‘Failed Individualism’ Observed in Japan: the Novels of Soseki Natsume (1867–1916)

Abstract

Soseki’s upbringing in Tokyo was followed by a period as a high-school teacher in rural Kumamoto in the southern island of Kyushu. From there, he travelled to London in October 1900, during the last few months of the reign of Queen Victoria, to study English literature. He lived mostly in the Clapham Common area, south of the Thames, a rather bleak region of London. It is well known that Soseki did not fit in at all well in London or in England, feeling foreign, excluded, alone and miserable during the whole of his stay, which lasted two years, even suffering as a result from chronic neurosis.