ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on Futabatei's further experimentation with first-person narrative style in his translation of Gogol's Notes of a Madman. IN order to keep this monograph within acceptable limits, it not comments on Futabatei's translations of Andreyev's Red Laughter and Gorky's Grandpa Arkhip and Len 'ka. This graphic narrative style, employing mostly "-(r)u" and "-te iru" form verbs, which we observe in four of the five episodes of Mediocrity, is the very style Futabatei developed in the course of his translation work during the second and third periods of his literary activity. The chapter attempts to trace any stylistic influences from the various first-person narrative translations upon the style of his novel Mediocrity. Finally, the chapter makes a brief comparison between Futabatei's style and that developed in Soseki's Kofu and Toson's Ham. The chapter examines the third-person narrative style of Two Madmen, Futabatei's translation of Gorky's A Mistake.
