Earl Miner The Japanese Tradition in British and American Literature (1958)

Abstract

Earl Miner was born in 1927 in Wisconsin in the United States. After studying engineering at the University of Wisconsin, Miner completed a basic course in Japanese and Japanese affairs at the University of Minnesota before being sent to Japan in 1946 by order of the Army. He worked as an interpreter for the occupation forces in Shikoku, Kyushu, Nagoya, and other locales until 1947. He returned to the University of Minnesota to study British literature. At the same time, he conducted comparative literary research on the influence of Japan on British and American literature for his doctoral dissertation, and the results were published in 1958 as his first book, The Japanese Tradition in British and American Literature (Seiyō Bungaku no Nihon Hakken). This book was praised highly both in the United States and Japan, and in 1960, he went back to Japan, this time as a Fulbright scholar, and lectured throughout the country. Later, he taught at Kyoto University where he remained until 1962. After that, he remained active in the fields of British, Japanese, and comparative literature (teaching at the University of California, Los Angeles from 1955 to 1972 and Princeton University after that), and published numerous books on Dryden, Milton, classical Japanese court poetry, and other topics. His major works include Dryden’s Poetry, The Restoration Mode: From Milton to Dryden, Japanese Poetic Diaries, and Japanese Court Poetry. A Japanese translation of his essays entitled “Nihon wo Utsusu Chiisana Kagami” (A Small Mirror Reflecting Japan) (Chikuma Shobō, 1962) was also published. Earl Roy Miner passed away in 2004.