T. S. Eliot began to make his appearance on the Japanese scene in the latter half of the 1920s. Along with the establishment of the English Literary Society of Japan in 1929, the study of Eliot began to flourish in the 1930s. This brief account examines his reception in the context of social and political situation of the day. Different perspectives and issues Eliot raised will be demonstrated by memoirs and writings of those who visited to teach, as well as those who read Eliot at home.To succeed Peter Quennell, William Empson came to Tokyo in 1931. When he had hardly settled, the “Manchurian Incident” broke out in September. Japan established the puppet state of Manchukuo in March in 1932, and chose her isolation in the international community in March in 1934, declaring to walk out of the League of Nations. Ironically the period saw the first flowering of Eliot study. Foreign books were coming in abundance uninterrupted. But after the outbeak of Shino-Japanese war in 1937, under the strict controls on foreign currency, the importation of periodicals and books began to dwindle, and virtually stopped by the end of 1939. In the meantime, however, Eliot began to attract general readership. When John Morris came in 1938, the war in China was to be expanded into the Pacific War in 1941. He took the last repatriation ship specially arranged for Europe. In his Traveller from Tokyo (1943), reporting that there was “a great interest in all forms of modern poetry, particularly for that of T. S. Eliot”, Morris predicted: “a Japanese T. S. Eliot will undoubtedly arise before many more years have passed”. The War ended in 1945. Eventually, the legacy from the pre-war years prepared the surge for Eliot studies, which, after premonitory rumbles in the early part of the 1950s, culminated in the next decade.

• Akira Nakai(Doshisha Univ.)