Further Discussion on the Image of “Zhu Ke” in Mori Ōgai’s Kantō Nichijō in Connection with Ozaki Yukio’s Taikyo Nichiroku

The four Chinese poems written by Mori Ōgai to Ozaki Yukio in Kantō Nichijō follow the typical poetic structure of “opening, developing, transition and concluding”. The poem “Xiao Quan” serves as a connecting link between the preceding and the following in terms of poetic meaning. Ōgai used the metaphor of “Xiao Quan” to insinuate the Meiji government at that time, while distancing himself from the political pursuit of radical liberal rights advocates embodied in the word of “Huai”. In Kantō Nichijō and Taikyo Nichiroku, it can be seen that as a member of the government bureaucracy, the misalignment between the reality of his identity position and his inner reflection produces an ideology of “Zhu Ke” in the political sense. And the image of “Zhu Ke” is not the color of “Brave man” or “Hero” in Taikyo Nichiroku, nor does it go towards the extreme image of passivity or resistance. But on the basis of resonating with the politically excluded literati genealogy in the context of Chinese poetry, it is a contradictory image that not only criticizes the policies of the Meiji government, but also is detached from the antigovernment political stance.