Natsume Sōseki, The Wayfarer (Kojin) (1912)

“Among the sources introduced within The Wayfarer is the love story of Paolo and Francesca from Canto 5 of Dante’s Inferno, to which Ichiro refers in installment 27 of “After Coming Home.” There is no narrative about testing fidelity in Paolo and Francesca’s story, but it is believed to be the source for the love-triangle and adulterous relationship between a younger brother and sister-in-law. There is another work that could also be considered a source: Malory’s The Death ofKing Arthur (1485). Sõseki rewrote this as a short story and published it under the title “Dew on the Shallots” (Kairokõ, 1905). The scene in which Paolo and Francesca are reading the love story of Lancelot, Knight of the Round Table, and Guinevere, Queen of King Arthur, appears in The Wayfarer. Dante, Malory, and also the Tennyson work that influenced “Dew on the Shallots” are all found in Sôseki’s library. The following passage from Sõseki might also suggest Dante as a source.

There are not many in today’s society who think in the way of Dante’s Divine Comedy. And there are probably no men who want to produce works that imitate the Divine Comedy. Yet if we look for the contemporary spirit in Divine Comedy, we can find it aplenty.”

—Kuramoto Kunio and Jennifer Cullen, “‘Don Quixote’ and Natsume Sōseki,” Review of Japanese Culture and Society (December 2006)