basis of the changes it is now undergoing. Then, with an improved awareness of the tradition, the critical eye must return to the present, the better to perceive its biases and limitations. This regressive-progressive procedure should be, and frequently is, accompanied by comparative glances outside of the tradition: What can one learn from the narrative (if such be their nature) traits of The Tale of Genji or Journey to the West? There are no discussions in the present issue of the question of whether narrative in the strictest sense, involving the elucidation and control of existential projects through reenactment and transcendence, is a mode of thought and communication that belongs in exclusivity to Western culture. The clarification of the existential and communicative features of non-Western narrative remains still a scattered enterprise very much in need of a broadly acceptable framework. In the West, narrative reenactment and transcendence developed very early into a primordial form of reflection. Through the emergence of narrative purposes and rules, the rhetorical limits of existen