From Evening Fog to Light and Dark: What Sōseki took from “The Tale of Genji”

Natsume Sōseki is usually read as the Japanese novelist who learned his craft from the West. But what did he take from Murasaki Shikibu, his greatest Japanese predecessor? Although he claimed not to care much for the Tale of Genji, I present evidence in the talk that Sōseki did read the Genji closely. Tracing echoes of the Genji in Sanshiro, The Gate, Kokoro, and Light and Dark, I argue that Sōseki learned more from Lady Muraski than he acknowledged about how the art of the novel can shed light on the darkest corners of the emotional lives of men and women.