ABSTRACT
In 1911 the quintessential Meiji novelist Natsume So¯seki observed that Japanese no longer resorted to ‘such foolishness as saying to foreigners, “My country has Mt Fuji”. But since the [Russo¯Japanese] war one hears boasting everywhere that we have become a first-class country.’1 At almost the same time, So¯seki was writing his novel Kokoro in which the protagonist Sensei commits suicide, along with the Russo-Japanese war hero General Nogi, following the death of the Meiji emperor. The pessimistic mood at the end of Kokoro contrasts starkly with the attitude of national self-confidence in So¯seki’s observation. But such contradictions emerge as characteristic of the final two decades of the Meiji period.
