Rhetoric in Modern Japan is the first volume to discuss the role of Western rhetoric in the creation of a modern Japanese oral and narrative style. It considers the introduction of Western rhetoric, clarifying its interactions with the forces and synergies that shaped Japanese literature and culture in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Focusing on the Meiji and Taishō years (1868-1926), it challenges the prevailing view among contemporary scholars that rhetoric did not play a significant role in the literary developments of the period.

Massimiliano Tomasi...