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영어

In the late 19th century, Japanese government towed the modernization of Japan by translating enormous amount of European books to accept the advanced products of Western civilization. As a result, in the 1880's, the trend of pragmatism spread out over almost parts of literature. European detective novels regarding science and realism were highly translated and introduced into Japanese society. The person who became the spearhead of this trend was Kuroiwa Ruiko. He was a journalist, so his translation aimed the readability of Japanese, rather than the accurate translation of text. So, he adapted the original text. His attitude of adaption brought the creation of the first creative detective novel of Japan in the train, Miserable. Of course, there were translators in contrast with Kuroiwa Ruiko. For example, Aeba Koson pursued concise interest by shortening the original text, and Morita Shiken aimed the pursuit of accurate translation of original text. Likewise, there were different styles of translation. However, these seemed the variations of acceptance and transformation of advanced Western civilization. The narrative of Kuroiwa Ruiko's novel Miserable shows one aspect of characteristics of modern Japanese literature which imitated and accepted Western civilization.