Poets, Paragons, and Literary Politics: Sugawara no Michizane in Imperial Japan
Robert Tuck examines the Meiji reception of the Heian scholar and poet Sugawara no Michizane (845–903) to outline the development of several influential modern narratives of Sino-Japanese literary relations. Beginning with the views of Michizane held by Edo-period Confucian scholars, he proceeds to cover key debates among Meiji scholars concerning Michizane as an icon of imperial loyalty and as a kanshi poet of “utmost sincerity” (shisei). In the 1890s literary scholars attacked all Heian kanshi writing as insincere and formalistic, but from 1902, the one-thousandth anniversary of Michizane’s death, other scholars made Michizane the focus of a new narrative in which Japan overcame the linguistic obstacles of literary Chinese and domesticated kanshi. By analyzing Meiji scholars’ discourse on Michizane, Tuck reveals the cultural and ideological currents that continue to influence narratives of Sino-Japanese literary history to the present day.
MYTH AND NATIONAL IDENTITY IN NINETEENTH CENTURY BRITAIN - THE LEGENDS OF KING ARTHUR AND ROBIN HOOD.
Scholars have become increasingly interested in how modern national consciousness comes into being through fictional narratives. Literature is of particular importance to this process, for it is responsible for tracing the nations evolution through glorious tales of its history. In nineteenth-century Britain, the legends of King Arthur and Robin Hood played an important role in construction of contemporary national identity. These two legends provide excellent windows through which to view British culture, because they provide very different perspectives. King Arthur and Robin Hood have traditionally been diametrically opposed in terms of their ideological orientation. The former is a king, a man at the pinnacle of the social and political hierarchy, whereas the latter is an outlaw, and is therefore completely outside conventional hierarchical structures. The fact that two such different figures could simultaneously function as British national heroes suggests that nineteenth-century British nationalism did not represent a single set of values and ideas, but rather that it was forced to assimilate a variety of competing points of view.
‘There is no race so wretched that there is not something out there that cares for them’: Multiculturalism, understanding, empathy and prejudice in Discworld
Multiculturalism is at the heart of Mel Gibson’s chapter. Arguing that stories situated in Ankh-Morpork, Discworld’s major capital and the focal point of many Discworld stories, in particular deal with the opportunities, problems and, sometimes, sheer craziness associated with multi- and cross-cultural debates and realities, Gibson draws on European models of multiculturalism. She analyses how, alongside debating the nature of prejudice and oppression, the City Watch stories in particular explore ways in which a multicultural space may work.