Reading ANZAI Fuyue’s “Gunkan Mari”: Gender and Colonialism in the Japanese Modernist Poetry
Date Issued
2011
Date
2011
Author(s)
Ling-Chun Liu, Ariel
Abstract
ANZAI Fuyue was a well-known Japanese poet in the early 20th century, living in Dalien (Dairen), one of the cities under Japanese colonial rule, for several decades. He was renowned for the one-phrase poem, "Spring," collected in his first poetic collection, "Gunkan Mari"(1929). To date his poetry is still far from serious examination, particularly its colonial and gender representations. It would therefore be worthwhile to look into these aspects of his works.
This thesis will begin with a study his first poetic collection "Gunkan Mari," through the keyword, "correspondence," often appearing in his works written in the Japanese style of symbolic poetry. It will discuss the direct influences Anzai received from the tradition of Japanese poetry.
The thesis will then analyze the images in the blank poem, "Gunkan Mari (Warship Jasmine/Mari)", comparing with another poem, "Jasmine," written by KAMBARA Ariake, with similar images about jasmine. It will further examine the two one-phrase poems, "Spring," in the same collection, and the blank poem, "Estuary," "The Carnival in the 15th Year of Min-Guo," among others.
Based on the analyses above, the thesis will illuminate how Anzai uses furigana in his poems, the naming of his characters, the relationship between maidens and males, and different perspectives in his works. It will show how the male ego in Anzai''s poems tends to be dominant, in reality it is a frustrated one. None of his male character seems unable to practice his male authority, in spite of being a male. As the male ego is so shattered, it can hardly be categorized by gender or defined by national borders. This brings forth the diasporic sentiments in his poetry. The diasporic sentiments and gender representations are profoundly coded in his poetic lines, reflecting the power disorder in colonial politics.
Subjects
Dalien (Dairen)
Correspondence
Symbolic Poetry
Impotent Males
Diaspora
Maiden
Kanji and Furigana
Naming
Gazers and the Gazed
Type
thesis
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