Between the late Meiji Era and the Taisho Era, what is now called "literature" was invented in academic institutions. At that period the literature department began to produce and re-produce literary studies, literature education, writing and criticism, which in turn, although to some degree independent of each other, cooperated in producing and re-producing "literature." This system still has a great influence and determines the framework or locus of our present literary studies and literature education.

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Studies on Edo literature have a tendency to read old texts from a modern perspective and treat them as if they had been written in and for our times. Instead of repressing a historical discontinuity in past writings, this essay will foreground it and shed light on historical peculiarities of Edo literature. In doing so, to focus on things and people described in texts is important, because both serve as the most accurate indicator of historical moments.

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The significance of Japanese literature is rapidly getting small. In a sense, this may be inevitable because the myth of the nation state which literature had contributed much to forming is now largely dismantled. It doesn't mean, however, that literature ended its historical role. In this more globalized information-oriented society, I believe, there is a part it can play. Indeed, the Japanese Literature Association was originally started as an attempt to liberate Japanese literature from the curse of pre-war imperialism and turn it into a more liberal academic subject. But unfortunately such a reformistic passion is now almost forgotten, and social and cultural duties literary studies should do are deplorably neglected. Literary studies will and must become more globalized. We, Japanese literature scholars, are now required to meet this situation.

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