The Journal of Japanese Studies

 

Abstract

MICHIKO SUZUKI
Progress and Love Marriage:
Rereading Tanizaki Jun'ichirō's Chijin no ai

 This article examines Tanizaki Jun’ichirō’s Chijin no ai (A fool’s love, 1924-25) and its conversation with the prominent cultural discourses of its time.  I focus particularly on the ideas presented by writers such as Hiratsuka Raichō and Kuriyagawa Hakuson regarding “love marriage” (ren’ai kekkon), a practice idealized as both a marker for an advanced nation and a site enabling individuals to “progress” and heighten their characters (jinkaku).  The novel parodically rewrites and actively reexamines these discourses in relation to contemporary values such as self-cultivation (shūyō) and cultural knowledge (kyōkō), asking what “progress” means within the rapidly changing social landscape of the 1920s.

Volume 31, Number 2 (Summer 2005)
© 2005 Society for Japanese Studies

 
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