Private Topographies: Visions of Tokyo in Modern Japanese Literature

In Meiji Japan (1868–1912), the vertiginous rate of change undergone by the country’s cityscapes was one of the utmost striking features of a phase of so-called modernization—which often resulted in a rather problematic “westernization.” Some writers openly criticized the urban policies carried out by the government, while many more sensed an essential discrepancy between the outward appearance of Tōkyō and the inner life of its inhabitants. The ultimate aim of my paper is to examine textual strategies through which this critique has been performed in the works of representative writers of Meiji Japan such as Kōda Rohan (1867–1947), Higuchi Ichiyō (1872–1896), and Nagai Kafū (1879–1959).