ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the objections of the major critics and looks at several of the alternative suggestions. It discusses the most notable of the controversies carried on in print over the issue of colloquial style, the 1889 Bun wrangle which lasted several months. Yano Fumio, having studied and visited England, had first-hand experience of the advantages of colloquial style in that country, and must therefore have been aware of the possibilities which would be opened up should a similar situation come to exist in Japan. In spite of his rejection of colloquial style, Yano did recognize the need for a modern style with the emphasis on simplicity. Colloquial style was not difficult to understand, as Eiji Yoshikawa claimed; it only seemed strange because it was still unfamiliar. The major cause of dissension among opponents of the new style appears to have been their too-literal interpretation of the term gembun’itchi itself.
