What makes a work of literature readable? This book asks that question of one of the classics of Japanese literature, the Tsurezuregusa (Essays in Idleness) by Kenko (1283-1352), a collection of brief, fragmentary reflections on a number of subjects. In Japanese literary history the work is classified as one of the first collections of zuihitsu, or informal essay. This first extended critical treatment of Tsurezuregusa goes back to its author and his time to rebuild the discursive world of the early fourteenth century and to examine such matters as whether genre labels...