JAPANESE LITERATURE
BY DONALD KEENE
An Introduction for Western Readers
“This acute and delightfully written book is long overdue. It will replace at once Aston’s half-century-old and long obsolete work as the only convenient source of information in English. Keene’s account, based on research only recently available, is critical and by types: He devotes separate chapters to the language and literary spirit, poetry, the theater, the novel, and closes with a chapter on Western influence.
“Keene succeeds in characterizing the major works and also takes the time to explicate a number of Japanese verses to illustrate the mechanism of the poetry. Thus the book is at once a brief history of the literature and a guide to the critical understanding of it. Apt comparisons with French and English works, e.g., the Tale of Genji with Remembrance of Things Past, greatly helps the reader.”—BOOKS ABROAD
Donald Keene is widely regarded as the foremost modern interpreter of Japan to the Western world. Now on the faculty of Columbia University—from which university he holds a Ph.D.—he was Lecturer in Japanese at Cambridge University for two years, and spent two years living in Japan on a special grant. His well-known published works include Anthology of Japanese Literature: Earliest Era to Mid-Nineteenth Century, Modern Japanese Literature: From 1868 to Present-Day, The Japanese Discovery of Europe, The Battles of Coxinga, and Living Japan.
Cover design by Roy Kuhlman
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