Act and Imagination (1)

In my opinion, Mishima's earliest stories can be classified into two categories: stories of yearning and those of self-recognition. These two categories have, at the first glance, nothing to do with each other and therefore, some critics once doubted the integrity and consistency of Mishima as a writer. The stories of yearning are fantastic with a strong romantic coloring, and those of self-recognition are in the style of "I-Novel" (Shishosetsu), based on the writer's actual existence and temperament. These apparently differnt genres of stories, are,however, closely interrelated witd each other within the confine of Mishima's imagination, because with him yearning originates from self-recognition and vice versa: to put it more concretely, a recognition of infirmity and poor physique in himself gave, as its counteraction, birth to a yearning to something romantic, tragic and far-away