ABSTRACT

Kamen no kokuhaku (Confessions of a Mask), Mishima Yukio's second full-length novel, appeared in 1949, the fourth year of Japan's postwar literary activities, and established the literary reputation of the twenty-four-year-old Mishima instantly and unshakably. Although the novel shocked some critics and puzzled others, all of them recognized Mishima's undeniable and "unusual" talent, and agreed that he was a "unique," "new" writer whose writings were a marked departure from Japan's literary tradition. Mishima stated that he had come to understand that the true substance of poetry is realization, and that he had decided to part from his "sensuous talent" and from his "sensuous perception" itself. He tried to do so by writing Confessions of a Mask, "forcibly, through the form of the novel." Mishima's well-known dislike of Dazai Osamu certainly reflects on the surface his criticism of those I-novelists who use openly their own weakness and desperation as subjects of literary pursuit.