Escape from the Wasteland: Romanticism and Realism in the Fiction of Mishima Yukio and OE Kenzaburo

Part 1 The lost garden - beginnings of a mythic alternative: festival days - "The sound of Waves" repletion and rhythm - "Prize Stock" the sacrifice of the innocent writ large - "Pluck the Buds, Shoot the Kids". Part 2 The wasteland of sex: eroticism in postwar literature absence and desire - "Confessions of a Mask" and "Our Era" from fantasy to reality - "The Locked Room" and "The Swimming Man". Part 3 Cries in the wasteland - sexual violence: sex begets murder - "Thirst for Love" and "Outcries" the intellectual takes action - "Madame de Sade" and "The Sexual Human" affirmitave visions - "A Personal Matter" and "Patriotism" sexuality and the role of women. Part 4 In search of the garden: when you meet the Buddha, kill the Buddha - "The Temple of the Golden Pavilion" the bitter taste for glory - "The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea" summer had passed them by -"Our Era" apocalypse now - "The Floodwaters have Come unto my Soul". Part 5 Death and the Emperor - the politics of betrayal: the Emperor and postwar Japan oh, my Emperor! - "Patriotism" and "Seventeen" from irony to madness - "Runway Horses" and "The Day He Himself Shall Wipe My Tears Away". Part 6 The final quest: you can learn a lot from legends - "The Silent Cry" the empty garden - "The Sea of Fertility". Part 7 Mishima, OE, and modern Japan.