Music in Modern Japanese and Hebrew Literatures

Music in Modern Japanese and Hebrew Literatures examines the place of classical music in early 20th-century Japanese and Hebrew literatures. As this book shows, both Japanese and Hebrew writers of the period made use of Western classical music in their novels and short stories in order to explore issues of belonging, cultural and literary identity, and artistic integrity. Hence, by analysing the appearance of such music in the writing of Japanese writers, such as Nagai Kafu, Shiga Naoya and Uchida Hyakken, and Hebrew writers, such as Leah Goldberg, Gershon Shofman, and Ya'akov Horowiz, this book sets an intriguing narrative of writers' interaction with a modernizing world and their struggles to make sense of multitudes of cultural influences. Through such struggles, these Japanese and Hebrew writers created unique visions of literature that constitute, this book argues, a cosmopolitan literary sphere. In looking into these matters, this book aims to recontextualize the place of Japanese and Hebrew literatures of the early 20th century in relation to each other as well as European culture and to create a new and exciting approach to the study of World Literature.

Shirah Malka Cohen is currently a research fellow at the Department of Asian Studies at the University of Haifa and a lecturer at Doshisha University in Kyoto where she is based. She has published articles in academic journals on the subject of Japanese and Hebrew literatures in English, Japanese, and Hebrew and also works as a translator.

Introduction Chapter One - A Tale of Two Organs: The Use of Musical Forms in the Works of Gershon Shofman and Shimazaki Toson Chapter Two - Soirée à l'Opéra: Nagai Kafu and Leah Goldberg Go to the Opera Chapter Three - The Music of Mechanical Ghosts: Literature Meets the Gramophone and the Radio Chapter Four - Mechanical Music, Horror, and the Modern Dance Macabre: A Cyclical View of History as a Coping Mechanism in Ya'akov Horowiz's 'Muzika modernit' Chapter Five - The Music of the Unconscious: Music and the Literary Expression of the Self Conclusion Appendix A - Translation of "A Night at the Latin Quarter" from French Tales by Nagai Kafu Appendix B - Translation of "Revenge of a Hand Organ" by Gershon Shofman Appendix C - Translation of "Modern Music" by Ya'akov Horowiz Appendix D - Translation of "Sarasate's Recording" by Uchida Hyakken