SHUGI

   In the early half of the Meiji period, the term shugi came into use as a translation of the English word “principle” and quickly began to be used to render the suffix -ism into Japanese. As waves of philosophical and literary movements washed ashore in Japan, the suffix was attached to most, and its prevalence today (there are over 500 words in Japanese bearing the shugi suffix) bears witness to the passion for categorization characteristic of modern Japanese intellectuals. Literary examples include hanshizen shugi (antinaturalism), roman shugi (Romanticism), and gikoten shugi (pseudoclassicism).