SOURCE: "Higuchi Ichiyō," in Dawn to the West, Japanese Literature of the Modern Era: Fiction, Vol. 1, Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1984, pp. 165-85.

In this following excerpt, Keene chronicles Higuchi's literary career, discussing her influences and the critical reception of her work.

During the six centuries after the composition of Izayoi Nikki in 1280 hardly a single work by a woman left its imprint on Japanese literature. It is true that the court ladies continued to compose imitations of Heian tanka and fiction until well into the fifteenth century, and in the Tokugawa period a few women enjoyed reputations for their tanka, haiku, and even poetry in Chinese, but their works, with a few exceptions, were of minor interest. The Heian tradition of writing by women was broken when the court society itself lost its importance and when the position of women came to be threatened by the hostile attitudes...