The Grand Old Man and the Great Tradition

In 1995, on the thirtieth anniversary of Tanizaki Junichirs death, Adriana Boscaro organized an international conference in Venice that had an unusally lasting effect on the study of this major Japanese novelist. Thanks to Boscaros energetic commitment, Venice became a center for Tanizaki studies that produced two volumes of conference proceedings now considered foundational for all scholarly works on Tanizaki. In the years before and after the Venice Conference, Boscaro and her students published an abundance of works on Tanizaki and translations of his writings, contributing to his literary success in Italy and internationally. The Grand Old Man and the Great Tradition honors Boscaros work by collecting nine essays on Tanizakis position in relation to the great tradition of Japanese classical literature. To open the collection, Edward Seidensticker contributes a provocative essay on literary styles and the task of translating Genji into a modern language. Gaye Rowley and Ibuki Kazuko also consider Tanizakis Genji translations, from a completely different point of view, documenting the authors three separate translation efforts. Aileen Gatten turns to the influence of Heian narrative methods on Tanizakis fiction, arguing that his classicism, far from being superficial, reflects a deep sensitivity to Heian narrative. Tzevetana Kristeva holds a different perspective on Tanizakis classicism, singling out specific aspects of Tanizakis eroticism as the basis of comparison. The next two essays emphasize Tanizakis experimental engagement with the classical literary genresAmy V. Heinrich treats the understudied poetry, and Bonaventura Ruperti considers a 1933 essay on performance arts. Taking up cinema, Roberta Novelli focuses on the novel Manji, exploring how it was recast for the screen by Masumura Yasuz. The volume concludes with two contributions interpreting Tanizakis works in the light of Western and Meiji literary traditions: Paul McCarthy considers Nabokovas a point of comparison, and Jacqueline Pigeot conducts a groundbreaking comparison with a novel by Natsume Sseki.