Aestheticizing Heresy
Yukio Mishima, perhaps the most influential Japanese writer of his time, was in many ways a heretic in search of authenticity. Mishima’s quest for beauty and heroic death, a reflex of his heresy, could be seen as a clear symptom of his obsession with the gap between reality and existential questions that he accounted of crucial human importance. In mid-way between violent sensuality and critical aestheticism, Mishima’s words and actions hold the promise of a non-conformist beauty, hand in hand with the quest for purity of the self. As Hisaaki Yamanouchi says correctly, “Mishima’s whole career was one o paradox built on an extraordinary tension between spirit and body, words and action, and artistic creation and commitment to the world.
2008 ◽
Vol null
(27)
◽
pp. 227-250
2019 ◽
Vol 64
(2)
◽
pp. 187-197