Japanese Literature
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Both in quantity and quality, Japanese
literature ranks as one of the major literatures of the world, comparable
in age, richness, and volume to English literature, though its course of
development has been quite dissimilar. The surviving works comprise a literary
tradition extending from the 7th century AD to the present; during all of this
time there was never a "dark age" devoid of literary production. Not
only do poetry, the novel, and the drama have long histories in Japan, but some
literary genres not so highly esteemed in other countries--including diaries,
travel accounts, and books of random thoughts--are also prominent. A
considerable body of writing by Japanese in the Chinese classical language, of
much greater bulk and importance than comparable Latin writings by Englishmen,
testifies to the Japanese literary indebtedness to China. Even the writings
entirely in Japanese present an extraordinary variety of styles, which cannot be
explained merely in terms of the natural evolution of the language. Some styles
were patently influenced by the importance of Chinese vocabulary and syntax; but
others developed in response to the internal requirements of the various genres,
whether the terseness of haiku (a poem in 17 syllables) or the bombast of the
dramatic recitation. (see also Chinese
languages, Japanese language) |
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The difficulties of reading Japanese
literature can hardly be exaggerated; even a specialist in one period is likely
to have trouble deciphering a work from another period or genre. Japanese style
has always favoured ambiguity, and the particles
of speech necessary for easy comprehension of a statement are often omitted as
unnecessary or as fussily precise. Sometimes the only clue to the subject or
object of a sentence is the level of politeness in which the words are couched;
for example, the verb mesu (meaning
"to eat," "to wear," "to ride in a carriage,"
etc.) designates merely an action performed by a person of quality. In many
cases, ready comprehension of a simple sentence depends on a familiarity with
the background of a particular period of history. The verb miru, "to see," had overtones of "to have an affair
with" or even "to marry" during the Heian period in the 10th and
11th centuries, when men were generally able to see women only after they had
become intimate. The long period of Japanese isolation in the 17th and 18th
centuries also tended to make the literature provincial, or intelligible only to
persons sharing a common background; the phrase "some smoke rose
noisily" (kemuri tachisawagite),
for example, was all readers of the late 17th century needed to realize that an
author was referring to the Great Fire of 1682 that ravaged the shogunal capital
of Edo (the modern city of Tokyo). (see also syntax) |
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Despite the great difficulties arising
from such idiosyncrasies of style, Japanese literature of all periods is
exceptionally appealing to modern readers, whether read in the original or in
translation. Because it is prevailingly subjective and coloured by an emotional
rather than an intellectual or moralistic tone, its themes have a universal
quality almost unaffected by time. To read a diary
by a court lady of the 10th century is still a moving experience, because she
described with such honesty and intensity her deepest feelings that the modern
reader forgets the chasm of history and changed social customs separating her
world from his own. |
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The "pure" Japanese language,
untainted and unfertilized by Chinese influence, contained remarkably few words
of an abstract nature. Just as English borrowed such words as morality, honesty,
justice, and the like from the Continent, the Japanese borrowed these terms from
China; but if the Japanese language was lacking in the vocabulary appropriate to
a Confucian essay, it could express almost infinite shadings of emotional
content. A Japanese poet who was dissatisfied with the limitations imposed by
his native language or who wished to describe unemotional subjects--whether the
quiet outing of aged gentlemen to a riverside or the poet's awareness of his
insignificance as compared to the grandeur of the universe--naturally turned to
writing poetry in Chinese. From the 16th century on, many words that had been
excluded from poetry because of their foreign origins or their humble meanings,
following the dictates of the codes of poetic diction established in the 10th
century, were adopted by the practitioners of the haiku, originally an
iconoclastic, popular verse form. For the most part, however, the Japanese
writers, far from feeling dissatisfied with the limitations on expression
imposed by their language, were convinced that virtuoso perfection in phrasing
and an acute refinement of sentiment were more important to poetry than the
voicing of intellectually satisfying concepts. |
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The Japanese language itself also shaped
poetic devices and forms. Because it lacks a stress
accent, meaningful rhymes (all words end in one of five simple vowels), or
quantity, poetry was distinguished from prose mainly in that it consisted of
alternating lines of five and seven syllables; however, if the intensity of
emotional expression was low, this distinction alone could not save a poem from
dropping into prose. The difficulty of maintaining a high level of poetic
intensity may account for the preference for short verse forms that could be
polished with perfectionist care. But however moving a tanka (verse in 31
syllables) is, it clearly cannot fulfill some of the functions of longer poetic
forms; and there are no Japanese equivalents of Paradise Lost, The Rape of the Lock, or Tintern Abbey. Instead, the poets devoted their efforts to
perfecting each syllable of their compositions, expanding the content of a tanka
by suggestion and allusion and prizing shadings of tone and diction more than
originality or boldness of expression. |
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The fluid syntax of the prose affected
not only style but content as well. Japanese sentences are sometimes of
inordinate length, responding to the subjective turnings and twistings of the
author's thought; and the writers considered smooth transitions from one
statement to the next, rather than structural unity, the mark of excellent
prose. The longer works accordingly betray at times a lack of overall structure
of the kind associated in the West with Greek concepts of literary form but
consist instead of episodes linked chronologically or by other associations. The
difficulty experienced by Japanese writers in organizing their impressions and
perceptions into sustained works may explain the development of the diary and
travel account, genres in which successive days or the successive stages of a
journey provide a structure for otherwise unrelated descriptions. Japanese
literature contains some of the world's longest novels and plays; but its genius
is most strikingly displayed in the shorter works, whether the tanka, the haiku,
the No plays, or the poetic diaries. (see also travel literature) |
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An acute literary sensibility, fostered
especially by the traditions of the court, encouraged the creation of
"codes" of poetic practice and of a considerable body of criticism,
extending back to the 10th century, that was usually composed by the leading
poets or dramatists themselves. These codes exerted an inhibiting effect on new
forms of literary composition, but they also helped to preserve a distinctively
aristocratic tone. |
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Japanese literature absorbed much direct
influence from China, but the characteristic literary works are strikingly
dissimilar. The tradition of feminine writing, especially of such introspective
works as diaries, gave a colouring to Japanese prose quite unlike the more
objective, masculine Chinese writings. Although the Japanese have been
criticized for their imitations of Chinese examples (even by some Japanese), the
Japanese novel in fact antedates any Chinese novels by centuries; and the
theatre developed quite independently. Because the Chinese and Japanese
languages are unrelated, the poetry naturally took different forms, although
Chinese poetic examples and literary theories were often in the minds of the
Japanese poets. Japanese and Korean are probably related languages, but Korean
literary influence was negligible, though Koreans served an important function
in transmitting Chinese literary and philosophical works to Japan. Poetry and
prose written in the Korean language were unknown to the Japanese until
relatively modern times. (see also Chinese
literature, dramatic literature, Korean
literature) |
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From the 8th to the 19th century Chinese
literature enjoyed greater prestige among educated Japanese than their own; but
a love for the Japanese classics, especially those composed at the court in the
10th and 11th centuries, gradually spread among the entire people and influenced
literary expression in every form, even the songs and tales composed by humble
people totally removed from the aristocratic world portrayed in classical
literature. |
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The first writing of literature in
Japanese was occasioned by influence from China. The Japanese were still
comparatively primitive and without writing when, in the first four centuries
AD, knowledge of Chinese civilization gradually reached them. They rapidly
assimilated much of this civilization, and the Japanese scribes adopted Chinese
characters as a system of writing, although an alphabet (if one had been
available to them) would have been infinitely better suited to the Japanese
language. The characters, first devised to represent Chinese monosyllables,
could be used only with great ingenuity to represent the agglutinative forms of
the Japanese language. The ultimate results were chaotic, giving rise to one of
the most complicated systems of writing ever invented. The use of Chinese
characters enormously influenced modes of expression and led to an association
between literary composition and calligraphy lasting many centuries. (see also Chinese
writing system) |
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The earliest Japanese texts were written
in Chinese because no system of transcribing the sounds and grammatical forms of
Japanese had been invented. The oldest known inscription, on a sword that dates
from about AD 440, already showed some modification of normal Chinese usage in
order to transcribe Japanese names and expressions. The most accurate way of
writing Japanese words was by using Chinese characters not for their meanings
but for their phonetic values, giving each character a pronunciation
approximating that used by the Chinese themselves. In the oldest extant works,
the Kojiki
(712; "Records of Ancient Matters") and Nihon shoki, or Nihon-gi (720; "Chronicles of Japan"), more than 120 songs,
some perhaps dating back to the 5th century AD, are given in phonetic
transcription, doubtless because the Japanese attached great importance to the
sounds themselves. In these two works, both officially commissioned
"histories" of Japan, many sections are written entirely in Chinese;
but parts of the Kojiki were composed in a complicated mixture of language that made
use of the Chinese characters sometimes for their meaning and sometimes for
their sound. (D.Ke.) |
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Most of the surviving Japanese myths
are recorded in these two works. They tell of the origin of the ruling class and
were apparently aimed at strengthening its authority. Therefore, they are not
pure myths but have much political colouring. They are based on two main
traditions: the Yamato Cycle, centred around the sun goddess Amaterasu
Omikami, and the Izumo Cycle, in which the principal character is Susanoo
(or Susanowo) no Mikoto, the brother of Amaterasu. (see also legend,
Japanese religion) |
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Genealogies
and mythological records were kept in Japan, at least from the 6th century AD
and probably long before that. By the time of the emperor Temmu
(7th century), it became necessary to know the genealogy of all important
families in order to establish the position of each in the eight levels of rank
and title modelled after the Chinese court system. For this reason, Temmu
ordered the compilation of myths and genealogies that finally resulted in the Kojiki
and Nihon shoki. The compilers of these and other early documents had at their
disposal not only oral tradition but also documentary sources. A greater variety
of sources was available to the compiler of the Nihon shoki. While the Kojiki is
richer in genealogy and myth, the Nihon
shoki adds a great deal to scholarly understanding of both the history and
the myth of early Japan. Its purpose
was to give the newly Sinicized court a history that could be compared with the
annals of the Chinese. |
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The purpose of the cosmologies of the Kojiki
and Nihon shoki is to trace
the Imperial genealogy back to the foundation of the world. The myths of the
Yamato Cycle figure prominently in these cosmologies. In the beginning, the
world was a chaotic mass, an ill-defined egg, full of seeds. Gradually, the
finer parts became heaven (Yang), the heavier parts earth (Yin). Deities were
produced between the two: first, three single deities, and then a series of
divine couples. According to the Nihon
shoki, one of the first three "pure male" gods appeared in the
form of a reed that connected heaven and earth. A central foundation was now
laid down for the drifting cosmos, and mud and sand accumulated upon it. A stake
was driven in, and an inhabitable place was created. Finally, the god Izanagi
(He Who Invites) and the goddess Izanami (She
Who Invites) appeared. Ordered by their heavenly superiors, they stood on a
floating bridge in heaven and stirred the ocean with a spear. When the spear was
pulled up, the brine dripping from the tip formed Onogoro, an island that became
solid spontaneously. Izanagi and Izanami then descended to this island, met each
other by circling around the celestial pillar, discovered each other's
sexuality, and began to procreate. After initial failures, they produced the
eight islands that now make up Japan. Izanami finally gave birth to the god of
fire and died of burns. Raging with anger, Izanagi attacked his son, from whose
blood such deities as the god of thunder were born. Other gods were born of
Izanami on her deathbed. They presided over metal, earth, and agriculture. In
grief, Izanagi pursued Izanami to Yomi (analogous to Hades) and asked her to
come back to the land of the living. The goddess replied that she had already
eaten food cooked on a stove in Yomi and could not return. In spite of her
warning, Izanagi looked at his wife and discovered that her body was infested
with maggots. The angry and humiliated goddess then chased Izanagi from the
underworld. When he finally reached the upper world, Izanagi blocked the
entrance to the underworld with an enormous stone. The goddess then threatened
Izanagi, saying that she would kill a thousand people every day. He replied that
he would father one thousand and five hundred children for every thousand she
killed. After this, Izanagi pronounced the formula of divorce. (see also creation myth, cosmic
egg, Yomi no Kuni) |
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Izanagi then returned to this world and
purified himself from the miasma of Yomi no Kuni. From the lustral water falling
from his left eye was born the sun goddess Amaterasu Omikami, ancestress
of the Imperial family. From his right eye was born the moon god Tsukiyomi
no Mikoto and from his nose, the trickster god Susanoo. Izanagi gave the sun
goddess a jewel from a necklace and told her to govern heaven. He entrusted the
dominion of night to the moon god. Susanoo was told to govern the sea. According
to the Kojiki, Susanoo became dissatisfied with his share and ascended to
heaven to see his older sister. Amaterasu, fearing his wild behaviour, met him
and suggested that they prove their faithfulness to each other by bringing forth
children. They agreed to receive a seed from each other, chew it, and spit it
away. If gods rather than goddesses were born, it would be taken as a sign of
the good faith of the one toward the other. When Susanoo brought forth gods, his
faithfulness was recognized, and he was permitted to live in heaven. |
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Susanoo, becoming conceited over his
success, began to play the role of a trickster. He scattered excrement over the
dining room of Amaterasu, where she was celebrating the ceremony of the first
fruits. His worst offense was to fling into Amaterasu's chamber a piebald horse
he had "flayed with a backward flaying" (a ritual offense). (see also trickster
tale) |
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Enraged at the pranks of her brother,
the sun goddess hid herself in a celestial cave, and darkness filled the heavens
and the earth. The gods were at a loss. Finally, they gathered in front of the
cave, built a fire, and made cocks crow. They erected a sacred evergreen tree,
and from its branches they hung curved beads, mirrors, and cloth offerings. A
goddess named Amenouzume no Mikoto then danced
half-nude. Amaterasu, hearing the multitudes of gods laughing and applauding,
became curious and opened the door of the cave. Seizing the opportunity, a
strong-armed god dragged her out of the cave. |
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The myths of the Izumo Cycle then begin
to appear in the narration. Having angered the heavenly gods and having been
banished from heaven, Susanoo descended to Izumo, where he rescued Princess
Marvellous Rice Field (Kushiinada Hime) from an eight-headed serpent. He then
married the Princess and became the progenitor of the ruling family of Izumo.
The most important member of the family of Susanoo was the god Okuninushi
no Mikoto, the great earth chief, who assumed control of this region
before the descent to earth of the descendants of the sun goddess. |
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Before long, Amaterasu, the leader of
the celestial gods--the gods of Izumo were known as earthly gods--asked Okuninushi
to turn over the land of Izumo, saying that "the land of the plentiful
reed-covered plains and fresh rice ears" was to be governed by the
descendants of the heavenly gods. After the submission of Izumo, Amaterasu made
her grandson Ninigi no Mikoto (ninigi
is said to represent rice in its maturity) descend to earth. According to the Nihon shoki, Amaterasu
handed Ninigi some ears of rice from a sacred rice field and told him to raise
rice on earth and to worship the celestial gods. The grandson of the sun goddess
then descended to the peak of Takachiho (meaning high thousand ears) in
Miyazaki, Kyushu. There he married a daughter of the god of the mountain, named
Konohana-sakuya Hime (Princess Blossoms of the Trees). |
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When Ninigi's wife became pregnant and
was about to give birth, all in a single night, he demanded proof that the child
was his. She accordingly set fire to her room, then safely produced three sons.
One of them, in turn, became the father of the legendary first emperor, Jimmu,
who is considered to mark the watershed between the "age of the gods"
and the historical age; but Jimmu's eastern expedition and conquest of the
Japanese heartland was also a myth. ( N.M./D.Ke.) |
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The myths in the Kojiki are occasionally beguiling, but the only truly literary parts
of the work are the songs. The early songs lack a fixed metrical form; the
lines, consisting of an indeterminate number of syllables, were strung out to
irregular lengths, showing no conception of poetic form. Some songs, however,
seem to have been reworked--perhaps when the manuscript was transcribed in the
8th century--into what became the classic Japanese verse form, the tanka
(short poem), consisting of five lines of five, seven, five, seven, and seven
syllables. Various poetic devices employed in these songs, such as the makura kotoba ("pillow
word"), a kind of fixed epithet, remained a
feature of later poetry. |
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Altogether, some 500 primitive songs
have been preserved in various collections. Many describe travel, and a
fascination with place-names, evident in the loving enumeration of mountains,
rivers, and towns with their mantic epithets, was developed to great lengths in
the gazetteers (fudoki ) compiled at
the beginning of the 8th century. These works, of only intermittent literary
interest, devote considerable attention to the folk origins of different
place-names, as well as to other local legends. |
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A magnificent anthology of poetry, the Man'yoshu
(compiled after 759; "Collection of Ten Thousand Leaves"), is the
single great literary monument of the Nara period
(710-784), although it includes poetry written in the preceding century, if not
earlier. Most of the 4,500 or so poems are tankas; but the masterpieces of the Man'yoshu
are the 260 choka
("long poems"), ranging up to 150 lines in length and cast in the
form of alternating lines in five and seven syllables followed by a concluding
line in seven syllables. The amplitude of the choka
permitted the poets to treat themes impossible within the compass of the
tanka--whether the death of a wife or child, the glory of the Imperial family,
the discovery of a gold mine in a remote province, or the hardships of military
service. (see also "Man'yo-shu") |
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The greatest of the Man'yoshu poets, Kakinomoto Hitomaro,
served as a kind of poet laureate in the late 7th and early 8th centuries,
accompanying the sovereigns on their excursions and composing odes of
lamentation for deceased members of the Imperial family. Modern scholars have
suggested that the choka may have
originated as exorcisms of the dead, quieting the ghosts of recently deceased
persons by reciting their deeds and promising that they will never be forgotten.
Some of Hitomaro's masterpieces describe the glories of princes or princesses he
may never have met so convincingly as to transcend any difference between
"public" expressions of grief and his private feelings. Hitomaro's choka
are unique in Japanese poetry thanks to their superb combination of imagery,
syntax, and emotional strength; they are works of truly masculine expression. He
showed in his tanka, however, that he was also capable of the evocative,
feminine qualities typical of later Japanese poetry. |
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The choka
often concluded with one or more hanka
("envoys") that resumed central points of the preceding poem. The hanka
written by the 8th-century poet Yamabe Akahito are so perfectly conceived as
to make the choka they follow at times seem unnecessary; the concision and
evocativeness of these poems, identical in form with the tanka, are close to the
ideals of later Japanese poetry. Nevertheless, the supreme works of the Man'yoshu
are the choka of Hitomaro, Otomo Tabito, Otomo Yakamochi
(probably the chief compiler of the anthology), and Yamanoue
Okura. The most striking quality of the Man'yoshu is its powerful sincerity of expression. The poets were
certainly not artless songsmiths exclaiming in wonder over the beauties of
nature, a picture that is often painted of them by sentimental critics; but
their emotions were stronger and more directly expressed than in later poetry.
The corpse of an unknown traveller, rather than the falling of the cherry
blossoms, stirred in Hitomaro an awareness of the uncertainty of human life. |
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The Man'yoshu
is exceptional in the number of poems composed outside the court, whether by
frontier guards or persons of humble occupation. Perhaps some of these poems
were actually written by courtiers in the guise of commoners, but the use of
dialect and familiar imagery contrasts with the strict poetic diction imposed in
the 10th century. The diversity of themes and poetic forms also distinguishes
the Man'yoshu from the more polished
but narrower verse of later times. In Okura's famous "Dialogue on
Poverty," for example, two men--one poor and the other destitute--describe
their miserable lots, revealing a concern over social conditions that would be
absent from the classical tanka. Okura's visit to China early in the 8th
century, as the member of a Japanese embassy, may account for Chinese influence
in his poetry. His poems are also prefaced in many instances by passages in
Chinese stating the circumstances of the poems or citing Buddhist parallels. |
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The Man'yoshu
was transcribed in an almost perversely complicated system that used Chinese
characters arbitrarily, sometimes for meaning and sometimes for sound. The lack
of a suitable script probably inhibited literary production in Japanese during
the Nara period. The growing importance, however, of Chinese poetry as the mark
of literary accomplishment in a courtier may also have interrupted the
development of Japanese literature after its first flowering in the Man'yoshu. |
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Eighteen Man'yoshu poets are represented in the collection Kaifuso
(751), an anthology of poetry in Chinese composed by members of the court.
These poems are little more than pastiches of ideas and images borrowed directly
from China; the composition of such poetry reflects the enormous prestige of
Chinese civilization at this time. |
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The foundation of the city of Heian-kyo
(later known as Kyoto) as the capital of Japan marked the beginning of a
period of great literary brilliance. The earliest writings of the period,
however, were almost all in Chinese because of the continued desire to emulate
the culture of the continent. Three Imperially sponsored anthologies of Chinese
poetry appeared between 814 and 827, and it seemed for a time that writing in
Japanese would be relegated to an extremely minor position. The most
distinguished writer of Chinese verse, the 9th-century poet Sugawara
Michizane, gave a final lustre to this period of Chinese learning by his
erudition and poetic gifts; but his refusal to go to China when offered the post
of ambassador, on the grounds that China no longer had anything to teach Japan,
marked a turning point in the response to Chinese influence. |
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The invention of the kana phonetic syllabary,
traditionally attributed to the 9th-century Shingon priest and Sanskrit scholar Kukai,
enormously facilitated writing in Japanese. Private collections of poetry in kana
began to be compiled about 880; and in 905 the Kokinshu ("Collection from
Ancient and Modern Times"), the first major work of kana literature, was compiled by the poet Ki
Tsurayuki and others. This anthology contains 1,111 poems divided into 20
books arranged by topics, including six books of seasonal poems, five books of
love poems, and single books devoted to such subjects as travel, mourning, and
congratulations. The two prefaces are clearly indebted to the theories of poetry
described by the compilers of such Chinese anthologies as the Shih
Ching and Wen hsüan, but the preferences they express would be shared by
most tanka poets for the next 1,000 years. The preface by Tsurayuki, the oldest
work of sustained prose in kana,
enumerated the circumstances that move men to write poetry; he believed that
melancholy, whether aroused by a change in the seasons or by a glimpse of white
hairs reflected in a mirror, provided a more congenial mood for writing poetry
than the harsher emotions treated in the Man'yoshu.
The best tanka in the Kokinshu captivate
the reader by their perceptivity and tonal beauty, but these flawlessly turned
miniatures obviously lack the variety of the Man'yoshu. |
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Skill in composing tanka became an asset
in gaining preference at court; it was also essential to a lover, whose messages
to his mistress (who presumably could not read Chinese, still the language
employed by men in official documents) often consisted of poems describing his
own emotions or begging her favours. In this period the tanka almost completely
ousted the choka because the shorter
poems were more suited to the lover's billet-doux or to competitions on
prescribed themes. |
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For the poets of the Kokinshu and the later court anthologies, originality was less
desirable than perfection of language and tone. The critics, far from praising
novelty of effects, condemned deviations from the standard poetic diction
(established by the Kokinshu) of some
2,000 words and insisted on absolute adherence to the poetic conventions.
Although these restrictions saved Japanese poetry from lapses into bad taste or
vulgarity, they froze it for centuries in prescribed modes of expression. Only a
skilled critic can distinguish a tanka of the 10th century from one of the 18th
century. The Kokinshu set the
precedent for later court anthologies, and a knowledge of its contents was
indispensable to all poets as a guide and source of literary allusions. |
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Love poetry occupies a prominent place
in the Kokin-shu, but the joys of love are seldom celebrated; instead, the poets
wrote in the melancholy vein prescribed in the preface, describing the
uncertainties before a meeting with the beloved, the pain of parting, or the sad
realization that an affair had ended. The invariable perfection of diction,
unmarred by any indecorous cry from the heart, may sometimes make one doubt the
poet's sincerity. This is not true of the great Kokinshu poets of the 9th century--Ono Komachi, Lady Ise, Ariwara
Narihira, and Tsurayuki himself--but even Buddhist priests, who presumably had
renounced carnal love, wrote love poetry at the court competitions; and it is
hard to detect any difference between such poems and those of sincere lovers. |
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The preface of the Kokinshu lists judgments on the principal poets of the collection.
This criticism is unsatisfying to a modern reader because it is so terse and
unanalytical; but it nevertheless marks a beginning of Japanese poetic
criticism, an art that developed impressively during the course of the Heian
period. |
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Ki Tsurayuki is celebrated also for his Tosa
nikki (935; The Tosa Diary), the account of his homeward journey to Kyoto
from the province of Tosa, where he had served as governor. Tsurayuki wrote this
diary in Japanese, though men at the time normally kept their diaries in Chinese
(perhaps it was in order to escape reproach for adopting this unmanly style that
he pretended a woman in the governor's entourage was the author). Events of the
journey are interspersed with the poems composed on various occasions. The work
is affecting especially because of the repeated, though muted, references to the
death of Tsurayuki's daughter in Tosa. |
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Tosa
nikki is the earliest example of a literary diary.
Although Tsurayuki pretended that it was written by a woman, the later Heian
diarists who wrote in the Japanese language were, in fact, court ladies; their
writings include some of the supreme masterpieces of the literature. Kagero
nikki (The Gossamer Years) describes the life between 954 and 974 of the
second wife of Fujiwara Kaneie, a prominent court official. The first volume,
related long after the events, is in the manner of an autobiographical novel;
even the author confesses that her remembrances are probably tinged with
fiction. The second two volumes approach a true diary, with some entries
apparently made on the days indicated. The writer (known only as "the
mother of Michitsuna") describes, with many touches of self-pity, her
unhappy life with her husband. She evidently assumed that readers would
sympathize, and often this is the case, though her self-centred complaints are
not endearing. In one passage, in which she gloats over the death of a rival's
child, her obsession with her own griefs shows to worst advantage; yet her
journal is extraordinarily moving precisely because the author dwells
exclusively on universally recognizable emotions and omits the details of court
life that must have absorbed the men. |
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Other diaries of the period include the
anecdotal Murasaki
Shikibu nikki ("The Diary of Murasaki Shikibu"; Eng.
trans., Murasaki Shikibu: Her Diary and
Poetic Memoirs), at once an absorbing literary work and a source of
information on the court life the author (Murasaki Shikibu) described more
romantically in her masterpiece Genji
monogatari (c. 1010; The Tale of Genji),
and Izumi Shikibu nikki (The
Diary of Izumi Shikibu), which is less a diary than a short story liberally
ornamented with poetry. |
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These "diaries" are closely
related in content and form to the uta
monogatari ("poem tales") that emerged as a literary genre later
in the 10th century. Ise monogatari (c.
980; Tales of Ise) consists of 143 episodes, each containing one or more
poems and an explanation in prose of the circumstances of composition. The
brevity and often the ambiguity of the tanka gave rise to a need for such
explanations, and when these explanations became extended or (as in the case of Ise
monogatari ) were interpreted as biographical information about one poet
(Ariwara Narihira), they approached the realm of fiction. |
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Along with the poem tales, there were
works of religious or fanciful inspiration going back to Nihon ryoiki (822; Miraculous
Stories from the Japanese Buddhist Tradition), an account of Buddhist
miracles in Japan compiled by the priest Kyokai. These stories, written
in Chinese, were probably used as a source of sermons by the priests with the
intent of persuading ordinary Japanese, incapable of reading difficult works of
theology, that they must lead virtuous lives if they were not to suffer in hell
for present misdeeds. No such didactic intent is noticeable in Taketori
monogatari (10th century; Tale of the
Bamboo Cutter), a fairy tale about a princess who comes from the moon to
dwell on earth in the house of a humble bamboo cutter; the various tests she
imposes on her suitors, fantastic though they are, are described with humour and
realism. |
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The first lengthy work of fiction, Utsubo
monogatari ("The Tale of the Hollow Tree"), was apparently written
between 970 and 983, although the last chapter may have been written later. This
uneven, ill-digested work is of interest chiefly as an amalgam of elements in
the poem tales and fairy tales; it contains 986 tanka, and its episodes range
from early realism to pure fantasy. |
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The contrast between this crude work and
the sublime Genji monogatari is
overwhelming. Perhaps the difference is best explained in terms of the feminine
traditions of writing, exemplified especially by the diaries, which enabled
Murasaki Shikibu to discover depths in her characters unsuspected by the male
author of Utsubo monogatari. The Genji
monogatari is the finest work not only of the Heian period but of all
Japanese literature and merits being called the first important novel written
anywhere in the world. Genji monogatari was called a work of mono no aware ("a sensitivity to things") by the great
18th-century literary scholar Motoori Norinaga; the hero, Prince Genji, is not
remarkable for his martial prowess or his talents as a statesman but as an
incomparable lover, sensitive to each of the many women he wins. The story is
related in terms of the successive women Genji loves; each of them evokes a
different response from this marvellously complex man. The last third of the
novel, describing the world after Genji's death, is much darker in tone; and the
principal figures, though still impressive, seem no more than fragmentations of
the peerless Genji. |
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The success of Genji monogatari was immediate. The author of the touching Sarashina
nikki (mid-11th century; "Sarashina Diary"; Eng. trans., As
I Crossed a Bridge of Dreams)
described how as a girl she longed to visit the capital so that she might read
the entire work (which had been completed some 10 years earlier). Imitations and
derivative works based on Genji
monogatari, especially on the last third of it, continued to be written for
centuries, inhibiting the fiction composed by the court society. |
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Makura
no soshi (c.
1000; The Pillow
Book of Sei Shonagon) is another masterpiece of the Heian period that
should be mentioned with Genji monogatari.
Japanese critics have often distinguished the aware
of Genji monogatari and the okashi
of Makura no soshi. Aware meant
sensitivity to the tragic implications of a moment or gesture, okashi
the comic overtones of perhaps the same moment or gesture. The lover's departure
at dawn evoked many wistful passages in Genji
monogatari, but in Makura no soshi the author noted
with unsparing exactness the lover's fumbling, ineffectual leave-taking and his
lady's irritation. Murasaki Shikibu's aware
can be traced through later literature--sensitivity always marked the
writings of any author in the aristocratic tradition--but Sei
Shonagon's wit belonged to the Heian court alone. |
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The Heian court society passed its prime
by the middle of the 11th century, but it did not collapse for another 100
years. Long after its political power had been usurped by military men, the
court retained its prestige as the fountainhead of culture. But in the 12th
century, literary works belonging to a quite different tradition began to
appear. Konjaku monogatari (early 12th
century; "Tales of Now and Then"), a massive collection of religious
and folktales drawn not only from the Japanese
countryside but also from Indian and Chinese sources, described elements of
society that had never been treated in the court novels. These stories, though
crudely written, provide glimpses of how the common people spoke and behaved in
an age marked by warfare and new religious movements. The collection of folk
songs Ryojin hisho, compiled in 1179
by the emperor Go-Shirakawa, suggests the
vitality of this burgeoning popular culture even as the aristocratic society was
being threatened with destruction. |
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The warfare of the 12th century brought
to undisputed power military men (samurai) whose
new regime was based on martial discipline. Though the samurai expressed respect
for the old culture, some of them even studying tanka composition with the Kyoto
masters, the capital of the country moved to Kamakura. The lowered position of women
under this feudalistic government perhaps explains the noticeable diminution in
the importance of writings by court ladies; indeed, there was hardly a woman
writer of distinction between the 13th and 19th centuries. The court poets,
however, remained prolific: 15 Imperially sponsored anthologies were completed
between 1188 and 1439; and most of the tanka followed the stereotypes
established in earlier literary periods. (see also Kamakura
period) |
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The finest of the later anthologies, the
Shin kokinshu
(c. 1205), was compiled by Fujiwara
Sadaie, or Teika, among others, and is considered by many as the supreme
accomplishment in tanka composition. The title of the anthology--"the new Kokinshu"--indicates the confidence of the compilers that the
poets represented were worthy successors of those in the 905 collection; they
included (besides the great Teika himself) Teika's father, Fujiwara Toshinari
(Shunzei), the priest Saigyo, and the former
emperor Go- Toba. These poets looked beyond the
visible world for symbolic meanings. The brilliant colours of landscapes filled
with blossoms or reddening leaves gave way to monochrome paintings; the poet,
instead of dwelling on the pleasure or grief of an experience, sought in it some
deeper meaning he could sense if not fully express. The tastes of Teika
especially dominated Japanese poetic sensibility, thanks not only to his poetry
and essays on poetry but to his choices of the works of the past most worthy of
preservation. |
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Teika is credited also with a novel, Matsura
no miya monogatari ("Tale of Matsura Shrine"). Though it is
unfinished and awkwardly constructed, its dreamlike atmosphere lingers in the
mind with the overtones of Teika's poetry; dreams of the past were indeed the
refuge of the medieval romancers, who modelled their language on the Genji
monogatari, though it was now archaic, and borrowed their themes and
characters from the Heian masterpieces. Stories about wicked stepmothers are
fairly common; perhaps the writers, contrasting their neglect with the fabled
lives of the Heian courtiers, identified themselves with the maltreated
stepdaughters; and the typical happy ending of such stories--the stepdaughter in
Sumiyoshi monogatari is married to a
powerful statesman and her wicked stepmother humiliated--may have been the dream
fulfillment of their own hopes. |
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Various diaries describe travels between
Kyoto and the shogun's capital in Kamakura. Courtiers often made this
long journey in order to press claims in lawsuits, and they recorded their
impressions along the way in the typical mixture of prose and poetry. Izayoi nikki ("Diary of the
Waning Moon"; Eng. trans. in Translations
from Early Japanese Literature) tells of a journey made in 1277 by the nun
Abutsu. A later autobiographical work that also contains extensive descriptions
of travel is the superb Towazu-gatari
(c. 1307; "Uninvited
Remarks"; Eng. trans., The
Confessions of Lady Nijo) by Lady Nijo, a work (discovered only in
1940) that provides a final moment of glory to the long tradition of
introspective writing by women at court. |
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Although these writings in the
aristocratic manner preserved much of the manner of Heian literature, works of
different character became even more prominent in the medieval period. There are
many collections of Buddhist and popular tales, of which the most enjoyable is
the Uji shui
monogatari (A Collection of Tales from
Uji)--a compilation over a period of years of some 197 brief stories.
Although the incidents described in these tales are often similar to those found
in Konjaku monogatari, they are told
with considerably greater literary skill. |
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An even more distinctive literary genre
of the period is the gunki monogatari, or
war tale. The most famous, Heike
monogatari (The
Tale of the Heike), was apparently first written at the court about 1220,
probably by a nobleman who drew his materials from the accounts recited by
priests of the warfare between the Taira (Heike) and the Minamoto (Genji)
families in the preceding century. The celebrated opening lines of the work, a
declaration of the impermanence of all things, also states the main subject, the
rise and fall of the Taira family. The text,
apparently at first in three books, was expanded to 12 in the course of time, as
the result of being recited with improvisations by priest-entertainers. This
oral transmission may account not only for the unusually large number of textual
variants but also for the exceptionally musical and dramatic style of the work.
Unlike the Heian novelists, who rarely admitted words of Chinese origin into
their works, the reciters of the Heike
monogatari employed the contrasting sounds of the imported words to produce
what has been acclaimed as the great classic of Japanese style. Although the
work is curiously uneven, effective scenes being followed by dull passages in
which the narrator seems to be stressing the factual accuracy of his materials,
it is at least intermittently superb; and it provided many later novelists and
dramatists with characters and incidents for their works. |
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Heike
monogatari was by no means the earliest literary
work describing warfare; and other writings, mainly historical in content, were
graced by literary flourishes uncommon in similar Western works. Okagami
(c. 1120?; "The Great Mirror"; Eng. trans., Okagami),
the most famous of the "mirrors" of Japanese history, undoubtedly
influenced the composition of Heike
monogatari, especially in its moralistic tone. Hogen
monogatari (Eng. trans., Hogen
monogatari) and Heiji monogatari
(partial Eng. trans. in Translations from
Early Japanese Literature) chronicle warfare that antedates the events
described in Heike monogatari but were
probably written somewhat later. |
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War tales continued to be composed
throughout the medieval period. The Taiheiki
("Chronicle of the Great Peace"; Eng. trans., Taiheiki), for example, covers about 50 years, beginning in 1318,
when the emperor Go-Daigo ascended the throne. Though revered as a classic by
generations of Japanese, it possesses comparatively little appeal for Western
readers, no doubt because so few of the figures come alive. |
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Characters are more vividly described in
two historical romances of the mid- to late 14th century, Soga monogatari, an account of the vendetta carried out by the Soga
brothers, and Gikeiki ("Chronicle
of Gikei"; Eng. trans., Yoshitsune),
describing the life of Minamoto Yoshitsune. Though inartistically composed,
these portraits of resourceful and daring heroes caught the imaginations of the
Japanese; and their exploits are still prominent on the Kabuki stage. |
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Another important variety of medieval
literature was the reflective essays of Buddhist priests. Hojo-ki (1212; The
Ten Foot Square Hut) by Kamo Chomei
is a hermit's description of his disenchantment with the world and his discovery
of peace in a lonely retreat. The elegiac beauty of its language gives this
work, brief though it is, the dignity of a classic. Chomei was also a
distinguished poet, and his essay Mumyosho
(c. 1210-12; "Nameless Notes") is perhaps the finest
example of traditional Japanese poetic criticism. (see also "Mumyo-Sho") |
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A later priest, Yoshida
Kenko, writing during the days of warfare and unrest that brought an end
to the Kamakura shogunate in 1333, the brief restoration of Imperial authority
under the emperor Go-Daigo from 1333 to 1335, and the institution of the
Ashikaga shogunate in 1338, barely hints at the turmoil of the times in his
masterpiece Tsurezure-gusa (c.
1330; Essays in Idleness); instead, he
looks back nostalgically to the past, seeking out the survivals of happier days.
Kenko's aesthetic judgments, often based on a this-worldly awareness
rather surprising in a Buddhist priest, gained wide currency, especially after
the 17th century, when Tsurezure-gusa was
widely read. |
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In the 15th century a poetic form of
plebeian origins displaced the tanka as the preferred medium of the leading
poets. Renga (linked verse) had begun as the
composition of a single tanka by two people and was a popular pastime even in
remote rural areas. One person would compose the first three lines of a tanka,
often giving obscure or even contradictory details in order to make it harder
for the second person to complete the poem intelligibly. Gradually, renga spread
to the court poets, who saw the artistic possibilities of this diversion and
drew up "codes" intended to establish renga as an art. These codes
made possible the masterpieces of the 15th century, but their insistence on
formalities (e.g., how often a
"link" on the moon might appear in 100 links, and which links must end
with a noun and which with a verb) inevitably diluted the vigour and freshness
of the early renga, itself a reaction against the excessively formal tanka.
Nevertheless, the renga of the great 15th-century master Iio
Sogi and his associates are unique in their shifting lyrical impulses,
moving from link to link like successive moments of a landscape seen from a
boat, avoiding any illusion that the whole was conceived in one person's mind.
(see also Muromachi
period) |
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The short stories of the 15th and 16th
centuries cannot be said to have high literary value. Many still look back to
the world of the Heian court, but others introduce folk materials or else
elements of the miraculous in the attempt to interest readers who lacked the
education to appreciate the conventional literary manner. Even though many
promising stories are ruined by absurdities before their course is run, for a
few moments they often give unforgettable glimpses of a society torn by
disorder. The stories are anonymous, but the authors seem to have been both
courtiers and Buddhist priests. |
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Unquestionably the finest literary works
of the 15th century are the No dramas, especially those by Zeami
Motokiyo (see EAST ASIAN ARTS: No
music ). They were written in magnificent poetry (often compared to
"brocade" because of the many allusions to the poetry of the past) and
were provided with a structure that is at once extremely economical and free.
Many are concerned with the Buddhist sin of attachment: an inability to forget
his life in this world prevents a dead man from gaining release but forces him
to return again and again as a ghost to relive the violence or passion of his
former existence. Only prayer and renunciation can bring about deliverance.
Zeami's treatises on the art of No display extraordinary perceptivity.
His stated aims were dramatic conviction and reality, but these ideals meant
ultimates to him and not superficial realism. Some No plays, it is true,
have little symbolic or supernatural content, but the central elements of a
typical program of five No plays were found in the highly poetic and
elusive masterpieces that suggest a world invisible to the eye but evocable by
the actors through the beauty of movements and speech. Unhappiness over a world
torn by disorder may have led writers to suggest in their works truths that lie
too deep for words. This seems to have been the meaning of yugen
("mystery and depth"), the ideal of the No plays. Parallel
developments occurred in the tea ceremony, the landscape garden, and monochrome
painting, all arts that suggest or symbolize rather than state. (see also no
theatre) |
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The restoration of peace and the
unification of Japan were achieved in the early 17th century, and for
approximately 250 years the Japanese enjoyed almost uninterrupted peace. During
the first half of the Tokugawa period, the
cities of Kyoto and Osaka dominated cultural activity; but from
about 1770 Edo (the modern Tokyo) became paramount. From the mid-1630s to the
early 1850s Japan was closed, by government decree, to contact with the outside
world. Initially, this isolation encouraged the development of indigenous forms
of literature; but, eventually, in the virtual absence of fertilizing influence
from abroad, it resulted in provincial writing. The adoption of printing
in the early 17th century made a popular literature possible. The Japanese had
known the art of printing since at least the 8th century, but they had reserved
it exclusively for reproducing Buddhist writings. The Japanese classics existed
only in manuscript form. It is possible that the demand for copies of literary
works was so small that it could be satisfied with manuscripts, costly though
they were; or perhaps aesthetic considerations made the Japanese prefer
manuscripts in beautiful calligraphy, sometimes embellished with illustrations.
Whatever the case, not until 1591 was a nonreligious work printed. About the
same time, Portuguese missionaries in Nagasaki were printing books in the Roman
alphabet. In 1593, in the wake of the Japanese invasion of Korea, a printing
press with movable type was sent as a present to the emperor Go-Yozei.
Printing soon developed into the hobby or extravagance of the rich, and many
examples of Japanese literature began to appear in small editions. Commercial
publication began in 1609; by the 1620s even works of slight literary value were
being printed for a public eager for new books. |
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Poetry underwent many changes during the
early part of the Tokugawa period. At first the court poets jealously maintained
their monopoly over the tanka, but gradually other men, many of them kokugakusha
("scholars of national learning"), changed the course of tanka
composition by attempting to restore to the form the simple strength of Man'yoshu poetry. The early 18th-century poet Kamo
Mabuchi was the best of the neo-Man'yoshu
school, but his tanka rarely rise above mere competence in the ancient
language. (see also "Man'yo-shu") |
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The chief development in poetry during
the Tokugawa shogunate was the emergence of the haiku
as an important genre. This exceedingly brief form (17 syllables arranged in
lines of five, seven, and five syllables) had originated in the hokku, or
opening verse of a renga sequence, which had to contain in its three lines
mention of the season, the time of day, the dominant features of the landscape,
etc., making it almost an independent poem. The hokku became known as the haiku
late in the 19th century, when it was entirely divested of its original function
of opening a sequence of verse; but today even the 17th-century hokku are
usually called haiku. |
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As early as the 16th century haikai
renga, or comic renga, had been composed by way of diversion after an
evening of serious renga composition, reverting to the original social, rather
than literary, purpose of making linked verse. As so often happened in Japan,
however, a new art, born as a reaction to the stultifying practices of an older
art, was "discovered," codified, and made respectable by practitioners
of the older art, generally at the cost of its freshness and vitality. Matsunaga
Teitoku, a conventional 17th-century poet of tanka and renga who revered
the old traditions, became almost in spite of himself the mentor of the new
movement in comic verse, largely as the result of pressure from his eager
disciples. Teitoku brought dignity to the comic renga and made it a demanding
medium, rather than the quip of a moment. His haikai were distinguishable from
serious renga not by their comic conception but by the presence of a haigon--a
word of Chinese or recent origins that was normally not tolerated in classical
verse. |
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Inevitably, a reaction arose against
Teitoku's formalism. The poets of the Danrin school,
headed by Nishiyama Soin and Ihara
Saikaku, insisted that it was pointless to waste months if not years
perfecting a sequence of 100 verses. Their ideal was rapid and impromptu
composition; and their verses, generally colloquial in diction, were intended to
amuse for a moment rather than to last for all time. Saikaku especially excelled
at one-man composition of extended sequences; in 1684 he composed the incredible
total of 23,500 verses in a single day and night, too fast for the scribes to do
more than tally. |
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The haiku was perfected into a form
capable of conveying poetry of the highest quality by Matsuo
Basho. After passing through an apprenticeship in both Teitoku and Danrin
schools, Basho founded a school of his own, insisting that a haiku must
contain both a perception of some eternal truth and an element of
contemporaneity, combining the characteristic features of the two earlier
schools. Despite their brief compass, Basho's haiku often suggest, by
means of the few essential elements he presents, the whole world from which they
have been extracted; the reader must participate in the creation of the poem.
Basho's best known works are travel accounts interspersed with his
verses; of these, Oku no
hosomichi (1694; The
Narrow Road Through the Deep North) is perhaps the most popular and revered
work of Tokugawa literature. (see also travel
literature) |
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The general name for the prose composed
between 1600 and 1682 is kana-zoshi, or
"kana books," the name
originally having been used to distinguish popular writings in the Japanese
syllabary from more learned works in Chinese. The genre embraced not only
fiction but also works of a near historical nature, pious tracts, books of
practical information, guidebooks, evaluations of courtesans and actors, and
miscellaneous essays. Only one writer of any distinction is associated with the kana-zoshi--
Asai Ryoi, a samurai who became the first popular and professional writer
in Japanese history. Thanks to the development of relatively cheap methods of
printing and a marked increase in the reading public, Ryoi was able to
make a living as a writer. Although some of his works are Buddhist,
he wrote in a simple style, mainly in kana.
His most famous novel, Ukiyo monogatari (c.
1661; "Tales of the Floating World"), is primitive both in technique
and in plot; but under his mask of frivolity Ryoi attempted to treat the
hardships of a society where the officially proclaimed Confucian philosophy
concealed the gross inequalities in the lots of different men. (see also nonfictional
prose) |
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The first important novelist of the new
era was Ihara Saikaku. Some Japanese critics rank him second only to Murasaki
Shikibu in all Japanese literature, and his works have been edited with the care
accorded only to great classics. Such attention would surely have surprised
Saikaku, whose fiction was dashed off almost as rapidly as his legendary
performances of comic renga, with little concern for the judgments of posterity. |
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Saikaku's first novel, Koshoku ichidai otoko (1682; The
Life of an Amorous Man), changed the course of Japanese fiction. The
title itself had strong erotic overtones, and the plot describes the adventures
of one man, from his precocious essays at lovemaking as a child of seven to his
decision at the age of 60 to sail to an island populated only by women. The
licensed quarters of prostitution established in various Japanese cities by the
Tokugawa government (despite its professions of Confucian morality), in order to
help control unruly samurai by dissipating their energies, became a centre of
the new culture. Expertise in the customs of the brothels was judged the mark of
the man of the world. The old term ukiyo, which
had formerly meant the "sad world" of Buddhist stories, now came to
designate its homonym, the "floating world" of pleasure; this was the
chosen world of Saikaku's hero, Yonosuke, who became the emblematic figure of
the era. |
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Saikaku's masterpiece, Koshoku gonin onna (1686; Five
Women Who Loved Love), described the
loves of women of the merchant class, rather than prostitutes; this was the
first time that women of this class were given such attention. In other works he
described, sometimes with humour but sometimes with bitterness, the struggles of
merchants to make fortunes. His combination of a glittering style and warm
sympathy for the characters lifted his tales from the borders of pornography to
high art. |
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Saikaku was a central figure in the
renaissance of literature of the late 17th century. The name Genroku (an era
name designating the period 1688-1703) is often used of the characteristic
artistic products: the Ukiyo-e ("pictures of the floating world"); the
ukiyo-zoshi ("tales of the
floating world"); the Kabuki and joruri,
or puppet theatres; and haiku poetry. Unlike its antecedents, this culture
prized modernity above conformity to the ancient traditions; to be abreast of
the floating world was to be up-to-date, sharing in the latest fashions and
slang, delighting in the moment rather than in the eternal truths of No
plays of medieval poetry. (see also Genroku
period) |
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Another, darker side to Genroku culture
is depicted in Saikaku's late works, with their descriptions of the desperate
expedients to which men turned in order to pay their bills. Saikaku seldom
showed much sympathy for the prostitutes he described; but the chief dramatist
of the time, Chikamatsu Monzaemon, wrote his
best plays about unhappy women, driven by poverty into their lives as
prostitutes, whose only release from the sordid world in which they were
condemned to dwell came when they joined their lovers in double suicides. In the
world of merchants treated by Chikamatsu, a lack of money, rather than the
cosmic griefs of the No plays, drove men to death with the prostitutes
they loved but could not afford to buy. |
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Chikamatsu wrote most of his plays for
the puppet theatre, which, in the 18th century, enjoyed even greater popularity
than Kabuki. His plays fell into two main categories: those based, however
loosely, on historical facts or legends, and those dealing with contemporary
life. The domestic plays are rated much higher critically because they avoid the
bombast and fantastic displays of heroism that mark the historical dramas; but
the latter, adapted for the Kabuki theatre, are superb acting vehicles. (see
also bunraku,
puppetry) |
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The mainstays of the puppet theatre were
written not by Chikamatsu but by his successors; his plays, despite their
literary superiority, failed to satisfy the audiences' craving for displays of
puppet techniques and for extreme representations of loyalty, self-sacrifice,
and other virtues of the society. The most popular puppet play (later adapted
also for the Kabuki actors) was Chushingura
(1748; "The Treasury of Loyal Retainers"; Eng. trans., Chushingura)
by Takeda Izumo and his collaborators; the same men were responsible for half a
dozen other perennial favourites of the Japanese stage. The last great
18th-century writer of puppet plays, Chikamatsu Hanji, was a master of highly
dramatic, if implausible, plots. |
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The literature of the late Tokugawa
period is generally inferior to earlier achievements, especially those of the
Genroku masters. Authentic new voices, however, were heard in traditional poetic
forms. Later neo-Man'yoshu poets such
as Ryokan, Okuma Kotomichi, and Tachibana Akemi proved that the
tanka was not limited to descriptions of the sights of nature or disappointed
love but could express joy over fish for dinner or wrath at political events.
Some poets who felt that tanka did not provide ample scope for the display of
such emotions turned, as in the past, to writing poetry in Chinese. The early
19th-century poet Rai Sanyo probably wrote verse in Chinese more
skillfully than any previous Japanese. (see also Ryokan) |
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Later Tokugawa poets also added
distinctive notes of their own to the haiku. Yosa Buson, for example, introduced
a romantic and narrative element, and Kobayashi Issa employed the accents of the
common people. |
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A great variety of fiction was produced
during the last century of the Tokugawa shogunate, but it is commonly lumped
together under the somewhat derogatory heading of gesaku ("playful
composition"). The word "playful" did not necessarily refer to
the subject matter but to the professed attitude of the authors, educated men
who disclaimed responsibility for their compositions. Ueda
Akinari, the last master of fiction of the 18th century, won a high place
in literary history mainly through his brilliant style, displayed to best
advantage in Ugetsu
monogatari (1776; Tales of
Moonlight and Rain), a collection of supernatural tales. The gesaku
writers, however, did not follow Akinari in his perfectionist attention to
style and construction; instead, they produced books of almost formless gossip,
substituting the raciness of daily speech for the elegance of the classical
language, and relying heavily on the copious illustrations for success with the
public. |
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The gesaku
writers were professionals who made their living by sale of their books.
They aimed at as wide a public as possible, and when a book was successful it
was usually followed by as many sequels as the public would accept. The most
popular of the comic variety of gesaku fiction
was Tokai dochu hizakurige (1802-22; "Travels on Foot on the Tokaido";
Eng. trans., Shank's
Mare), by Jippensha Ikku, an account
of the travels and comic misfortunes of two irrepressible men from Edo along the
Tokaido, the great highway between Kyoto and Edo. Shunshoku
umegoyomi (1832-33; "Spring Colours: The Plum Calendar"), by
Tamenaga Shunsui, is the story of Tanjiro, a peerlessly handsome but
ineffectual young man for whose affections various women fight. The author at
one point defended himself against charges of immorality: "Even though the
women I portray may seem immoral, they are all imbued with deep sentiments of
chastity and fidelity." It was the standard practice of gesaku
writers, no matter how frivolous their compositions might be, to pretend
that their intent was didactic. |
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The yomihon
("books for reading"--so called to distinguish them from works
enjoyed mainly for their illustrations) were much more openly moralistic.
Although they were considered to be gesaku,
no less than the most trivial books of gossip, their plots were burdened
with historical materials culled from Chinese and Japanese sources, and the
authors frequently underlined their didactic purpose. But despite the serious
intent of the yomihon, they were romances, rather than novels; and their
characters, highly schematized, tended to be witches, fairy princesses, and
impeccably noble gentlemen. Where they succeeded, as in a few works by Takizawa
Bakin, they are absorbing as examples of storytelling rather than as
embodiments of the principle of kanzen
choaku ("the encouragement of virtue and the chastisement of
vice"), Bakin's professed aim in writing fiction. |
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Japanese literature in general was at
one of its lowest levels at the end of the Tokugawa period. A few tanka poets
and the Kabuki dramatist Kawatake Mokuami are the only writers of the period
whose works are still read today. It was an exhausted literature that could be
revived only by the introduction of fresh influences from abroad. |
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Even after the arrival of Commodore
Perry's fleet in 1853 and the gradual opening of the country to the West and its
influence, there was little noticeable effect on Japanese literature. The long
closure of the country and the general sameness of Tokugawa society for decades
at a time seems to have atrophied the imaginations of the gesaku writers. Even the presence of curiously garbed foreigners,
which should have provoked some sort of reaction from authors searching for new
materials, at first produced little effect. The gesaku writers were oblivious to the changes in Japanese society,
and they continued to grind out minor variants on the same hackneyed themes of
the preceding 200 years. |
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It was only after the removal in 1868 of
the capital to Edo (renamed Tokyo) and the declaration of the emperor Meiji that
he would seek knowledge from the entire world that the gesaku
writers realized their days of influence were numbered. They soon fell under
attack from their old enemies, the Confucian denouncers of immoral books, and
also from advocates of the new Western learning. Although the gesaku
writers responded with satirical pieces and traditional Japanese fiction
deriding the new learning, they were helpless to resist the changes transforming
the entire society. (see also Meiji
Restoration) |
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Translations from European languages of
nonliterary works began to appear soon after the Meiji Restoration. The most
famous example was the translation (1870) of Samuel
Smiles's Self-Help;
it became a kind of bible for ambitious young Japanese eager to emulate
Western examples of success. The first important translation of a European novel
was Ernest Maltravers, by the British
novelist Lord Bulwer-Lytton, which appeared in
1879 under the title Karyu shunwa ("A
Spring Tale of Blossoms and Willows"). The early translations were
inaccurate, and the translators unceremoniously deleted any passages they could
not understand readily or which they feared might be unintelligible to Japanese
readers. They also felt obliged to reassure readers that, despite the foreign
names of the characters, the emotions they felt were exactly the same as those
of a Japanese. |
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It did not take long, however, for the
translators to discover that European literature possessed qualities unknown in
the Japanese writings of the past. The literary scholar Tsubouchi Shoyo was led by his readings in European fiction and
criticism to reject didacticism as a legitimate purpose of fiction; he insisted
instead on its artistic values. His critical essay Shosetsu shinzui (1885; "The Essence of the Novel")
greatly influenced the writing of subsequent fiction not only because of its
emphasis on realism as opposed to didacticism but because Tsubouchi, a member of
the samurai class, expressed the conviction that novels, hitherto despised by
the intellectuals as mere entertainments for women and children, were worthy of
even a scholar's attention. |
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Ukigumo
(1887-89; "Floating Cloud"; Eng. trans.,
Japan's First Modern Novel), by Futabatei
Shimei, was the first modern Japanese novel. The author was familiar with
Russian literature and contemporary Western literary criticism. Futabatei wrote Ukigumo
in the colloquial, apparently because his readings in Russian literature had
convinced him that only the colloquial could suitably be used when describing
the writer's own society. Despite Futabatei's success with this experiment, most
Japanese writers continued to employ the literary language until the end of the
century. This was due, no doubt, to their reluctance to give up the rich
heritage of traditional expression in favour of the unadorned modern tongue. |
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Translations of Western poetry led to
the creation of new Japanese literary forms. The pioneer collection, Shintaishi-sho
(1882; "Selection of Poems in the New Style"), contained not only
translations from English but also five original poems by the translators in the
poetic genres of the foreign examples. The translators declared that although
European poetry had greater variety than Japanese poetry--some poems are rhymed,
others unrhymed, some are extremely long, others abrupt--it was invariably
written in the language of ordinary speech. The insistence on modern language
and the discovery of the many forms available to the poet were not the only
lessons learned from European poetry. The translators also made the Japanese
public aware of how much of human experience had never been treated in the tanka
or haiku forms. |
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Innumerable Western critics have
sarcastically commented on the Japanese proclivity for imitating foreign
literary models and on their alleged indifference to their own traditions. It is
true that without Russian examples Futabatei could not have written Ukigumo,
and without English examples such poets as Shimazaki Toson could not
have created modern Japanese poetry; but far from recklessly abandoning their
literary heritage, most writers were at great pains to acquaint themselves with
their traditional literature. The outstanding novelists of the 1890s--Ozaki Koyo,
Koda Rohan, Higuchi Ichiyo, and Izumi Kyoka--all read
Saikaku and were noticeably influenced by him. Ichiyo's
short novel Takekurabe (1895; Growing
Up) described the children of the Yoshiwara quarter of Edo in a
realistic manner quite unlike that of the usual stories about prostitutes and
their customers, but she used the language of Saikaku
for her narration. Izumi Kyoka, though educated
partly at a Western mission school, wrote superbly in the vein of late Tokugawa
fiction; something of the distant Japanese literary past pervaded even his
writings of the 1930s, the final years of his life. |
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In poetry, too, the first products of
Western influence were comically inept experiments with rhyme and with such
unpromising subjects as the principles of sociology. Shimazaki
Toson's "Akikaze no uta" (1896; "Song of the Autumn
Wind"), however, is not merely a skillful echo of Shelley but a true
picture of a Japanese landscape; and the irregular lines of his poem tend to
fall into the traditional pattern of five and seven syllables. |
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A decade after the works of such English
Romantic poets as Shelley and Wordsworth had influenced Japanese poetry, the
translations made by Ueda Bin of the French Parnassian and Symbolist poets made
an even more powerful impression. Ueda wrote, "The function of symbols is
to help create in the reader an emotional state similar to that in the poet's
mind; symbols do not necessarily communicate the same conception to
everyone." This view was borrowed from the West, but it accorded perfectly
with the qualities of tanka. (see also Symbolist
movement) |
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Because of the ambiguities of
traditional Japanese poetic expression, it was natural for a given poem to
produce different effects on different readers; the important thing, as in
Symbolist poetry, was to communicate the poet's mood. If the Japanese poets of
the early 1900s had been urged to avoid contamination by foreign ideas, they
would have declared that this was contrary to the spirit of an enlightened age.
But when informed that eminent foreign poets preferred ambiguity to clarity, the
Japanese responded with double enthusiasm. |
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Even the traditional forms, tanka and haiku,
though moribund in 1868, took on new life, thanks largely to the efforts of Masaoka
Shiki, a distinguished late 19th-century poet in both forms but of even
greater importance as a critic. Yosano Akiko, Ishikawa
Takuboku, and Saito Mokichi were probably the most successful
practitioners of the new tanka. Yosano Akiko's collection Midaregami
(1901; Tangled Hair) stirred
female readers especially, not only because of its lyrical beauty but because
Akiko herself seemed to be proclaiming a new age of romantic love. Takuboku
emerged in the course of his short life (he died in 1912 at the age of 26) as
perhaps the most popular tanka poet of all time. His verses are filled with
strikingly individual expressions of his intransigent personality. Saito
Mokichi combined an absorption with Man'yoshu
stylistics and a professional competence in psychiatry. Despite the austere
nature of his poetry, he was recognized for many years as the leading tanka
poet. In haiku, Takahama Kyoshi built up a
following of poets strong enough to withstand the attacks of critics who
declared that the form was inadequate to deal with the problems of modern life.
Kyoshi himself eventually decided that the function of haiku was the traditional
one of an intuitive apprehension of the beauties of nature; but other haiku
poets employed the medium to express entirely unconventional themes. |
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Most tanka
and haiku poets continued to use the classical language, probably because its
relative concision permitted them to impart greater content to their verses than
modern Japanese permits. Poets of the "new style," therefore, were
readier to employ the colloquial. Hagiwara Sakutaro,
generally considered the finest Japanese poet of the 20th century, brilliantly
exploited the musical and expressive possibilities of the modern tongue. Other
poets, such as Horiguchi Daigaku, devoted themselves mainly to translations of
European poetry, achieving results so compelling in Japanese that these
translations are considered to form an important part of the modern poetry of
Japan. |
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The dominant stream in Japanese fiction
since the publication of Hakai (1906; The
Broken Commandment), by Shimazaki Toson, and Futon
(1907; The Quilt), by Tayama
Katai, has been naturalism. Although the
movement was originally inspired by the works of the 19th-century French
novelist Émile Zola and other European naturalists, it quickly took on a
distinctively Japanese colouring, rejecting (as a Confucian scholar might have
rejected gesaku fiction) carefully developed plots or stylistic beauty in
favour of absolute verisimilitude in the author's confessions or in his minute
descriptions of the lives of unimportant people hemmed in by circumstances
beyond their control. |
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By general consent, however, the two
outstanding novelists of the early 20th century were men who stood outside the
naturalist movement, Mori Ogai and Natsume
Soseki. Ogai began as a writer of autobiographical fiction with strong
overtones of German Romantic writings. Midway in his career he shifted to
historical novels that are virtually devoid of fictional elements but are given
literary distinction by their concise and masculine style. Soseki gained
fame with humorous novels such as Botchan (1906;
"The Young Master"; Eng. trans., Botchan),
a fictionalized account of his experiences as a teacher in a provincial town. Botchan
has enjoyed phenomenal popularity ever since it first appeared. It is the most
approachable of Soseki's novels, and the Japanese have found pleasure in
identifying themselves with the impetuous, reckless, yet basically decent hero.
The coloration of Soseki's subsequent novels became progressively darker,
but even the most gloomy have maintained their reputation among Japanese
readers, who take it for granted that Soseki is the greatest of the
modern Japanese novelists and who find echoes in their own lives of the mental
suffering he described. Soseki wrote mainly about intellectuals living in
a Japan that had been brutally thrust into the 20th century. His best known
novel, Kokoro (1914; "The Heart"; Eng. trans., Kokoro),
revolves around another familiar situation in his novels, two men in love with
the same woman. His last novel, Meian
(1916; Light and Darkness), though
unfinished, has been acclaimed by some as his masterpiece. |
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An amazing burst of creative activity
occurred in the decade following the end of the Russo-Japanese War in 1905.
Probably never before in the history of Japanese literature were so many
important writers working at once. Three novelists who first emerged into
prominence at this time were Nagai Kafu, Tanizaki
Jun'ichiro, and Akutagawa Ryunosuke. Nagai
Kafu was infatuated with French culture and described with contempt the
meretricious surface of modern Japan. In later years, however, though still
alienated from the Japanese present, he showed nostalgia for the Japan of his
youth, and his most appealing works contain evocations of the traces of an old
and genuine Japan that survived in the parody of Western culture that was Tokyo. |
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Tanizaki's novels, notably Tade
kuu mushi (1928-29; "Insects That Eat Knotweed"; Eng. trans., Some
Prefer Nettles), often presented a conflict between traditional
Japanese and Western-inspired ways. In his early works he also proclaimed a
preference for the West. Tanizaki's views changed after he moved to the Kansai
region in the wake of the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923, and his
subsequent writings traced his gradual accommodation with the old culture of
Japan that he had previously rejected. Between 1939 and 1941 Tanizaki published
the first of his three modern-language versions of Genji
monogatari. He willingly sacrificed years of his career to this task because
of his unbounded admiration for the supreme work of Japanese literature. |
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Tanizaki's longest novel, Sasameyuki
(1943-48; "A Light Snowfall"; Eng. trans., The
Makioka Sisters), evoked with evident nostalgia the Japan of the
1930s, when people were preoccupied not with the prosecution of a war but with
marriage arrangements, visits to sites famous for their cherry blossoms, or the
cultural differences between Tokyo and Osaka. Two postwar novels by
Tanizaki enjoyed great popularity, Kagi (1956; The Key), the
account of a professor's determination to have his fill of sex with his wife
before impotence overtakes him; and Futen
rojin nikki (1961-62; Diary of a Mad
Old Man), a work in a comic vein that describes a very old man's infatuation
with his daughter-in-law. No reader would turn to Tanizaki for wisdom as to how
to lead his life, nor for a penetrating analysis of society, but his works not
only provide the pleasures of well-told stories but also convey the special
phenomenon of adulation and rejection of the West that is so prominent a part of
the Japanese culture of the 20th century. |
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Akutagawa established his reputation as
a brilliant storyteller who transformed materials found in old Japanese
collections by infusing them with modern psychology. No writer enjoyed a greater
following in his time, but Akutagawa found less and less satisfaction in his
reworkings of existing tales and turned eventually to writing about himself in a
sometimes harrowing manner. His suicide in 1927 shocked the entire Japanese
literary world. The exact cause is unknown--he wrote of a "vague
malaise"--but perhaps Akutagawa felt incapable either of sublimating his
personal experiences into pure literature or else of giving them the accents of
the proletarian literature movement, then at its height. |
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The proletarian literature movement in
Japan, as in various other countries, attempted to use literature as a weapon to
effect reform and even revolution in response to social injustices. Although the
movement gained virtual control of the Japanese literary world in the late
1920s, governmental repression beginning in 1928 eventually destroyed it. The
chief proletarian writer, Kobayashi Takiji, was
tortured to death by the police in 1933. Few of the writings produced by the
movement are of literary worth, but the concern for classes of people who had
formerly been neglected by Japanese writers gave these works their special
significance. (see also proletarian
novel) |
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Other writers of the period, convinced
that the essential function of literature was artistic and not propagandistic,
formed schools such as the "Neo-sensualists" led by Yokomitsu
Riichi and Kawabata Yasunari. Yokomitsu's
politics eventually moved far to the right, and the promulgation of these views,
rather than his efforts to achieve modernism, coloured his later writings; but
Kawabata's works (for which he won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1968) are
still admired for their lyricism and intuitive construction. Though Kawabata
began as a modernist and experimented with modernist techniques to the end of
his career, he is better known for his portraits of women, whether the geisha of
Yukiguni (1948; Snow
Country) or the different women whose lives are concerned with the tea
ceremony in Sembazuru (1952; Thousand
Cranes). |
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Japanese critics have divided the
fiction of the prewar period into schools, each usually consisting of one
leading writer and his disciples. Probably the most influential author was Shiga
Naoya. His characteristic literary form was the "I novel" (watakushi
shosetsu), a work that treats autobiographical materials with stylistic
beauty and great intelligence but is not remarkable for invention. Shiga's
commanding presence caused the I novel to be more respected by most critics than
outright works of fiction; but the writings of his disciples are sometimes
hardly more than pages torn from a diary, of interest only if the reader is
already devoted to the author. |
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The aggressive wars waged by the
Japanese militarists in the 1930s inhibited literary production. Censorship
became increasingly stringent, and writers were expected to promote the war
effort. During the Pacific War of 1941-45 little worthwhile literature appeared.
Tanizaki began serial publication of The
Makioka Sisters in 1943, but publication was halted by official order, and
the completed work appeared only after the war. The immediate postwar years
signalled an extraordinary period of activity, both by the older generation and
by new writers. The period is vividly described in the writings of Dazai
Osamu, notably Shayo (1947; The Setting Sun).
Other writers described the horrors of the war years; perhaps the most powerful
was Nobi (1951; Fires on the Plain) by Ooka Shohei, which described
defeated Japanese soldiers in the Philippine jungles. The atomic bombs also
inspired much poetry and prose, though it was often too close to the events to
achieve artistic integrity. A few works, especially Kuroi ame (1965; Black
Rain) by Ibuse Masuji, succeeded in
suggesting the ultimately indescribable horror of the disaster. |
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The Japan of the immediate postwar
period and the prosperous Japan of the 1950s and 1960s provided the background
for most of the works of Mishima Yukio, an
exceptionally brilliant and versatile novelist and playwright who became the
first Japanese writer generally known abroad. Mishima's best known works include
Kinkaku-ji (1956; The
Temple of the Golden Pavilion), a psychological study, based on an
actual incident, of a young monk who burned a famous architectural masterpiece;
and Hojo no Umi (1965-70; The
Sea of Fertility), the tetralogy he completed on the day of his death. Abe
Kobo was notable among modern writers in that he managed, sometimes by
resorting to avant-garde techniques, to transcend the particular condition of
being a Japanese and to create myths of suffering humanity in such a work as Suna
no onna (1962; The Woman in the Dunes). The special nature of traditional Japanese
culture, which made it infertile ground for Christianity in the 16th century,
was treated in several moving novels by Endo Shusaku,
notably Chimmoku (1966; Silence).
The novels of Kita Morio were characterized by an attractive streak of humour
that provided a welcome contrast to the prevailingly dark tonality of other
contemporary Japanese novels. Nire-ke no
hitobito (1963-64; The House of Nire),
though based on the careers of his grandfather and father (the poet Saito
Mokichi) was saved by its humour from becoming no more than an I novel. For
almost 20 years Oe Kenzaburo, a novelist of
exceptional power, was treated as the youngest writer of importance, but in the
1970s a new generation at last began to appear with a promise of a renewal of
the modern Japanese novel. |
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The modern Japanese theatre also began
with translations and adaptations of Western plays. This new theatre originated
at the end of the 19th century, when the public was still too much under the
influence of Kabuki to appreciate plays without
music or dance. Even in the 20th century, a distinguished dramatist such as
Kishida Kunio rarely had the opportunity to see his works performed. The
development of modern drama no doubt was hampered by the introduction, at about
the same time, of motion pictures, which had a much greater appeal for the
public. The most successful playwrights of the 1920s and 1930s, such as Mayama
Seika, wrote works that, although the products of modern minds, exploited the
special talents of Kabuki actors by treating historical themes and by preserving
the traditional stage language. Various distinguished writers were attracted
from time to time to the theatre, but they were forced to devote their major
efforts to writing fiction, if only because they were so badly remunerated for
their plays. It was not until after World War II that modern dramas worthy of an
international audience were written and staged. (see also dramatic
literature) |
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BIBLIOGRAPHY |
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SHUICHI KATO, A History of Japanese Literature, 3 vol. (1979-83; originally
published in Japanese, 2 vol., 1975-80), considers Japanese literature as a key
to Japanese intellectual history. JIN'ICHI KONISHI, A History of Japanese Literature, trans. from the Japanese, ed. by
EARL MINER (1984- ), gives special attention to relations among the literatures
of other countries of Asia. DONALD KEENE (ed.), Anthology of Japanese Literature to the Nineteenth Century, rev. ed.
(1978), offers selections from earliest times, with introductions. A good but
brief discussion of Japanese myths is E. DALE SAUNDERS, "Japanese
Mythology," in SAMUEL N. KRAMER (ed.), Mythologies
of the Ancient World (1961). GEOFFREY BOWNAS and ANTHONY THWAITE (trans.), The
Penguin Book of Japanese Verse (1964), gives examples in every form. ROBERT
H. BROWER and EARL MINER, Japanese Court
Poetry (1961), is an excellent study extending from the earliest period to
the 14th century. BURTON WATSON (trans.), Japanese
Literature in Chinese, 2 vol. (1975-76), provides an excellent selection of
poetry and some examples in prose, and his work with HIROAKI SATO (eds. and
trans.), From the Country of Eight
Islands: An Anthology of Japanese Poetry (1981), contains poetry of every
period. EARL MINER (ed.), Japanese Poetic
Diaries (1969, reprinted 1976), contains examples from the Heian period to
the 19th century. |
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(1968), and This Wine of Peace, This Wine of Laughter: A Complete Anthology of
Japan's Earliest Songs (1968), are both translations by DONALD L. PHILIPPI. The
Manyoshu: One Thousand Poems Selected and Translated from the Japanese
(1940, reissued 1965), contains an excellent selection from this great
anthology; and IAN HIDEO LEVY, The Ten
Thousand Leaves (1981- ), is the first volume of a complete translation. |
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IVAN MORRIS, The World of the Shining Prince (1964, reissued 1979), provides the
social and historical background for the Heian literary masterpieces. KYOKO
MOTOMOCHI NAKAMURA (trans.), Miraculous
Stories from the Japanese Buddhist Tradition: The Nihon Ryoiki of the Monk
Kyokai(1973), also contains Buddhisttales from Indian and Chinese sources. Kokinshu
is a complete translation by LAUREL RASPLICA RODD and MARY CATHERINE HENKENIUS
(1984). The Gossamer Years, trans. by EDWARD SEIDENSTICKER (1964, reprinted
1973); MURASAKI SHIKIBU, The Tale of
Genji, trans. by EDWARD SEIDENSTICKER (1976, reprinted 1981), and another
translation by ARTHUR WALEY (1926-33); and The
Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon, 2 vol. (1967), and As I Crossed a Bridge of Dreams (1971), both trans. by IVAN MORRIS,
are all poetic renderings of these classics. The Izumi Shikibu Diary, trans. by EDWIN A. CRANSTON (1969); Murasaki
Shikibu, Her Diary and Poetic Memoirs, trans. by RICHARD BOWRING (1982); Tales of Ise, trans. by HELEN C. McCULLOUGH (1968); and Tales
of Yamato, trans. by MILDRED M. TAHARA (1980), are more literal versions
with scholarly introductions. HELEN C. McCULLOUGH (trans.), Okagami,
the Great Mirror (1980), and, with WILLIAM H. McCULLOUGH (trans.), A
Tale of Flowering Fortunes: Annals of Japanese Aristocratic Life in the Heian
Period (1980), are histories written with an admixture of poetry and
fiction. THOMAS H. ROHLICH (trans.), A
Tale of Eleventh Century Japan: Hamamatsu Chunagon Monogatari, is an example
of later Heian fiction. MARIAN URY (trans.), Tales
of Times Now Past (1979), includes 62 stories from the Konjaku
monogatari. WILLIAM R. LaFLEUR (trans.), Mirror for the Moon (1978), is a collection of free but poetic
translations of waka by Saigyo. |
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WILLIAM R. LaFLEUR, The Karma of Words: Buddhism and the Literary Arts in Medieval Japan
(1983), provides a general background for the literature of the period. The
Tale of the Heike, trans. by HIROSHI KITAGAWA and BRUCE T. TSUCHIDA (1975),
is a rendering of the classic account of the warfare between the Taira and
Minamoto clans. The Taiheiki (1959, reprinted 1976), and Yoshitsune (1966), both trans. by HELEN C. McCULLOUGH, are accurate
versions of war tales in rather old-fashioned language. DONALD KEENE (trans. and
ed.), Essays in Idleness (1967), and Twenty
Plays of the No Theatre (1970), are readable though fairly literal; ARTHUR
WALEY (trans.), The No Plays of Japan
(1922, reissued 1979), gives freer versions of the plays. D.E. MILLS (trans.), A
Collection of Tales from Uji (1970), is a readable and scholarly study.
KAREN BRAZELL (trans.), The Confessions of Lady Nijo (1973), is a diary of exceptional
interest. EARL MINER, Japanese Linked
Poetry (1979), is a study of renga and haikai poetry with translations. |
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DONALD KEENE, World Within Walls (1976, reprinted 1978), is a history of the
literature of the period. The several excellent translations of works by Ihara
Saikaku include Five Women Who Loved Love,
trans. by W. THEODORE DE BARY (1956, reprinted 1973); The Japanese Family Storehouse, trans. by G.W. SARGENT (1959,
reprinted 1969); The Life of an Amorous
Woman, and Other Writings, trans. by IVAN MORRIS (1963, reissued 1969); and Worldly
Mental Calculations, trans. by BEN BEFU (1976). HOWARD HIBBETT, The
Floating World in Japanese Fiction (1959, reissued 1975), is a critical
study with translations. MAKOTO UEDA, Matsuo
Basho (1970, reissued 1982), contains biographical and critical material on
the great haiku poet. NOBUYUKI YUASA (trans.), The Narrow Road to the Deep North, and Other Travel Sketches (1966),
contains all of Basho's travel accounts. EARL MINER and HIROKO ODAGIRI
(trans.), The Monkey's Straw Raincoat and
Other Poetry of the Basho School (1981), gives examples of the linked verse.
CHIKAMATSU MONZAEMON, Major Plays
(1961); and TAKEDA IZUMO, MIYOSHI SHORAKU, and NAMIKI SENRYU, Chushingura:
The Treasury of Loyal Retainers (1971), both trans. by DONALD KEENE; TAKEDA
IZUMO et al., Sugawara and the Secrets of
Calligraphy, trans. by STANLEIGH H. JONES, JR. (1985); and MOKUAMI KAWATAKE,
Love of Izayoi and Seishin, trans. by FRANK T. MOTOFUJI (1966), are
representative plays of the Tokugawa period. UEDA AKINARI, Ugetsu
Monogatari: Tales of Moonlight and Rain, trans. by LEON ZOLBROD (1974), is a
collection of stories of the supernatural. Ryokan
(1977), and Grass Hill (1983), both
trans. by BURTON WATSON, contain poems by monks. |
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DONALD KEENE, Dawn to the West: Japanese Literature of the Modern Era, 2 vol.
(1984), is a history since 1868. MAKOTO UEDA, Modern Japanese Writers and the Nature of Literature (1976), and Modern
Japanese Poets and the Nature of Literature (1983), are valuable studies.
MASAO MIYOSHI, Accomplices of Silence: The
Modern Japanese Novel (1974, reprinted 1982), is an absorbing study. J.
THOMAS RIMER, Modern Japanese Fiction and
Its Tradition: An Introduction (1978), traces the native elements in modern
literature. DONALD KEENE (ed.), Modern
Japanese Literature (1956); IVAN MORRIS (ed.), Modern
Japanese Stories (1961, reissued 1970); YUKIO MISHIMA and GEOFFREY BOWNAS
(eds.), New Writing in Japan (1972);
and HOWARD HIBBETT (ed.), Contemporary
Japanese Literature (1977), are anthologies of modern writing in different
genres. TAKAMICHI NINOMIYA and D.J. ENRIGHT (eds.), The Poetry of Living Japan (1957, reprinted 1979); ICHIRA KONO
and RIKUTARO FUKUDA (eds. and trans.), An
Anthology of Modern Japanese Poetry (1957, reprinted 1971); KENNETH REXROTH
and IKUKO ATSUMI (eds. and trans.), The
Burning Heart: Women Poets of Japan (1977); and Modern Japanese Poetry, trans. by JAMES KIRKUP, ed. by A.R. DAVIS
(1978), are representative collections. JANINE BEICHMAN, Masoka Shiki (1982); and MASAOKA SHIKI, Peonies Kana: Haiku by the Upasaka Shiki, trans. and ed. by HAROLD
J. ISAACSON (1972), are devoted to the Meiji poet. AMY VLADECK HEINRICH, Fragments
of Rainbows (1983), is a study of life and poetry of Saito Mokichi.
RICHARD BOWRING, Mori Ogai and the
Modernization of Japanese Culture (1979); and J. THOMAS RIMER, Mori
Ogai (1975), are studies of this important writer. EDWIN McCLELLAN, Two
Japanese Novelists (1969, reissued 1971), discusses major works by Natsume Soseki
and Shimazaki Toson. EDWARD SEIDENSTICKER, Kafu
the Scribbler (1965), is a biography of Nagai Kafu with translations
from his writings. DENNIS KEENE, Yokomitsu
Riichi, Modernist (1980), is a study of the chief figure in the Shinkankaku
movement. Modern Japanese Drama, ed.
and trans. by TED T. TAKAYA (1979), contains plays by five outstanding modern
dramatists. |
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