Natsume Sōseki: poetic thinking and literature

Abstract

Through a depth review of the literary production of the Japanese writer Natsume Sōseki (夏目漱石, 1867-1916), this article aims to collect and analyse the poetic thought that the own author explains or suggests at some of his works, especially at the beginning of his career as a writer. That is, what was his idea of literature, what did he want to contribute and what mechanisms did he use to achieve it. Therefore, this research highlights the elements of rupture that place his literary work within the new novel based on a profound and original dissertation in I’m a cat (吾輩 は 猫 で あ る, 1905). Furthermore, based on one of his own theories, it is intended to place Sōseki as one of the authors who work in the lyrical novel genre.

Because of that, this study has been composed from a comparative perspective in order to be able to relate some of the aspects present in Sōseki's works from the point of view of other literary currents with the aim of vindicating the figure of the writer and placing him within literary history as another of the authors who, although from Japan, contributed to the rupture of the traditional novel and the formation of the new genre.