Nation Building Through Translation: Kleist's “Earthquake” in Meiji Japan

Abstract

In this essay, I consider Mori Ogai's translation of Heinrich von Kleist's “Das Erdbeben in Chili” as a contribution to the linguistic reform debates in Meiji Japan, which centered on the unification of the spoken and written language. I analyze the syntax of Ogai's translation and argue that his stylistic reduction of the original transforms Kleist's text into reading material for popular education in the new Japanese nation state. Drawing on Yoko Tawada, I then illuminate the constitutive foreignness of Kleist's language, which resists national appropriations. Nuancing Tawada's claims, I show that Ogai's Kleist translation negotiates the tensions between various languages, an instance of what Lydia Liu calls “translingual practice,” and thus participates in the ongoing transformation of Japanese during the Meiji era. Ultimately, I contribute a new understanding of nation building through translation, emphasizing that this process embeds the nation in a transnational and translingual network.