One of the main reasons that studying Japanese literature from different time periods is so important is due to the fact that it provides the reader with an insight into the time around which it was written. Direct accounts of events are always a good source for learning about history. At the same time, cultural tales can be of the exact same value as the conventional history. The accounts of events might be embellished but it is in the way that the events are embellished that the reader is able to truly gain an insight into what Japan was like in the past. The medieval world is greatly reflected in Japanese literature. A great example of how the medieval world is reflected in Japanese literature is the Tsurezuregusa. The Tsurezuregusa was written in the genre of a zuihitsu by Yoshida Kenko (1283 – 1352). It is one of the most admired examples of Japanese prose and in the genre of zuihitsu, it is considered a masterpiece. The contents of the Tsurezuregusa are “243 entries range in length from a single sentence to a few pages and take many forms: reminiscences, anecdotes (often of an admonitory nature), meditations, judgments, notes and queries on factual matters, dreamlike fragments of narrative, descriptions, and emotional exclamations. The order, in which they are arranged, though seemingly random, involves associative principles like those used in the collections of tales known as setsuwa and in poetry anthologies” (Encyclopedia handout 12). In the writings, the author is much more pessimistic about the future then writers in the past had been and offers deep philosophical ideas about change. This is an example of how the time period is reflected through the writing. People of the time were becoming more philosophic... ... middle of paper ... ...hology of Japanese Literature. 'Comp' . Donald Keene. New York: Grove Press, 1955. Print. Ki, Tsurayuki. "The Tosa Diary." Anthology of Japanese Literature. 'Comp' . Donald Keene. New York: Glove Press, 1955. Print. Kamo, Choumei. "An Account of my Hut." Anthology of Japanese Literature. 'Comp' . Donald Keene. New York: Grove Press, 1955. Print. Shikibu, Murasaki, and Royall Tyler. The Tale of Genji. Penguin Classics, 2006. Print. Shonagon, Sei. "The Pillow Book." Anthology of Japanese Literature. 'Comp' . Donald Keene. New York: Grove Press, 1955. Print. Yoshida, Kenkou. "Essays in Idleness." Anthology of Japanese Literature. 'Comp' . Donald Keene. New York: Grove Press, 1955. Print. Encyclopedia of Japan. “Handout 12 – Heike, Ujishūi, Hōjōki and Tsurezuregusa” 2011. Keene, Donald. “Anthology of Japanese Literature”. New York, 1955.
Okihiro, Gary Y. Whispered Silences: Japanese Americans and World War II. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1996.
Throughout history artists have used art as a means to reflect the on goings of the society surrounding them. Many times, novels serve as primary sources in the future for students to reflect on past history. Students can successfully use novels as a source of understanding past events. Different sentiments and points of views within novels serve as the information one may use to reflect on these events. Natsume Soseki’s novel Kokoro successfully encapsulates much of what has been discussed in class, parallels with the events in Japan at the time the novel takes place, and serves as a social commentary to describe these events in Japan at the time of the Mejeii Restoration and beyond. Therefore, Kokoro successfully serves as a primary source students may use to enable them to understand institutions like conflicting views Whites by the Japanese, the role of women, and the population’s analysis of the Emperor.
Gluck, Carol. Japan's Modern Myths: Ideology in the Late Meiji Period. Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 1985. Print.
“Until the seventeenth century, Japanese Literature was privileged property. …The diffusion of literacy …(and) the printed word… created for the first time in Japan the conditions necessary for that peculiarly modern phenomenon, celebrity” (Robert Lyons Danly, editor of The Narrow Road of the Interior written by Matsuo Basho; found in the Norton Anthology of World Literature, Second Edition, Volume D). Celebrity is a loose term at times; it connotes fortune, flattery, and fleeting fame. The term, in this modern era especially, possesses an aura of inevitable transience and glamorized superficiality. Ironically, Matsuo Basho, (while writing in a period of his own newfound celebrity as a poet) places an obvious emphasis on the transience of life within his travel journal The Narrow Road of the Interior. This journal is wholly the recounting of expedition and ethos spanning a fifteen hundred mile feat, expressed in the form of a poetic memoir. It has been said that Basho’s emphasis on the Transient is directly related to his and much of his culture’s worldview of Zen Buddhism, which is renowned for its acknowledgement of the Transient as a tool for a more accurate picture of life and a higher achievement of enlightenment. Of course, in the realization that Basho does not appear to be unwaveringly religious, perhaps this reflection is not only correlative to Zen Buddhism, but also to his perspective on his newfound celebrity. Either way, Matsuo Basho is a profound lyricist who eloquently seeks to objectify and relay the concept of transience even in his own name.
Ogawa, D. (1993) The Japanese of Los Angeles. Journal of Asian and African Studies, v19, pp.142-3.
Kawakami, Hajime. 1964. Kawakami Hajime Chosakushu, Vol. 8 (Collected Works of Hajime Kawakami). Tokyo: Chikuma Shobo..
21 Pitts, Forrest R., Japan. p. 113. -. 22. Davidson, Judith. Japan- Where East Meets West, p. 107.
Matthew Gerber. “The Importance of Poetry in Japanese Heian-era Romantic Relationships”. 2007 May. 2011 June 3.
Kobayashi, T. (1975) Nara Buddhist Art: Todai-ji. John Weatherhill Inc, NY, USA & Heibonasha, Tokyo
Shirane Haruo. et al. Early Modern Japanese Literature: An Anthology 1600-1900. New York: Colombia University Press, 2002. Print.
Denison. B. (2002, January 1). A Basic Overview of Japanese Culture . . Retrieved May 3, 2014, from http://www.mizukan.org/articles/culture.htm
Ohnuki-Tierney, Emiko. "The Ambivalent Self of the Contemporary Japanese." Cultural Anthropology 5.2 (1990): 197-216. Print.
The Heian period(794-1185), the so-called golden age of Japanese culture, produced some of the finest works of Japanese literature.1 The most well known work from this period, the Genji Monogatari, is considered to be the “oldest novel still recognized today as a major masterpiece.”2 It can also be said that the Genji Monogatari is proof of the ingenuity of the Japanese in assimilating Chinese culture and politics. As a monogatari, a style of narrative with poems interspersed within it, the characters and settings frequently allude to Chinese poems and stories. In addition to displaying the poetic prowess that the Japanese had attained by this time period, the Genji Monogatari also demonstrates how politics and gender ideals were adopted from the Chinese.
Deal, William E. 2006. Handbook to Life in Medieval and Early Modern Japan. Facts on File, Inc., 2006. eBook