Along with Natsume Sseki, Mori gai, and Ozaki Ky, Kda Rohan is one of four chief literary figures of the mid Meiji Period. He and Ky offered a neoclassicist and idealist alternative to the realism favored by Tsubouchi Shy and others, especially during the "Age of Koyo and Rohan." His literary achievements during six decades, from his debut in 1888 until his death, cover a range of genres: he was a novelist, poet, essayist, critic, linguist, philologist, and historian. He wrote commentary on poetry and on historical records, and he published moral tales, stories for youth, and travel essays. His initial contribution to modern Japanese literature was in laying a basis for the development of Romanticism, and his debut as a writer coincided with a turning point for Japanese society around 1887, when the fusions and clashes of old and new, East and West, encouraged cultural evolution. Rohan enhanced the...