Kobayashi Hideo e la letteratura giapponese classica (traduzione dal giapponese di un saggio di Ishikawa Norio, titolo originale: Kobayashi Hideo to Nihon koten bungaku)

The paper is focused on the evolution of Kobayashi Hideo’s thought. Kobayashi is widely known in Japan for his essays on art and literature, which established a new genre of criticism strongly influenced by poets of French Symbolism like Paul Valery and by philosophers like Alain (Emile Auguste Chartier) and Bergson. In 1935 he published Watakushi shōsetsu ron (On I–Novel), thus beginning to be generally recognized also as a connoisseur of the Japanese literary tradition. After Japan’s defeat in 1945, Kobayashi became increasingly concerned with Japanese classical literature and authored many seminal works about it. Motoori Norinaga (Motoori Norinaga), his last achievement, is surely to be mentioned for the significance of its legacy on the interpretations of the eighteenth– century Japanese philologist.