The lay priest Kenk (often designated Kenk hshi), who was a witness to the uncertainties of the early fourteenth century as well as keeper of memories of a noble past, wrote a work lauded for its crystallization of medieval Japanese aesthetics. Tsurezuregusa (Essays in Idleness, 1319, 1330-1331") gives profoundly satisfying expression to the themes of impermanence, insufficiency, and the perfection of the imperfect. As Shtetsu, copyist of the earliest surviving manuscript, remarks in his Shtetsu monogatari (Conversations with Shtetsu, 1448-1450), “'Flowers in profusion, an unclouded moon—are these alone worth viewing"' Who in this world but Kenk could have such an understanding? It is his natural temperament.” Few authors in Japanese literary history have seen so clearly or concretely to the heart of things and voiced so engagingly the central insights of his tradition. This authorial accomplishment was only part of the reason why successive generations embraced Kenk...