Yuliya Osadcha Ferreira
The University of Bonn, BIGS-OAS. PhD student
Ariga Nagao's "The Correct Vision of China. Complete works" (1918)
The name of Ariga Nagao (有賀長雄, 1860-1921), a Japanese jurist and sociologist, rarely appears in books on the history of Japanese intellectual thought. My attention to him was attracted due to the translation of his work "On Bungaku" (『文學論』, August 1885) as "Theory of Literature" (Bugaeva, Dagmara. Japanese Publicists of the late 19th Century. Moscow, "Nauka", 1978). For a long time, I truly believed that "On Bungaku" was the only main paper on Confucianism and its role in the development of modern Japan. However, I changed my point of view after discovering Ariga's "The Correct Vision of China. Complete works" (『支那正觀全』, 1918), where "On Bungaku" was published together with "On Philosophy of Confucius" (『聖門哲學論』, December 1885) as appendixes to the final work "The Correct Vision of China". Consequently, "On Bungaku" became an introduction to his study of the foundations European and Chinese-Japanese civilizations and their interaction, in which Ariga presents the "ideal model of culture" (by Seki Ryōichi).
In addition to Ariga's texts, there are also three reviews on "On Bungaku" in the book: 1) from his friend and well-known China expert, prof. Gotō Aratarō (後藤 朝太郎, 1881-1945), 2) from nationalistic educator and intellectual Sugiura Jūgō (杉浦 重剛, 1855-1924), and 3) a private letter to him from Ernest Fenollosa with high evaluation of Ariga's investigation.
Furthermore, Ariga's preface to the whole book, against the background of scanty information about Ariga himself and his activities as neo-Confucian scholar, creates a certain conundrum around this book and the history of its composing.
有賀長雄の『支那正觀』 (1918)