Theory of literature and other writings
By: Natsume Soseki ; edited by Michael K. Bourdaghs, Atsuko Ueda, and Joseph A. Murphy.
Contributors: Bourdaghs, Michael K.; Ueda, Atsuko.; Murphy, Joseph A. 1961-
Series: Weatherhead books on Asia
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Published: 2009
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 287
ISBN-13: 9780231146562; 9780231518314
Subjects: Literature
Description: "Although Natsume Soseki is widely celebrated as Japan's greatest modern novelist, he began his writing career as a literary theorist and scholar of English literature. He would later look back on his Theory of Literature (1907) as an immature and unfinished work, but it is in fact an astonishingly original attempt at constructing a model for understanding all literature through the experience of reading." "The Theory of Literature foreshadows the ideas and concepts that would later form the critical foundations of formalism, structuralism, reader-response theory, cognitive science, and postcolonialism. It remains an unprecedented work of literary theory, unmistakably modern yet also clearly (and self-consciously) non-Western. In a later series of lectures and essays, Soseki continued to develop his ideas. This material, some of it never before translated into English, is also included in the volume. The editors offer a critical introduction that contextualizes Soseki's theoretical project historically and explores its contemporary legacy."--Jacket.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: part 1. Excerpts from The Theory of literature (Bungakuron, 1907); title: part 2.  Other writings (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.