Kobayashi Hideo (1902-83) was the most important Japanese literary critic of the twentieth century, as crucial a presence in his own literary culture as Edmund Wilson, Walter Benjamin, and Roland Barthes were in theirs. It is not too much to say that modern literary criticism in Japan begins with Kobayashi. Echoes of his judgments and values are everywhere present in modern Japanese literary discourse. Indeed, his impact on later criticism is such that writing about Kobayashi has become something of a rite of passage for Japanese critics aspiring to literary leadership. This book is a...