After the Meiji Restoration of 1868 Western literary theories were introduced to Japan, and authors influenced by them started writing new-style prose and poetry. Romanticism had an important place in the period’s literature, so tropes of European and American Romanticism were often used to reenvision classical forms of Japanese literary art and traditional aesthetic concepts. Both poets and fiction authors combined Japanese and Western traits in their works giving a Romantic reconceptualization to images and themes of past eras. Mori Ogai was the most important Romantic author of modern Japanese prose. He engaged in polemics with adepts of Realism and emerging Naturalism. Another group greatly influenced by Romanticism was the Ken’yusha who brought up a modern version of Edo era popular prose’s style and plotlines. Romanticism played a crucial role in the development of shintaishi, the new-style poetry, and by the end of the period it began to enter traditional poetic genres.
Romanticism; Meiji era; Japanese literature; Mori Ogai; shintaishi