Individualistic thought of the Shirakaba group writers: Mushanokoji Saneatsu and Arishima Takeo

The article considers the individualistic thought of the association of the Japanese writers, Shirakaba-ha («White Birch Group») - on the example of two of its members, Mushanokoji Saneatsu and Arishima Takeo. Shirakaba activity took place in the early XX-th century, a period of a active development of individualistic conscience among the Japanese intellectuals upon the influence of Western philosophy and traditional cultural values. The general philosophical and aesthetic concepts of Mushanokoji and Arishima are analyzed, the similarities and differences in their use of individualism as means of «developing themselves» in the literary activity. The contrast between perception and aesthetic consciousness of writers is especially vivid when comparing their attitude to the same notions - ego, instinct, love and will. If in one case these notions became the basis of a natural philosophical and utopian view of Mushanokoji, in the other case it was an irrational one with a mystical and religious world outlook of Arishima. The patterns of these two world outlook conceptions demonstrate different sides of one crucial phenomenon in the Japanese society of that time, the ascending of the priority of the artistic individuality on the background of separation of the cultural life from politics.