Contained in:
  • Il dono dell’airone
  • Edited by Luca Capponcelli, Diego Cucinelli, Chiara Ghidini, Matilde Mastrangelo, Rolando Minuti
Book Chapter

Fukuzawa Yukichi, Uno scritto di commiato da Nakatsu

  • Marco Del Bene

At the age of 36, following a brief visit to his hometown, Fukuzawa Yukichi drafted A Letter of Farewell from Nakatsu. It was 1871 and Fukuzawa had already gained extensive experience, not least through his travels abroad, from which he drew the observations for the drafting of Conditions of the West (Seiyō jijo) that gave him notoriety with the Japanese public. A Letter of Farewell from Nakatsu is considered to be an essential work in the development of his thought, as it anticipates - albeit in an extremely concise form - many of the themes that were to be the cornerstones of his later works. These themes encompass the patriarchal family structure, the dynamics between men and women, and the traditional approach to knowledge and learning, all of which he believed needed to be drastically reconsidered. Fukuzawa’s vision for Japan's future rested on its capacity to embrace the new civilisation introduced by the ‘West’. However, he did not envision this transformation as a blind adoption of a foreign model. Instead, he saw it as a process of modernisation that could simultaneously preserve the valuable aspects of Japanese tradition.

  • Keywords:
  • Fukuzawa,
  • Edo,
  • Meij,
  • Modernization,
  • The West,
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Marco Del Bene

Sapienza University of Rome, Italy - ORCID: 0000-0001-9411-1745

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  2. Blacker, Carmen e Fukuzawa Yukichi. 1953. “Kyūhanjō.” Monumenta Nipponica 9, 1/2: 304-29.
  3. Cusumano, Michael A. 1982. “An Enlightenment Dialogue with Fukuzawa Yukichi: Ogawa Tameji’s Kaika Mondō, 1874-1875.” Monumenta Nipponica 37, 3: 375-401.
  4. Kitahara, Michio. 1986. “The Rise of Four Mottoes in Japan: Before and After the Meiji Restoration.” Journal of Asian History 20, 1: 54-64.
  5. Nishikawa, Shunsaku. 1993. “Fukuzawa Yukichi (1835-1901).” Prospects: the quarterly review of comparative education XXIII, 3/4: 493-506.
  6. Oberman, David e Kayano, Tomoasu. 1990. “An Annotated Translation of Fukuzawa Yukichi’s "A Letter of Farewell to Nakatsu.” Hokudai hōgaku ronshū 40 (5-6 I 662-647): 1804-789.
  7. Seifert, Wolfgang. 2021. “A Perspective for Japan: Fukuzawa Yukichi’s ‘Theory of Civilization’, 1875.” Historická Sociologie 2: 47-66.
  8. Uchiyama, Akiko. 2012. “Assimilation or Resistance? Yukichi Fukuzawa’s Digestive Translation of the West.” In Nana Sato-Rossberg, Judy Wakabayashi, Translation and Translation Studies in the Japanese Context, 73-91. London: Bloomsbury.
  9. Wayland, Francis. 1835. The Elements of Moral Science, New York: Cooke and Co.
  10. Zachmann, Urs Matthias. 2007. “Blowing Up a Double Portrait in Black and White: The Concept of Asia in the Writings of Fukuzawa Yukichi and Okakura Tenshin.” East Asia Cultures Critique 15, 2: 345-68.
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  • Publication Year: 2024
  • Pages: 131-139
  • Content License: CC BY 4.0
  • © 2024 Author(s)

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  • Publication Year: 2024
  • Content License: CC BY 4.0
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Chapter Information

Chapter Title

Fukuzawa Yukichi, Uno scritto di commiato da Nakatsu

Authors

Marco Del Bene

Language

Italian

DOI

10.36253/979-12-215-0422-4.14

Peer Reviewed

Publication Year

2024

Copyright Information

© 2024 Author(s)

Content License

CC BY 4.0

Metadata License

CC0 1.0

Bibliographic Information

Book Title

Il dono dell’airone

Book Subtitle

Scritti in onore di Ikuko Sagiyama

Editors

Luca Capponcelli, Diego Cucinelli, Chiara Ghidini, Matilde Mastrangelo, Rolando Minuti

Peer Reviewed

Number of Pages

390

Publication Year

2024

Copyright Information

© 2024 Author(s)

Content License

CC BY 4.0

Metadata License

CC0 1.0

Publisher Name

Firenze University Press

DOI

10.36253/979-12-215-0422-4

ISBN Print

979-12-215-0421-7

eISBN (pdf)

979-12-215-0422-4

Series Title

Connessioni. Studies in Transcultural History

Series ISSN

2975-0393

Series E-ISSN

2975-0261

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