1. Ironic Perspective and Self-Dramatization in the Confessional I-Novel of Japan 2. From Tale to Short Story: Akutagawa's "Toshishun" and Its Chinese Origins 3. The Plot Controversy between Tanizaki and Akutagawa 4. Western Dark Romanticism and Japan's Aesthetic Literature 5. Tanizaki and Poe: The Grotesque and the Quest for Supernal Beauty 6. Disease and Madness in Japan's Modernist Literature: Yokomitsu Riichi's "Machine" and the Short Stories of Kajii Motojiro 7. Kawabata's Dilettante Heroes 8. Literature and Ideology: The Feminist Autobiography of Miyamoto Yuriko 9. Politics and Literature: The Debate over Socialist Realism 10. Confessions of a Mask: The Art of Self-Exposure in Mishima Yukio 11. "I" in the Novel: Self-Revelation and Self-Concealment in the Novels of Tomioka Taeko Notes