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The Reception of English Literature in Kabuki Theatre in the Meiji Period: Edward Bulwer-Lytton and
Kawatake Mokuami
1. 2. 3. 4.
Key Words: Edward Bulwer-Lytton, Kawatake Mokuami, satire, black humour


https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.ja
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Studying the historical process by which English literary works have been translated or
adapted in Japan and have become widely accepted by the general public (or readership) could
be an important research theme. In order to explore this theme more exhaustively in future, it is
necessary to invetigate the individual works in greater detail. A good starting point is the work of
Edward Bulwer-Lytton. The fi rst English literary work to be translated in Japan during the Meiji
era was the novels of Edward Bulwer-Lytton, and also the fi rst staged adaptation was a play by
Bulwer-Lytton, Money (1840).
Kawatake Mokuami was the very person who adapted Bulwer-Lytton’s play as Ningen Banji
Kane no Yo no Naka (Men Live in the World Where Money is All). One can easily assume that
Mokuami, who had already made a name for himself as the most important Kabuki playwright
during the last years of the Tokugawa shogunate, couldn’t avoid being labeled conventional or
old-fashioned in the age of civilization and enlightenment. For him, what was the meaning of the
audacious challenge to cope with the unknown, extremely alien subject from the context of for-
eign literature? Focusing on the new possibilities Mokuami’s new attempt made him to bring to a
uniquely Japanese form of theatre based on traditions and customs, we try to compare Mokuami’s
work with the original play.
Bulwer-Lytton’s work sets its sights on the upper classes of the nineteenth century and takes
a copmprehensive view of the social, political, and economic concerns of contemporary people.
Mokuami, on the other hand, vividly depicts people who are obsessed with money making. They
can take pride in the fact that they embody the values of the new era. There is even a kind of
cheerfulness in the way people live their lives without a hint of guilt or shame.
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6)










7)

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13)

15)

17)


19)

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28)


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29) Bulwer 2001: 15, 1. 400

Bulwer 2001: 7,
1. 79

30)

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32)
Bulwer 2001: 46, 3. 3. 97




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35)

36) Bulwer
2001: 8, 1. 139 Bulwer
2001: 7, 1. 80








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38)






[deadly] 39)


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297

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1966: 280









45)




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5. 3. 323


“Congenial tempers”





1) Edward Bulwer-Lytton, Ernest Maltravers (London: George Routledge and Sons, 1837).
2) Edward Bulwer-Lytton, Alice, or the Mysteries (London: George Routledge and Sons, 1838).
3)

4) Edward Bulwer-Lytton, Money (1840). Klaus Stierstorfer (ed.), London Assurance and
Other Vicorian Comedies (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2001)
5
6)
7)
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Suzuki Akira The Reception of English Literature in Kabuki Theatre in the Meiji Period: Edward Bulwer-Lytton and Kawatake Mokuami
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8)
Cf. 1996: 55.
9)
10) 1935: 11.
11) 1933: 252.
Cf. 1933: 266-67.
12)
16) 1935: 19.
17) 1935: 92.
19) 1966: 388.



23)
1995: 27.
24)
25)
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1933: 242-46. Cf. Brandon
2003: 10.
27)
1966: 283

28) “Bart., Knight of the Guelph; F.R.S., F.S.A.” Cf. Stierstorfer 2001: 290.
29)

31) Cf. De Smet 1996: 23-32.
32)
33)
34)

37) Cf.
Stierstorfer 2001: 304.
39)
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42)
45)

Bivona, Daniel, and Marlene Tromp, eds. 2016. Culture and Money in the Nineteenth Century: Attracting Economics.
Ohio University Press.
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1905. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press.
Bulwer-Lytton, Edward. 1882. Bulwer’s Works, Vo. IX: Dramatic Works of Edward Bulwer Lytton. New York: P. F.
Collier.
. 2001. Money. In London Assurance and Other Vicorian Comedies. Edited with an introduction and notes by
Klaus Stierstorfer. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press.
De Smet, Ingrid A. R. 1996. Menippean Satire and the Republic of Satire 1581-1655. Geneva: Librairie Droz.
Powell, Brian W. F. 2002. “Theatre Cultures in Contact: Britain and Japan in the Meiji Period.” In The History of
Anglo-Japanes Relations, 1600-2000, Volume V: Social and Cultural Perspectives. Ed. Gordon Daniels and
Chushichi Tsuzuki. Basingstoke: Palgrave and Macmillan.
Powell, Kerry, ed. 2004. The Cambrdge Companion to Victorian and Edwardian Theatre. Cambrdge: Cambridge
University Press.
Shakespeare, William. 1988. The Complete Works. Ed. Stanley Wells and Gary Taylor. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Stierstorfer, Klaus. 2001. “Introduction,” and “Explanatory Notes.” In London Assurance and Other Vicorian Com-
edies. Edited with an introduction and notes by Klaus Stierstorfer. Oxford and New York: Oxford University
Press.
1966
1986
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2012