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Japan's introduction to Western literature came though American literature, as things European were imported to Japan via the United States. Prior to World War II, the Japanese read such writers as Washington Irving, Poe, and Hawthorne, partly to practice their English. Today these writers are less popular in Japan, but younger Japanese scholars are turning more and more attention to Herman Melville. This book is the first English-language volume of Japanese scholarship on Melville. With chapters contributed by the leading scholars in Japan, it presents a variety of attitudes from the traditional to the new.
Following the introduction, the volume opens with a chapter by Kenzaburo Ohashi on Melville's reception in Japan. The next chapter discusses the literary interaction between Hawthorne and Melville after
Moby-Dick, and is followed by two chapters on
Moby-Dick. Chapter 5 discusses Melville's transcendentalism. Additional chapters cover Israel Porter
The Confidence Man,
Clarel,
Melville's later poetry, and
Billy Budd. The work concludes with a bibliographical essay on Japanese scholarship and includes a full subject index.
List of contents
Melville in Japan: Reception Among Writers and Critics by Kenzaburo Ohashi
The Literary Interaction between Hawthorne and Melville after Moby-Dick by Ginsaku Sugiura
A Bird in an Out-Of-Joint Time: Captain Ahab in Moby-Dick by Arimichi Makino
Moby-Dick as a Mosaic by Toshio Yagi
Melville's "Transcendentalism" in the Context of His Time by Masayuki Sakamoto
Israel Potter and its Ideological Contamination by Kazuko Fukuoka
A Sweet Charity for Melville the Confidence Man by Keiko Beppu
The Imagination of Death: An Essay on Clarel by Shizuo Suyama
Beyond "The Talismanic Secret": Some Aspects of Melville's Later Poetry by Kiyotoshi Murakamia
Dynamism in Billy Budd by Kiyofumi Tsubaki
Japanese Scholarship on Herman Melville: A Bibliographical Essay by Masao Tsunematsu
Index
About the author
Kenzabuo Ohashi
