Ayant appris l’anglais dans sa jeunesse, Kafu Nagai (1879–1959) a lu, pour savoir la littérature occidentale, George Eliot et Hawthorne qui ne pouvaient pas le satisfaire.

　Lorsqu’il a trouvé par hasard Zola traduit en anglais, il a ressenti de la sympathie passionnée et fini par parcourir presque tous ses ouvrages. Il l’étudiait, le présentait et essayait lui-même d’écrire des romans sous l’influence de Zolaïsme. Enfin, il a abrégé “Nana” et fait“L’Actrice Nana”.

　Son père lui avait refusé le désir d’être un écrivain. Etant furieux, il a partagé le goût de la lutte avec Zola. Mais sa résistance contre l’autorité de père s’est assez réduite quand il a obtenu la chance de visiter les Etats-Unis et, quatre ans après, la France.

　Il a préféré cependant Maupassant à Zola. Le tempérament de Kafu ne pouvait concevoir de grandes choses : un monde, des foules en rumeur, etc.. Quant aux principes philosophiques de son maître, ils étaient hors de son entente. De plus, il voulait vivre pour tous les plaisirs de la vie.

　Laissant sa “L’Actrice Nana”, Kafu a quitté le Japon pour la France où il abandonnerait Zola tandis qu’il saluerait le tombeau de Manpassant.

　Lafcadio Hearn’s lecture on 'English Ballads’ delivered in the College of Literature, Imperial University of Tokyo, in 1896，is the very first and very rare, if not the only, one of the sort ever made in this country. His lecture on ‘English Ballad-literature’ is worth studying in the light of Comparative Literature in that the ‘ancient ballad’ was considered (as is stated in his Report submitted to prof. Toyama) in its relation to the Universal Literature (French, German and Japanese) and to the 'modern ballad,’ like Swinburne's and Rossetti’s. His later lecture on ‘Popular Songs’ was also delivered from the angle of Comparative Literature, and the Finnish narrative poem, the Kalevala, was studied in its relation to the Universal Literature. His lectures on the ‘Contemporary Relations of English to French Literature’ and on ‘Some French Romantics’ must not be forgotten.

　After carefully studying these lectures of Hearn’s on ‘Floating Literature,’ the writer of the present essay wishes to retrace to the fountain-heads of his lecture on ‘English Ballads’.

　Analytical light will be thrown on his love of folklore and folk-poetry, through his early works and his essay on ‘Songs of Japanese Children. ’ His probable association (through Prof. Chamberlain’s translation works of Ko-Ji-Ki and Manyefushifu) with Japanese classical poems of the simpler kind will also be considered in this connection.

　Closely connected with Hearn’s lecture on ballads is its influence on B. Ueda, a student of his, and later through Bin on Hakushyu, with which the present writer wishes to deal in a separate study.