So, I've started reading Seeds of the Heart.
Is it just me, or is Donald Keene a dreadful snob? I mean, good grief. All this disparagement of "earthiness" and valorization of "good taste" and "refinement". Okay, so he's obviously been steeped in the Heian period, but he also seems to be quite familiar with Tokugawa, and, really, if we're speaking of earthy...
I suppose I could understand if it's a defensive reaction to the way Heian so often gets characterized as effete or over-mannered or corruptly luxurious, but still.
In addition to which, he's making a great many unsupported assertions and assumptions about the way in which history produces literature, and I take leave to doubt that he actually has the background in history to do so. If he did, he should have given the support. As is, the whole thing is just dreadfully methodologically unsound. Which is a real shame, considering it seems to be one of maybe two or three surveys of Japanese Literature in English.
