It Depends on What You Mean by “Ism”
In this brief but pointed essay, Akutagawa Ryunosuke examines the question of whether a writer needs an "ism" to define his work. Rather than answering directly, he dismantles the terms of the debate itself, arguing that both "ism" and "necessity" are too vague to yield a simple conclusion. Literary labels such as Romanticism or Naturalism, he suggests, are usually coined afterward by critics for convenience and rarely capture the full range of a writer's mind. With characteristic precision and irony, Akutagawa resists fixed categorization while acknowledging that such labels may sometimes serve a practical purpose. The piece reveals his skepticism toward literary dogma and his preference for the complexity of individual sensibility over doctrinal identity.
Whether it is necessary to have an "ism" or not: that question has been raised, but to tell the truth, I unfortunately have not read Mr. Iwano Homei's essay, which seems to have a good deal to do with this issue. So I imagine my answer will be somewhat out of focus with the thinking of the Shincho reporter and its readers.
To tell the truth, I do not quite grasp the nature of this question itself. What is meant by "ism," and what is meant by "necessary," can be twisted in almost any direction depending on how one thinks about them. And even if one gives them an ordinary common-sense interpretation, what it means to "have an ism" can still be forced into all sorts of meanings.
If, for the time being, we take it in the popular sense of asking whether all of us need to become Romantics or Naturalists, then of course there is no such need. Or rather, I think that would be impossible to begin with. "Isms" of that sort were originally devices critics invented afterward for convenience, so there is no reason to suppose that the whole tendency of a person's thought and feeling can be covered by them. And if they do not cover the whole, there is no need to adopt them as a label for oneself. (Of course, if they do not cover everything but do express some conspicuous part, there may be cases in which one accepts the critic's attaching such an "ism" as a tag. There may even be cases in which refusing to accept it is undesirable. I believe Mr. Ikuta Choko once discussed this.)
Again, if we turn the meaning of "ism" upside down and use it to name the entire tendency of one's inner activity, then the question disappears before it can even be answered. And in that case as well, there can hardly be any need to attach some name to that ism and put it up as a signboard.
Again, if we translate the word "ism" as the assertion of a certain line of thought, then the same thing may be said here as in the previous case.
Only, if we add to the word "necessary" even a slight sense of convenience, for oneself and for others, then something altogether different might be said. In that case, I had better keep my mouth shut. For one thing, having no experience in advocating an ism, I am not clear about such conveniences.
(May 1918)