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One of the news stories that has excited the literary world in recent years is the fact that Naoki Matayoshi's novel "Hibana" won the Akutagawa Prize in 2015. I also found it very enjoyable to read. I think it captured the characters' inner thoughts and conflicts extremely well. However, we will have to wait a little longer for the work to be evaluated by the times before we know whether it will be read for 30, 50, or 100 years. I think the value of a work is ultimately determined by how much universality it has that will not be swept away by the times.

In this respect, the "classics" are still being read to the present day, even after hundreds of years, and for that reason alone they can be said to have a great deal of trust as possessing universal value.

In the current trend of placing emphasis on practical studies, it seems that humanities studies tend to be neglected. How do you feel about this? I think that the idea of judging academic studies only from the one-sided perspective of "whether it is useful to the world or not" is problematic in the first place. This is because this society is not good only for academic studies that support business. Even though I am a professor in the Faculty of College of Literature, I may sound like I am favoring my own side. However, voices saying that "the humanities are the academic studies that fundamentally support practical studies" are also being voiced by top runners in practical studies such as the business world and medicine. I believe that the humanities are the most versatile learning, and that knowledge of the humanities will never be wasted no matter what way you live your life, and that it is a learning that can be applied to various academic disciplines.

If we were to lose knowledge of our country's past culture, language, sensibilities, and people, wouldn't we lose the basis and foundation for our own thoughts? People often talk about the importance of intercultural communication, but I believe there are two types of interculture: spatial interculture and temporal interculture. Spatial interculture is communication with other countries, and temporal interculture is contact with cultures of past eras. By studying the classics, we can learn about lifestyles and cultures that are different from our modern ones, and develop a perspective that allows us to see the present in a relative context.

As an example, let's look at the opening chapter of The Tale of Genji, Kiritsubo Chapter.

"At some time during the reign of the Emperor, among the many consorts and ladies-in-waiting who served him, there was one woman who, although not particularly extraordinary, was particularly charming."

The introduction explains that among the emperor's many wives, there was one woman who was favored by him despite not being of particularly high social status. In the Heian period, aristocrats were bureaucrats and played a key role in politics. The emperor should have taken the daughters of influential aristocrats as wives and cherished them according to their respective backgrounds. If he did not do so, the balance of political power would be upset. In such an era, this opening section, in which the emperor openly loved a woman out of pure feelings, regardless of social status, is stating that the emperor was committing a kind of mismanagement. Have you ever simply perceived "Kiritsubo no Maki" as a tale of pure love between the emperor and Kiritsubo, a tragic love story?

It was during the Meiji period that one-to-one romantic relationships, regardless of social status, were accepted in Japan as something valuable and sacred. It has been at most 150 years since then. This sanctified view of love is a very recent trend in this long history. It can be assumed that the impression people had of The Tale of Genji from the Heian to Edo periods is somewhat different from how people today interpret it. I believe that by studying the classics, we can learn about the existence of other perspectives and values on things that are now considered universal, which is important for living in the modern age.

I think that many students these days are concerned about whether or not they are reading something correctly, asking, "What is the correct way to read something?" I have thought about why this is happening more and more among young people, and I think one of the reasons is that there is a big gap between the Japanese language education up to high school and "studying literature" after entering university.

The Japanese language taught in junior and senior high schools is based on the premise of taking exams, so questions and answers have to be created. Therefore, right and wrong answers inevitably emerge, but literary studies is not originally an academic field that asks for right answers.

When it comes to Japanese language classes taught in junior and senior high schools, as long as they use textbooks, all the works in them are filtered in some way. The Tale of Genji is one of the greatest love stories of all time, and has been read for 1,000 years, but the parts in the textbooks are mostly ones that don't really convey any romantic or sexual feelings. It is impossible to understand the essence of The Tale of Genji just by reading it in a textbook.

Rather than feeling like you understand a work just by coming across it in a textbook, I would like people to read the work itself as much as possible, and I would especially like young people to encounter as many works as possible while they are young. This is because the impression you get when you read the same work in your twenties and when you reread it in your forties can be completely different. It's not that the way you read it when you were young was immature. When you're young, you have your own way of reading, and that in itself is the truth of what you felt at the time. Sometimes when you reread it in your forties, you get a completely different impression, and that in itself is an extremely valuable experience.

Through a book, you can have a dialogue with yourself. For example, it's okay to read a highly rated book and not know what's good about it. This will help you understand your tastes and it's also a way to read your own personality. So, by being exposed to as many works as possible when you're young and reading the various emotions depicted in them and the words and actions of the characters, I hope you'll learn to see things from multiple angles and develop yourself.

There is a classic work called "The Diary of Lady Michitsuna." The author was the mother of Fujiwara no Michitsuna, and it is a candid account of the overflowing feelings of an aristocratic woman in the Heian period as she lived a life of polygamy and wife-asking marriage. Until now, "The Diary of Lady Michitsuna" has been interpreted as depicting the process in which she vented her resentment, pain, and dissatisfaction that came from her love for her husband, Fujiwara no Kaneie, and her hopes were dashed. However, when one reads the way Kaneie wins the power struggle and the fact that Michitsuna's mother was involved in it and wrote letters to influential people on Kaneie's behalf, there is a theory that in fact it shows the cooperation between Michitsuna's mother and her husband, who supported her husband, an excellent politician, and worked hard to raise his status. Following this theory, the work can also be understood as the record of a happy wife whose husband was successful in life.

This is not a question of which interpretation is correct, but rather a good example of how your understanding of a work can change depending on which part you focus on, leading to richer readings. Many people may consider reading literature to be a "passive act," but if you take an "active" approach by changing the angle at which you read, the fun just expands.

Coming into contact with literature is a "dialogue between the text and yourself." I believe that continuing to come into contact with literature with the background of your own linguistic experiences accumulated throughout your life will enrich your linguistic expression and emotions, leading to your own personal growth. People are made of "words." By coming into contact with a text, you can become aware of "something" that you had not realized existed inside of you, and by resonating with something within yourself, your "self" will deepen. I believe that through such contact with literature, people discover new values and ideas and mature.

(Published in 2017)