Don Juan

Contents

Preface
Acknowledgments

Chapter 1. Problematizing Comparative Literature Comparative Literature as a Discourse of Identification
Problems of Transcivilizational Comparison of Don Juans
The "Metaphysics" of Comparativism

Chapter 2. The Introduction of "Love" into Modern Japan
The New Concept of Romantic Love
Creation of the Signifier Ren'ai
The "Meaning" of Love
Sign and Reality
The Comparative Frame of Don Juan as a Lover

Chapter 3. The Emergence of Don Juanism
The Erasure of the Don Juan Theme in Early Modern Japan
The Making of "Lust"
Iro-otoko as a Lustful Man Enters

Chapter 4. Sexuality as a Historical Construct
Sexuality as a "Natural" Fact Ogai's Vita Sexualis in the Context of Naturalism
Sexuality as a "Root" of Human Nature
The Emergence of a Sexual Life
Don Juan as a Sexual Pervert Enters

Chapter 5. Politics of Comparative Literature
"Love" and Its Connection with Humanism, Liberal Democracy, and Universalism
Universalism as Disguised Eurocentrism
Comparative Literature as a Universalist Discipline
Comparative Literature as a Marshall Plan
Conclusion: The Violence of Comparison

Preface

This book was first conceived when a good friend and colleague of mine, Junko Saeki, published a history of Japanese courtesans via literary representations, a theme that had always interested me greatly. As her work was rather comprehensive, I felt, although her theoretical/ideological position was quite different from mine, that I had to switch to a new topic for research. At that moment a change from a study of "amorous" women to that of licentious men appeared to me to be a natural choice.
This decision, however, eventually gave me cause for serious theoretical reconsideration. Launching on the task, I was not content, from the beginning, to write a history of only Japanese "libertines" or iro-otoko as such, but wanted to locate this type in relation to other debauchees belonging to different literary/cultural traditions. After all, I was a scholar who had first received training as a comparativist. The subject of my research at this stage was a comparative analysis of the "libertines" of the world.
Nonetheless, the more I worked, the more I found the whole idea suspicious. In this project, locating a candidate for comparison was naturally the first task. The choice was, however, not natural. If I selected one, emphasizing the difference, I felt, I could not justify the comparison. If I stressed similitudes, my
argument turned out to be a senseless tautology.
I became, then, more interested in analyzing/deconstructing the presumptions of comparative scholarship themselves. I decided eventually to reverse the task, that is, to write about why I could not pursue my own project and how I should demystify the notion of an "Eastern Don Juan" (just as I should not have been deluded by the concept of a "female Don Juan" as a construction theoretically symmetrical to "male Don Juan"). That is to say, I decided that I
should compare in order to un-compare. If some readers find my book somewhat self-contradictory, that exactly is my aim and I prefer to consider this contradiction as a strength of the book.
The other day, I saw in a supermarket an ad for a detergent that said, "Dare (not) to compare" with the negative "not" deftly inserted in relief. If I may risk sounding superficial, this motto very neatly represents the problematic of comparative literature to me. American advertisements are full of encouragements for comparison: Please compare and find out for yourself that our product is the better. Now, the above motto at once encourages and discourages comparison: obviously, ours is the better detergent; we want you to compare and find that out for yourself; but, as our
product is superior beyond comparison, you will just waste your time and energy by comparing. Hence, the negative "not," which does not change the meaning of the two sentences: compare in order to know that you do not have to compare, or, do not compare because the comparison has already been made.
Transcivilizational comparative literature functions in a like manner. It encourages us to compare the literatures of the world. But as we move on, we realize that the same motto is also bidding us not to do so, for there is nothing really to compare. The answer is already there as we are comparing the same thing. In the chapters that follow the reader will find out how and why comparativism has worked this way.