Literature as the Intoxication of Reason, or the Logical Liberation of Pathos

Long ago, Yukio Mishima wrote that the novel is "the intoxication of reason."

※ Yukio Mishima, Bunshō Dokuhon (1959; Chūkō Bunko, 1995, p.57), in his critique of Kyōka Izumi. See the blog category “Yukio Mishima: Hon ni oboretai”

The manipulation of language by the writer is a clearly intentional and rational act. The writer vividly portrays the human kokoro—that is, the mind before reason and emotion are separated—within a world constructed through such linguistic manipulation. The reader, on the other hand, through the logos-based procedure of reading letters, grasps the shapeless "thing" or "event" that lies beyond logos. Literature has this capability. For me, the following sentence is one such example:

“...One can imagine the hardship involved in writing a text with words arranged so tightly that it seems it would emit a sharp sound when struck. Yet for someone capable of enduring that hardship, literature must be nothing other than works of this kind.”
— Kenichi Yoshida, Collected Works, Vol. 16, Shūeisha, 1980, p.274, from “Portrait of the Author”

「・・、叉かういう打てば冴えた音を發しさうに思へる程緊密に言葉を配置した文章を書くものが、その為にどんな苦労をするかは察せられるが、その苦労をすることが出來るものにとっては文学はさうした作品以外のどのようなものでもない筈である。」
『吉田健一著作集 第16巻』集英社、1980年、p.274、「作者の肖像」より

Perhaps other communicative media besides literature—such as theater, dance, music, sports, martial arts, and ritual—enable the creation of a "cosmos" where reason and emotion have not yet been separated, precisely because they operate through different channels of communication than literature. Yet such bodily expressive media, once created, disappear almost immediately. That "cosmos" becomes a sensory world apprehensible only to those who share that moment and space. Therefore, even if one experiences a sense of being blown away by reason or a transcendence of logos, once we withdraw from that time and place, we—the ones who once shared it—inevitably revert to our everyday sense of self.

In that sense, it may be that only literature, because it remains as text, can both abide by logos and at the same time transcend it. The unknowability, the uncanniness of being human—could this be the essence or trace that literature leaves behind? As someone who basically “cannot read” literature, it remains a “mystery” to me even now—and likely always will.

※ This article is a revised version of a post from our blog: 国語として、あるいは政治としての「文学」／ Literature as a national language or politics: 本に溺れたい