JAPANESE LITERATURE

Translated from the French of Bersihand, a Graduate of the National School of Living Oriental Languages, this reads well and informatively on its subject, in brief enough manner for the novice. M. Bersihand devotes most of his book to the contemporary, post 1868 period, since, he says, the earlier periods have been studied in detail elsewhere. Nevertheless he reviews the course of prose, poetry, theatre from the Archaic Period to the present and offers representative poems and prose excerpts in the earlier sections. The Contemporary Period is handled by placing authors biographically, and as before, literarily.