"Comedy" Can Be Deadly: Or, How Mark Twain Killed Hara Hōitsuan

Indra Levy

22 citations0/0 files storedJournal of Japanese Studies

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Translation Studies and Practices Japanese History and Culture Comparative and World Literature

Abstract

In the April 6, 1903, edition of the Tōkyō asahi shinbun , best-selling translator Hara Hōitsuan published "Shiizā sansatsu jiken," his rendition of a burlesque by Mark Twain titled "The Killing of Julius Caesar 'Localized.'" This minor translation of a minor text by a world-famous American author sparked a virulent public debate between Hara and Yamagata Iso'o, who was incensed by the translator's failure to grasp Twain's subtle sense of humor. This essay examines the 1903 Hara-Twain controversy for what it reveals about the status of literary laughter as an object of knowledge via translation in Meiji Japan.

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2012The Translation Studies Reader 1946A Course of Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature 1998THE SCANDALS OF TRANSLATION 1991A History of Writing in Japan 1996Comedy: The Mastery of Discourse 2002Translating the West: Language and Political Reason in Nineteenth-Century Japan.2006Understanding Humor in Japan 1901To the Person Sitting in Darkness

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