Ten Nights' Dreams
Natsume Soseki is a novelist and scholar of English literarue. He ranks wiht Mori Ogai (1862-1922) as major figure in modern Japanese literature. Among his works, Wagahai wa Neko de Aru (I am A Cat) and Bochan (Master Darling) are especially known to almost every Japanese and are read even by primary school pupils. His portrait is printed on the Japanese 1,000-yen note.Soseki was sent to England as a government-sponsored student when he was a teacher at the fifth Higher School in Kumanmoto Prefecture. It was at the time that japan gave up its national isolation policy and was emerging as a modern state. he experienced this historical turning poin during hisstay in London. On ariving in London, one of the first things he saw was the returning soldiers from the Boer War being mobbed in the streets. One year later began the twentieth century and the Britixh Empire faced the death of Queen Victoria. In 1902 Japan and Great Britain signed the Anglo-Japanese Alliaance. A sense of scepticism toward the progress of civilizzation was fostered by Soseki's reading of Karl Marx's Das Kapital, among other things. His interset in Natural Science arose through his friendship in London with a Japanese scientist, Ikeda Kikunae. He was in a position to compare the states of two different nations and to see the Hapanese civilization from another perspective. When he began writing novels, his experience in England was naturally reflected in his works. On returning home, Sosecki replaced Lafcadio Hearn at the First Higher School and at Tokyo Imperial University where he lectured on literary theory. Eventually he gave up teaching and began writing for the Asahi Shimbun where he spent many years before his death.