A. Critical and Comparative Studies

56. Yu, Beongcheon. The Great Circle: American Writers and the Orient. Detroit: Wayne State UP, 1983.

A careful study, organised biographically, that traces Indian, Chinese, and Japanese influences in the work of the writers discussed. Careful throughout to distinguish between parallels of thought and actual influence. Chapters on Fenollosa (see D10), Hearn (D9), and other ‘Yankee Pilgrims in Japan’—Edward Morse (Ap), William Sturgis Bigelow (Ap), Percival Lowell (see D6), and Henry Adams and John La Farge (Ap)—provide an excellent overview of early American literary and artistic interest in Japan, and the chapter on Pound, though emphasising Chinese interests, offers as well a useful summary of his debts to Japan.