35
the great revival of Japanese literature during the past eighty years, both because of language difficulties and because of the conviction that Japan is too remote from their own experiences. However, as more translations are published, writers in the West may find in them techniques which may be successfully and unselfconsciously applied to their own novels. If this should happen, the world would be richer for the exchange. The dream of Tsubouchi Shôyô in 1885 of improving Japanese novels “until we may finally be able to surpass in quality the European novels, and permit our novels to take a glorious place along with painting, music, and poetry on the altar of the arts” would also be that much closer to realization.
