Mori Ogai and Han Shan and Shih-Te

Mori Ogai and Han Shan and Shih-Te

Mori Ogai (1862-1922) was a Japanese novelist, critic and translator. He was well versed in the Chinese classics in his childhood. As an adult he studied in Germany where he was strongly influenced by the idealist thoughts of Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860) and Nicolai Hartmann (1882-1950). Hartmann's aesthetic thoughts later became the basis for Ogai's literary creation. Mori Ogai was a representative of the Japanese romantic literature after the Meiji Restoration.

Mori Ogai's novel Han Shan and Shih-Te was published in 1916 in the Japanese magazine New Novels. It is a historical novel inspired by the "Foreword to the Collection of Han Shan's Poems" by Lü Qiuyin (dates unknown). Ogai boldly recreated the tale of Han Shan and Shi De, and reinvigorated the Buddhist foundations of the narrative, making it a groundbreaking work of the Japanese Zen literature, which exerted great influence on Japan.

森鷗外與《寒山拾得》

森鷗外，日本小說家、評論家、翻譯家，從小受到良好的中國古典學訓練，長大后曾赴德國留學，深受叔本華、哈特曼的唯心主義影響，特別是哈特曼的美學思想成為他后來從事文學創作的理論依據。森鷗外是日本明治維新之后浪漫主義文學的代表人物。

1916年，森鷗外的作品《寒山拾得》發表于日本雜志《新小說》。這是一篇歷史題材的小說，其創作素材主要來源于閭丘胤撰《寒山子詩集序》，森鷗外對寒山拾得的故事進行了大膽的再創作，加深了作品的佛理性，使之成為日本禪宗小說的開山之作，在日本產生很大影響力。