Theory of Literature and Other Critical Writings

Description

Natsume Soseki (1867-1916) was the foremost Japanese novelist of the twentieth century, known for such highly acclaimed works as Kokoro, Sanshiro, and I Am a Cat. Yet he began his career as a literary theorist and scholar of English literature. In 1907, he published Theory of Literature, a remarkably forward-thinking attempt to understand how and why we read. The text anticipates by decades the ideas and concepts of formalism, structuralism, reader-response theory, and postcolonialism, as well as cognitive approaches to literature that are only now gaini ... Acknowledgments Introduction: Natsume Soseki and the Ten-Year Project Part One: Excerpts from Theory of Literature Preface Book 1: Classification of Literary Substance Book 2: Quantitative Change in Literary Substance Book 3: The Particular Character of Literary Substance Book 4: Interrelations Between Literary Substances Book 5: Group F Part Two: Other Writings on Literary Theory, 1907-14 "Statement on Joining the Asahi" "Philosophical Foundations of the Literary Arts" "Preface" to Literary Criticism "The Merits and Flaws of -isms" "My Individualism" Notes Index