[The Taisho period (1912–1926) in Japan] was one of reaction to naturalism and to the confessional I-novels; it was characterized by two dominant literary movements, one of the Shirakaba group and the other the so-called aesthetic school. These movements—and the philosophic and aesthetic ideas underlying them—were almost diametrically opposed. The Shirakaba group sought a new sense of life in the limitless expansion of the self and of human possibilities, while the aesthetic school was committed to the pursuit of the beautiful, even to the point of sacrificing social and moral integrity. Yet they were in agreement that literature is an art form and that style, structure, words, and images are at least as important as the content of literary works. Perfection in a work as art, together with or in place of philosophic depth, was a professed goal of most of the writers of this period; this...