Early Modern Japanese Literature

Early Modern Japanese Literature PDF Author: Haruo Shirane
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231507437
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 1054

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Book Description
This is the first anthology ever devoted to early modern Japanese literature, spanning the period from 1600 to 1900, known variously as the Edo or the Tokugawa, one of the most creative epochs of Japanese culture. This anthology, which will be of vital interest to anyone involved in this era, includes not only fiction, poetry, and drama, but also essays, treatises, literary criticism, comic poetry, adaptations from Chinese, folk stories and other non-canonical works. Many of these texts have never been translated into English before, and several classics have been newly translated for this collection. Early Modern Japanese Literature introduces English readers to an unprecedented range of prose fiction genres, including dangibon (satiric sermons), kibyôshi (satiric and didactic picture books), sharebon (books of wit and fashion), yomihon (reading books), kokkeibon (books of humor), gôkan (bound books), and ninjôbon (books of romance and sentiment). The anthology also offers a rich array of poetry—waka, haiku, senryû, kyôka, kyôshi—and eleven plays, which range from contemporary domestic drama to historical plays and from early puppet theater to nineteenth century kabuki. Since much of early modern Japanese literature is highly allusive and often elliptical, this anthology features introductions and commentary that provide the critical context for appreciating this diverse and fascinating body of texts. One of the major characteristics of early modern Japanese literature is that almost all of the popular fiction was amply illustrated by wood-block prints, creating an extensive text-image phenomenon. In some genres such as kibyôshi and gôkan the text in fact appeared inside the woodblock image. Woodblock prints of actors were also an important aspect of the culture of kabuki drama. A major feature of this anthology is the inclusion of over 200 woodblock prints that accompanied the original texts and drama.

Traditional Japanese Literature

Traditional Japanese Literature PDF Author: Haruo Shirane
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231157304
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 601

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Book Description
Traditional Japanese Literature features a rich array of works dating from the very beginnings of the Japanese written language through the evolution of Japan's noted aristocratic court and warrior cultures. It contains stunning new translations of such canonical texts as The Tales of the Heike as well as works and genres previously ignored by scholars and unknown to general readers.

The Cambridge History of Japanese Literature

The Cambridge History of Japanese Literature PDF Author: Haruo Shirane
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1316368289
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description
The Cambridge History of Japanese Literature provides, for the first time, a history of Japanese literature with comprehensive coverage of the premodern and modern eras in a single volume. The book is arranged topically in a series of short, accessible chapters for easy access and reference, giving insight into both canonical texts and many lesser known, popular genres, from centuries-old folk literature to the detective fiction of modern times. The various period introductions provide an overview of recurrent issues that span many decades, if not centuries. The book also places Japanese literature in a wider East Asian tradition of Sinitic writing and provides comprehensive coverage of women's literature as well as new popular literary forms, including manga (comic books). An extensive bibliography of works in English enables readers to continue to explore this rich tradition through translations and secondary reading.

Handbook to Life in Medieval and Early Modern Japan

Handbook to Life in Medieval and Early Modern Japan PDF Author: William E. Deal
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0195331265
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 433

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Book Description
This book is an introduction the Japanese history, culture, and society from 1185 - the beginning of the Kamakura period - through the end of the Edo period in 1868.

Origins of Modern Japanese Literature

Origins of Modern Japanese Literature PDF Author: Kōjin Karatani
Publisher: Duke University Press
ISBN: 9780822313236
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 244

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Book Description
Karatani Kojin is one of Japan's leading critics. In his work as a theoretician, he has described Modernity as have few others; he has re-evaluated the literature of the entire Meiji period and beyond. As one critic has said, Karatani's thought "has had a profound effect on the way we formulate the questions we ask about modern literature and culture ... [his] argument is compelling, moving even, and in the end the reader comes away with a different understanding not only of modern Japanese literature but of modern Japan itself." Among the many authors discussed are Soseki Natsume, Doppo Kunikida, Katai Tayama, and Shoyo Tsubouchi.

Early Modern Japanese Literature

Early Modern Japanese Literature PDF Author: Haruo (editor Shirane (Ealac Department Newsletter))
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231109911
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 1054

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Book Description
This unique anthology is the first representative collection of Japanese literature from one of the most creative periods in Japanese culture, known variously as the Edo or the Tokugawa. It includes a wide range of fiction, poetry, and drama, and also essays, literary criticism, folk stories, and other noncanonical works with a number of new translations.

Reading Food in Modern Japanese Literature

Reading Food in Modern Japanese Literature PDF Author: Tomoko Aoyama
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
ISBN: 082483285X
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 290

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Book Description
Literature, like food, is, in Terry Eagleton’s words, "endlessly interpretable," and food, like literature, "looks like an object but is actually a relationship." So how much do we, and should we, read into the way food is represented in literature? Reading Food explores this and other questions in an unusual and fascinating tour of twentieth-century Japanese literature. Tomoko Aoyama analyzes a wide range of diverse writings that focus on food, eating, and cooking and considers how factors such as industrialization, urbanization, nationalism, and gender construction have affected people’s relationships to food, nature, and culture, and to each other. The examples she offers are taken from novels (shosetsu) and other literary texts and include well known writers (such as Tanizaki Jun’ichiro, Hayashi Fumiko, Okamoto Kanoko, Kaiko Takeshi, and Yoshimoto Banana) as well as those who are less widely known (Murai Gensai, Nagatsuka Takashi, Sumii Sue, and Numa Shozo). Food is everywhere in Japanese literature, and early chapters illustrate historical changes and variations in the treatment of food and eating. Examples are drawn from Meiji literary diaries, children’s stories, peasant and proletarian literature, and women’s writing before and after World War II. The author then turns to the theme of cannibalism in serious and popular novels. Key issues include ethical questions about survival, colonization, and cultural identity. The quest for gastronomic gratification is a dominant theme in "gourmet novels." Like cannibalism, the gastronomic journey as a literary theme is deeply implicated with cultural identity. The final chapter deals specifically with contemporary novels by women, some of which celebrate the inclusiveness of eating (and writing), while others grapple with the fear of eating. Such dread or disgust can be seen as a warning against what the complacent "gourmet boom" of the 1980s and 1990s concealed: the dangers of a market economy, environmental destruction, and continuing gender biases. Reading Food in Modern Japanese Literature will tempt any reader with an interest in food, literature, and culture. Moreover, it provides appetizing hints for further savoring, digesting, and incorporating textual food.

The Female as Subject

The Female as Subject PDF Author: P.F. Kornicki
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
ISBN: 1929280653
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 291

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Book Description
Reveals the rich and lively world of literate women in Japan from 1600 through the early 20th century

Inventing the Classics

Inventing the Classics PDF Author: Haruo Shirane
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780804764544
Category : LITERARY CRITICISM
Languages : en
Pages : 352

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Book Description
Today the term "Japanese literary classics" implies such texts as the Man'yoshu, Kojiki, Tale of Genji, Tale of the Heike, Noh drama, and the works of Saikaku, Chikamatsu, and Basho, which are considered the wellspring and embodiment of Japanese tradition and culture. Most of these texts, however, did not become "classics" until the end of the nineteenth century, in a process closely related to the emergence of Japan as a modern nation-state and to the radical reconfiguration of notions of literature and learning under Western influence. As in Europe and elsewhere, the construction of a national literature and language with a putative ancient lineage was critical to the creation of a distinct nation-state. This book addresses the issue of national identity and the ways in which modern European disciplinary notions of "literature" and genres played a major role in the modern canonization process. These "classics" did not have inherent, unchanging value; instead, their value was produced and reproduced by various institutions and individuals in relation to socio-economic power. How then were these texts elevated and used? What kinds of values were given to them? How was this process related to larger social, political, and religious configurations? This book, which looks in depth at each of the major "classics," explores these questions in a broad historical context, from the medieval period, when multiple canons competed with each other, through the early modern and modern periods. Throughout, the essays focus on the roles of schools, commentators, and socio-religious institutions, and on issues of gender. The result is a new view of the transformation of the Japanese canon and its intimate connection with the issue of national and cultural identity.

Modern Japanese Literature

Modern Japanese Literature PDF Author: Frank Jacob
Publisher: Salem Press
ISBN: 9781682172582
Category : Japanese literature
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
This book examines the developments of Japan's history, its economic and military rise in the early 20th century, and its bitter defeat after WWII. Essays in this volume explore the search for national identity. It covers works written between 1868 and today.