Chamberlain, a professor of Japanese and Philology at the Imperial University of Tokyo, was responsible for bringing many central works of classical Japanese literature into English. His translation of the Kojiki, first printed in 1882, has remained authoritative; excerpts from his original introduction appear below.

Previous to 1960, scholars cast the central conflict of the Kojiki in terms of sun and storm; Vannovsky amended these to sun and volcano, noting both the significance of volcanoes in Japanese geology and culture and their absence as explicit references in the Kojiki. In the first part of the following excerpt, he relates the essential material of the mythological portion of the Kojiki focusing especially on the Susano-o tales. In the second part, Vannovsky examines that portion through the lens of his cent...

In the following excerpt, the Kojiki is presented as a unified, literary work designed to provide a "basis and origin" for the Emperor's sovereignty. Combining literary and political analyses, Yaku contends that the "principle of conflict, fusion, and harmony" facilitates "an account of the creation of a state with centralized power brought about by the submission to the emperor of the chieftans and heads of clans at the base. "