Yanagita Kunio and the Folklore Movement (RLE Folklore) The Search for Japan's National Character and Distinctiveness Routledge Library Editions: Folklore Series

Yanagita Kunio almost singlehandedly initiated the serious study of folklore in Japan. Even modern Japanese folklorists who may disagree with his approach or his methods must take his body of work as a point of departure for their own. This book, first published in 1990, puts Yanagita?s career within a historical framework and context, full of detail about Japanese political and literary trends which influenced or were influenced by the folklore scholarship of Yanagita.

1. The Formative Years 2. Policy and Agrarian Society 3. Yanagita Folklore: Structure and Influence 4. The Sources for Yanagita’s ‘New National Learning’ 5. The Folklorist’s Craft 6. The Folklorist as Hero Appendix 1. The Matsuoka Household 2. Stone Tablet at Takeuchi Shrine 3. Yanagita’s Marginalia in George Laurence Gomme’s Folklore as an Historical Science 4. Major Folklore Related Journals 5. Folklore Survey Checkpoints