Acknowledgments
List of Abbreviations
Introduction
Part I: Ninjō and the Early-Modern Novel
1. From Ninjō to the Ninjōbon: Toward the Licentious Novel
2. Questioning the Idealist Novel: Virtue and Desire in Nansō
Satomi hakkenden
Part II: The Age of Literary Reform
3. Translating Love in the Early-Meiji Novel: Ninjōbon and Yomihon
in the Age of Enlightenment
4. Historicizing Literary Reform: Shōsetsu shinzui, Translation,
and the Civilizational Politics of Ninjō
5. The Novel’s Failure: Shōyō and the Aporia of Realism and
Idealism
Part III: Late-Meiji Questionings
6. Ninjō and the Late-Meiji Novel: Recontextualizing Sōseki’s
Literary Project
Epilogue
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Daniel Poch is assistant professor of Japanese literature in the School of Modern Languages and Cultures at the University of Hong Kong.
[A] bold, ambitious, and deeply researched monograph.
*Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies*
An invaluable resource for anyone wishing to better understand the
discursive backdrop that shaped how major works
were conceptualized and received across this period through the
lens of ninjo.
*Journal of Japanese Studies*
In Licentious Fictions, Daniel Poch identifies the emergence of a
distinctive literary modernity in nineteenth-century Japan based on
the idea that human emotion was politically disruptive and morally
dubious. Breaking new ground with his analysis of narrative
practices surrounding love and desire, Poch truly shines when he
anchors his examination of the Japanese novel in a global history
of modernity.
*Paul Schalow, Rutgers University*
Licentious Fictions is an important work that resituates our
perception of Japan’s literary modernity. With a broad sweep that
moves from Edo to Meiji and from Chinese antecedents to Western
influences, Daniel Poch challenges the long-standing but artificial
divide between historical eras and provides a new integrative
framework for our understanding of the modern novel in Japan.
*Rebecca Copeland, Washington University in St. Louis*
Licentious Fictions provides the most compelling account to date of
the nineteenth-century Japanese novel as exhibiting a coherent
discursive economy that spans the Edo/Meiji divide. It stands out
for both the sophistication of its analysis and the impressive
scope of primary source material that it covers. It is a
groundbreaking work that is sure to make a major impact on the
field.
*Peter Flueckiger, Pomona College*
The novel has always been about love—its dangerous and disruptive
power. Daniel Poch's wide-ranging book explores how Japanese
writers and translators attempted to contain, explain, and exploit
the problematic power of love in their fiction.
*Gaye Rowley, Waseda University*
Licentious Fictions presents the most sustained and penetrating
exploration of the Japanese novel’s ambitious and problematic
engagement with dangerous emotions and desires. Tracing the
pervasive anxiety over the social potency of the mass-produced
novel, Poch impressively delineates a new genealogy of the modern
novel in nineteenth-century Japan. A truly path-breaking book.
*Tomi Suzuki, Columbia University*
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