A History of Japanese Literature, in Four Volumes: Volume 1. Seeds in The Heart: Japanese Literature From Earliest Times to the Late Sixteenth Century; Volume 2. World Within Walls: Japanese Literature of the Pre-Modern Era, 1600-1867; Volume 3. Dawn to …

xii, 1265; xv, 606; xiv, 1329; xvi, 687 pp. Four volume set. Volume 1: ...guide readers through the first nine hundred years of Japanese literature--a period that not only defined the unique properties of Japanese prosody and prose but also produced some of its greatest works. Covering courtly fiction, Buddhist writings, war tales, diaries, poems, and more, Seeds in the Heart explores a vast and variegated treasury of writings. Detailed examinations of classic texts--from the Kojiki to The Tale of Genji, from The Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon to Zeami's No plays... Volume 2: A comprehensive critical and interpretive study of Japanese poetry, fiction, and drama of the Tokugawa period, providing detailed explications of all important works by the major authors of each genre. Volume 3: The third book in a multivolume history of modern Japanese literature by the world's authoritative translator and scholar of Japanese culture and literature. New preface by the author, includes an introduction, an appendix, glossary, index, and a selected list of translations into English. Volume 4: Looks at modern Japanese fiction from the opening of Japan to the West in 1868 to the present and discusses major authors and foreign influences.