Inventing the Classics: Modernity, National Identity and Japanese Literature » (1)

Haruo Shirane is Shincho Professor of Japanese Literature at Columbia University. His most recent book is Traces of Dreams: Landscape, Cultural Memory, and the Poetry of Basho (Stanford, 1998). Tomi Suzuki is Associate Professor of Japanese Literature at Columbia University. She is the author of Narrating the Self: Fictions of Japanese Modernity (Stanford, 1996).

Shirane and Suzuki examine how the Japanese canon of “classics” (The Tale of Genji

, The Tale of the Heike

, Noh drama, Saikaku, Chikamatsu, and Basho) was constructed as part of the creation of Japan as a modern nation-state and as a result of Western influence.

Booknews

Developed from an international symposium titled "Canon Formation: Gender, Nationalism, and Japanese Literature" held in March 1997 at Columbia University, this volume presents ten original essays addressing the process of the construction of Japanese literature. Topics include the construction of imperial mythology; gender and courtliness in ; Chikamatsu and dramatic literature in the Meiji period; and curriculum and competing canons. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)