Ghost Tales in Modern Japan(<Special Issue>The Anatomy of the Uncanny: Something Pre-modern in Modernity)

Abstract

As is well known, Yoshu Mizuno introduced Kizen Sasaki to Kunio Yanagida and played an important role in the completion of Yanagida's major work Tono-monogatari. It was through a keen interest in ghost tales that the three became acquainted with each other. As Yanagida researched on the legends of the mountain people and Mizuno specialized in spiritualism, each of them had a different approach to ghost tales. But old ghost tales undoubtedly worked as the intellectual ground of the age, on which their works were built.