James Joyce among Modernists/Orientalists
Eishiro Ito
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Abstract
This paper aims to explore how Orientalism influenced Modernists including James Joyce around World War I. Under the effects of the Industrial Revolution and Imperialism, Literary Modernism was born in the 1880s against Romanticism and the traditional styles in Europe at that time. It was propelled by the fear of World War I and prospered between the 1920s and the 1930s until World War II. Some Modernists enthusiastically used Oriental elements in their works to defunctionalize the traditional styles and display originality. Among them were William Butler Yeats, Ezra Pound and T. S. Eliot. They were much impressed by Ernest Fenollosa (1853-1908)fs writings and translations of Japanese art and Chinese literature, which greatly contributed to introduce Japanese and Chinese cultures to the West. Pound had already developed his interest in Japanese art by examining gnishiki-eh (ÑG; also known as gukiyo-eh [¢G]) prints at the British Museum between 1912 and 1913, before he met Fenollosafs widow Mary in 1913. gNishiki-eh prints were inscribed with traditional Japanese 31-syllable verse called gtankah (ZÌ), which attracted Pound who was trying to find a new poetic style at that time. It is noted that gtankah greatly inspired Pound and the Imagist movement.
Keywords: James Joyce, Modernism, Orientalism, World War I |
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full version is available in The Katahira: Studies in English & Literature, Vol. 51. The Katahira Society, March 2016, 21-36. Copyright 2016
Eishiro Ito
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