ABSTRACT
Futabatei Shimei's numerous translations, greater in extent than his original works, have been for the most part undeservedly neglected. Floating Weed and An Account of Bloodied Laughter were regarded as Futabatei's most important translation works, and were critically acclaimed when published in 1908, after Futabatei's departure for Russia. From a stylistic point of view, however, it is The Tryst which has been most influential. It is generally considered that its innovative style made even more of an impact on Japanese literature than Futabatei's first novel Floating Clouds. It does seem that Futabatei's translations of Gogolian third-person narratives show the way he might have taken when writing Floating Clouds and In His Image. In his final original work Mediocrity, he shows the influence of these translations of Turgenev's first-person narratives. Yet it is in the third-person narratives that Futabatei most clearly demonstrated his originality.
