SOURCE: "A Japanese Master," in Standards: A Chronicle of Books for Our Time, Horizon Press, 1966, pp. 179-83.

A longtime literary critic for the New Yorker, Hyman rose to a prominent position in American letters during the middle decades of the twentieth century. He is noted for his belief that much of modern literary criticism should depend on knowledge received from disciplines outside the field of literature; consequently, many of his best reviews and critical essays rely on his application of theories gleaned from such disciplines as cultural anthropology, psychology, and comparative religion. In the following essay, Hyman praises the wide appeal of the short fiction comprising Seven Japanese Tales, maintaining that "however native Tanizaki's fiction might be, it is also securely with the tradition of European literature. "

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