Japanese Gothic Tales

Japanese Gothic Tales PDF Author: Kyoka Izumi
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
ISBN: 9780824817893
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 218

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Book Description
Resisting the various forms of realism popular during the Meiji "enlightenment," Izumi Kyoka (1873-1939) was among the most popular writers who continued to work in the old-fashioned genres of fantasy, mystery, and romance. Gothic Tales makes available for the first time a collection of stories by this highly influential writer, whose decadent romanticism led him to envision an idiosyncratic world--a fictive purgatory --precious and bizarre though always genuine despite its melodramatic formality. The four stories presented here are among Kyoka's best-known works. They are drawn from four stages of the author's development, from the "conceptual novels" of 1895 to the fragmented romanticism of his mature work. In the way of introduction, Inouye presents a clear analysis of Kyoka's problematic stature as a "great gothic writer" and emphasizes the importance of Kyoka's work to the present reevaluation of literary history in general and modern Japanese literature in particular. The extensive notes that follow the translation serve as an intelligent guide for the reader, supplying details about each of the stories and how they fit into the pattern of mythic development that allowed Kyoka to deal with his fears in a way that sustained his life and, as Mishima Yukio put it, pushed the Japanese language to its highest potential.

Japanese Gothic Tales

Japanese Gothic Tales PDF Author: Kyoka Izumi
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
ISBN: 9780824817893
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 218

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Book Description
Resisting the various forms of realism popular during the Meiji "enlightenment," Izumi Kyoka (1873-1939) was among the most popular writers who continued to work in the old-fashioned genres of fantasy, mystery, and romance. Gothic Tales makes available for the first time a collection of stories by this highly influential writer, whose decadent romanticism led him to envision an idiosyncratic world--a fictive purgatory --precious and bizarre though always genuine despite its melodramatic formality. The four stories presented here are among Kyoka's best-known works. They are drawn from four stages of the author's development, from the "conceptual novels" of 1895 to the fragmented romanticism of his mature work. In the way of introduction, Inouye presents a clear analysis of Kyoka's problematic stature as a "great gothic writer" and emphasizes the importance of Kyoka's work to the present reevaluation of literary history in general and modern Japanese literature in particular. The extensive notes that follow the translation serve as an intelligent guide for the reader, supplying details about each of the stories and how they fit into the pattern of mythic development that allowed Kyoka to deal with his fears in a way that sustained his life and, as Mishima Yukio put it, pushed the Japanese language to its highest potential.

In Light of Shadows

In Light of Shadows PDF Author: Kyōka Izumi
Publisher: Sterling Publishers Pvt. Ltd
ISBN: 9780824828240
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 202

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Book Description
In Light of Shadows is the long-awaited second volume of short fiction by the Meiji-TaishÅ writer Izumi KyÅ ka. It includes the famous novella Uta andon (A story by lantern light), the bizarre, anti-psychological story "Mayu kakushi no rei' (A quiet obsession), and KyÅ ka's hauntingly erotic final work, "RukÅ shyinsÅ " (The heart-vine), as well as critical discussions of each of these three tales. Translator Charles Inouye places KyÅ ka's "literature of shadows" (ka no bungaku) within a worldwide gothic tradition even as he refines its Japanese context. Underscoring KyÅ ka's relevance for a contemporary international audience, Inouye adjusts Tanizaki Jun'ichirÅ 's evaluation of KyÅ ka as the most Japanese of authors by demonstrating how the writer's paradigm of the suffering heroine can be linked to his exposure to Christianity, to a beautiful American woman, and to the aesthetic of blood sacrifice. In Light of Shadows masterfully conveys the magic allusiveness and elliptical style of this extraordinary writer, who Mishima Yukio called "the only genius of modern Japanese letters."

Japanese Ghost Stories

Japanese Ghost Stories PDF Author: Lafcadio Hearn
Publisher: Penguin UK
ISBN: 0241381282
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 298

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Book Description
The dead wreak revenge on the living, paintings come alive, spectral brides possess mortal men and a priest devours human flesh in these chilling Japanese ghost stories retold by a master of the supernatural. Lafcadio Hearn drew on the phantoms and ghouls of traditional Japanese folklore - including the headless 'rokuro-kubi', the monstrous goblins 'jikininki' or the faceless 'mujina' who stalk lonely neighbourhoods - and infused them with his own memories of his haunted childhood in nineteenth-century Ireland to create these terrifying tales of striking and eerie power. Today they are regarded in Japan as classics in their own right. Edited with an introduction by Paul Murray

Japanese Myths & Tales

Japanese Myths & Tales PDF Author: Flame Tree Studio (Literature and Science)
Publisher: Flame Tree Collections
ISBN: 9781787556836
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
From the creation myth of Izanagi and Izanami designed to explain the origins of the island of Japan, to the hundreds of kami (gods or spirits) and monsters populating the tales, Japanese legends tell the story of the land, the nation, the people and the divine heritage of the emperors of Japan. Often bloody and fantastic, the tales are a powerful, rewarding read, gathered together in the gorgeous, deluxe hardcover binding of the Flame Tree Epic Tales series. The latest title in Flame Tree's beautiful, comprehensive series of Gothic Fantasy titles, concentrates on the ancient, epic origins of modern fantasy.

The Fire-Fly's Lovers and Other Fairy Tales of Old Japan

The Fire-Fly's Lovers and Other Fairy Tales of Old Japan PDF Author: William Elliot Griffis
Publisher: Literary Licensing, LLC
ISBN: 9781497840874
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 198

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Book Description
This Is A New Release Of The Original 1908 Edition.

The Fantastic in Modern Japanese Literature

The Fantastic in Modern Japanese Literature PDF Author: Susan Napier
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134803354
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 272

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Book Description
Modern Japan's repressed anxieties, fears and hopes come to the surface in the fantastic. A close analysis of fantasy fiction, film and comics reveals the ambivalence felt by many Japanese towards the success story of the nation in the twentieth century. The Fantastic in Modern Japanese Literature explores the dark side to Japanese literature and Japanese society. It takes in the nightmarish future depicted in the animated film masterpiece, Akira, and the pastoral dream worlds created by Japan's Nobel Prize winning author Oe Kenzaburo. A wide range of fantasists, many discussed here in English for the first time, form the basis for a ground-breaking analysis of utopias, dystopias, the disturbing relationship between women, sexuality and modernity, and the role of the alien in the fantastic.

Japanese Tales

Japanese Tales PDF Author: Royall Tyler
Publisher: Pantheon
ISBN: 0307784061
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 401

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Book Description
Two hundred and twenty tales from medieval Japan—tales that welcome us into a fabulous faraway world populated by saints, scoundrels, ghosts, magical healers, and a vast assortment of deities and demons. Stories of miracles, visions of hell, jokes, fables, and legends, these tales reflect the Japanese civilization. They ably balance the lyrical and the dramatic, the ribald and the profound, offering a window into a long-vanished culture. With black-and-white illustrations throughout Part of the Pantheon Fairy Tale and Folklore Library

Spirits of Another Sort

Spirits of Another Sort PDF Author: M. Cody Poulton
Publisher: U of M Center for Japanese Studies
ISBN:
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 392

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Book Description
The first work in any language to focus on the plays of Izumi Kyoka, a major literary figure in modern Japan

Longing and Other Stories

Longing and Other Stories PDF Author: Jun'ichirō. Tanizaki
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231554419
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 111

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Book Description
Jun’ichirō Tanizaki is one of the most eminent Japanese writers of the twentieth century, renowned for his investigations of family dynamics, eroticism, and cultural identity. Most acclaimed for his postwar novels such as The Makioka Sisters and The Key, Tanizaki made his literary debut in 1910. This book presents three powerful stories of family life from the first decade of Tanizaki’s career that foreshadow the themes the great writer would go on to explore. “Longing” recounts the fantastic journey of a precocious young boy through an eerie nighttime landscape. Replete with striking natural images and uncanny human encounters, it ends with a striking revelation. “Sorrows of a Heretic” follows a university student and aspiring novelist who lives in degrading poverty in a Tokyo tenement. Ambitious and tormented, the young man rebels against his family against a backdrop of sickness and death. “The Story of an Unhappy Mother” describes a vivacious but self-centered woman’s drastic transformation after a freak accident involving her son and daughter-in-law. Written in different genres, the three stories are united by a focus on mothers and sons and a concern for Japan’s traditional culture in the face of Westernization. The longtime Tanizaki translators Anthony H. Chambers and Paul McCarthy masterfully bring these important works to an Anglophone audience.

Strange Tales from Japan

Strange Tales from Japan PDF Author:
Publisher: Tuttle Publishing
ISBN: 146292252X
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 415

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Book Description
Prepare to be spooked by these chilling Japanese short stories! Strange Tales from Japan presents 99 spine-tingling tales of ghosts, yokai, demons, shapeshifters and trickster animals who inhabit remote reaches of the Japanese countryside. 32 pages of traditional full-color images of these creatures, who have inhabited the Japanese imagination for centuries, bring the stories to life. The captivating tales in this volume include: The Vengeance of Oiwa--The terrifying spirit of a woman murdered by her husband who seeks retribution from beyond the grave The Curse of Okiku--A servant girl is murdered by her master and curses his family, with gruesome results The Snow Woman--A man is saved by a mysterious woman who swears him to secrecy Tales of the Kappa--Strange human-like sprites with green, scaly skin who live in water and are known to pull children and animals to their deaths And many, many more! Renowned translator William Scott Wilson explains the role these stories play in local Japanese culture and folklore, and their importance to understanding the Japanese psyche. Readers will learn which particular region, city, mountain or temple the stories originate from--in case you're brave enough to visit these haunts yourself!