Japanese Contributions, 2007–2008

Japanese contributions for this period are stunning, with an impressive range of monographs and essay collections. The publication of a three-volume canonical literary history by a single author and of a comprehensive encyclopedia of William Faulkner compiled by the William Faulkner Society of Japan may signal a subtle change in Japanese academia, an effort to counter the recent flood of strong readings of American writers and their individual works generated by literary theories, especially feminist criticism, queer theory, and postcolonialism. There has been a need for ballast, so to speak, in terms of reliable literary encyclopedias and reference books. Also worthy of note are the digitization of literary works and literary criticism and the increasing availability of free e-texts and e-journals, developments that have in turn brought about an unprecedented transformation in the publishing business. A surprising development for students and scholars is that beginning in April 2009 Eigo Seinen, Japan's oldest leading academic journal and a torchlight in English and American literary studies since its founding in 1898, will cease print publication and be available only on the Web. Only time will tell what effect, for better or worse, such changes will have.

As usual, limited space forces this review to be severely selective, and priority is given to single-authored books and collections of original essays on topics and themes. With a few exceptions articles are restricted to those appearing in the major academic journals Eigo Seinen (EigoS), Studies in English Literature (SELit), Studies in American Literature (SALit), and Journal of American Literature Society of Japan (JALSJ), the English-language version of SALit. Unless otherwise indicated, all books are published in Tokyo.

a. Literary History and Theory

Numerous works of literary history have been written to address sociohistorical change; The Columbia Literary History of the United States (1988), ed. Emory Elliott, and the eight-volume The Cambridge History of American Literature (1994–), ed. Sacvan Bercovitch, are notable examples. An amazing Japanese accomplishment in this category, without question, is Toshio Watanabe's three-volume Kohgi Amerika Bungakushi—Zen San Kan (Lectures on American Literature for Japanese Scholars and Students) (Kenkyu-sha), a single-authored work based on Watanabe's more than 20 years of lectureship at the University of Tokyo. Watanabe makes no apologies for his traditionalist stance; even so, he is sensitive to vicissitudes in the profession and to new critical trends, and he identifies relevant new critical theories while articulating his own critical positions on his subject. The first volume covers colonial settlement to the end of the Civil War; the second volume begins with the establishment of realism and carries through the mid-20th century, closing with Arthur Miller; and the third is devoted to the contemporary scene. "An Outline of American Literature," which forms part of the introduction to the first volume, is reprinted in volumes 2 and 3, serving as a reference summary to the continuity of American literature. Of the 88 chapters, 16 discuss salient features of the American literary tradition—among these are "The 'Romance' Elements," "Light and Shadow of Puritanism," "The American Dream," "The Rise of Literary Realism," "The New Criticism," "Multiculturalism," and "Nature Writing"—and the balance are allocated to 76 American writers whom Watanabe considers representative of the periods under discussion. These author chapters consist of biographical and critical profiles followed by close readings of representative works. One strength of Lectures on American Literature is its inclusion of judiciously chosen excerpts from relevant critical and literary texts to support Watanabe's argument. There are no surprises in the choice of individual authors, and as a result Lectures on American Literature should provide a reliable guide for many years, even if like every literary history it will eventually be doomed by the passage of time and intellectual conditions.

Hanchisei no Teikoku: Amerika, Bungaku, Seishinshi (Anti-intellectualism in American Literary History) (Nan'un-do) is a readable collection of essays growing out of the symposium at the 2006 annual meeting of the English Literary Society of Japan. In the first chapter, "American Literature and the Tradition of Anti-intellectualism," Takayuki Tatsumi states that recent American studies invariably begin...