periphery to Internationalisation
Worlding the Japanese Literature. The Long Road from the Periphery to Internationalisation

Summary/Abstract: The present essay analyses the evolution of the Japanese literature considering the dynamics of the influences exerted in the modern age by two major cultures, namely the Chinese and the European cultures, placed in confluence with the Japanese culture. The four-stroke dynamic is analysed as part of a historical evolution that overlaps certain distinctive periods in which the Japanese literature was placed, between the sixth-eight centuries, in the periphery of the Chinese culture and, beginning with the modern era (1868), in periphery of the Western culture. In the intermediary periods, the Japanese culture tended to assimilate the forms imported from the two dominant cultures, as well as to develop local original forms. However, while the influence of the Chinese culture was part of an inferiority-superiority relation, given that in its early period (the sixth-seventh centuries) the Japanese literature imported and assimilated an entire series of cultural forms from the continent, the relation between the Japanese literature and the European literature was placed in terms of a conflict between tradition and modernity. Until the consequences of this ambiguous conflict are mitigated and overcome, one possible means of globalising the Japanese literature could be the development of its exotic nature.

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