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JAPANESE LITERATURE
may aptly be compared to the barbarous Latin of the Middle Ages in Europe.
The most important is the Adzuma-Kagami or "Mirror of the East," a history of Japan from 1180 till 1266. Invaluable as a mine of historical information, its literary worth is but small. It is one of those dry chronicles in which events are jotted down month by month and day by day without any attempt to show their connection.