MAIN GENRE-STYLISTIC FEATURES OF JAPANESE LITERATURE OF THE 20TH–21ST CENTURIES

Abstract

The article poses the problem of studying the genre and stylistic features of Japanese literature of the 20th–21st centuries. It is noted that despite the existence of separate studies on the Japanese literature of the 20–21st centuries, the genres and styles of Japanese literature of this period remain fragmentarily described. The authors of the article found that at the beginning of the 20th century in Japan, under the influence of Western modernism, there was a break with traditional forms and such trends in literature as naturalism, symbolism, modernism, avant-garde developed. After World War II, Japanese writers comprehended the themes of trauma, guilt and national identity, rejecting grand narratives and focusing on individual experience and fragmentary realities. In the era of postmodernism, Japanese literature was influenced by globalization and technological development. It is concluded that the genres and styles of Japanese literature of the 20th–21st centuries were formed on the basis of contradictions between traditions, modernity and Western influence. During this period, such phenomena as the “I-novel”, literature about atomic bombing, social realism, existentialist and proletarian literature, as well as magical realism and writing in the manga style emerged. Japanese literature of the 20th–21st centuries has unique genre forms that do not always correlate with Western classifications (for example, the «I-novel»). It has been found that a unique phenomenon of Japanese literature of the 20th–21st centuries is the postmodern novel in the style of magical realism, famous examples of which are the works of Murakami Haruki. The texts of such novels are characterized by metaphysical motifs and the allocation of two «worlds» – the conscious and the unconscious. Thus, in the 20th and 21st centuries, Japanese literature combines traditional forms, popular genres, and modern and postmodern stylistic and thematic experiments that reflect changes in Japanese society and culture.