a brief history of japanese literature

A Brief History of Japanese

Literature

By:

Dalman, Denver A.

Members:

Escultura, Kristian Elicieo

Tigley, Joseph Arle

Preston, Clement

History of Japanese Literature

• Japanese Literature can be divided into four main periods.

*Ancient (until 794)

*Classical (794-1185)

*Medieval (1185-1603)

*Modern (1603-1945)

-Early-modern Literature

(1603-1868)

-Modern Literature (1868-1945)

Ancient Literature (until 794)

Ancient Literature (until 794)

• They don’t have their own writing system.

• Chinese characters were further adopted.

• The earliest works were created

in the Nara period.– Kojiki

– Nihon Shoki

– Man'yōshū

• Urashima Taro– has been identified as the earliest

example of a story involving time

travel.

Classical Literature (794-1185)


• Generally refers to literature produced during the Heian period (the golden era of art and literature).

• Important Writings of the Period

– Genji Monogatari (early 11th century) By: Murasaki Shikibu .

– Kokin Wakashū (905)

– Makura no Sōshi (990s)

By: Sei Shōnagon


• Iroha poem

– one of two standard orderings for the

Japanese syllabary.

• Taketori Monogatari (The

10th-century Japanese narrative)

• Konjaku Monogatarishū

– a collection of over a thousand

stories in 31 volumes.

Medieval Literature (1185-1603)

Medieval Literature (1185-1603)

• Work from this period is notable for its insights into life and death, simple

lifestyles, and redemption through killing.

• The Tale of the Heike (1371)

• Other Important Tales– Kamo no Chōmei's Hōjōki (1212)

– Yoshida Kenkō's Tsurezuregusa (1331).

• Other Notable Genres– Renga(linked verse)

– Noh (theater)

Early-modern Literature (1603–1868)

Early-modern Literature (1603–

1868)• Tokugawa Period (commonly referred to as

the Edo Period)

• In the New Capital of Edo (modern

Tokyo)– forms of popular drama developed which

later evolve into kabuki.

• Chikamatsu Monzaemon (jōruri and

kabuki dramatist)– became popular at the end of the

17th century, and he is also known

as the Japan's Shakespeare.


1868)

• Matsuo Bashō

– Wrote Oku no Hosomichi (1702), a travel diary.

• Hokusai

– illustrated fiction as well as his famous

36 Views of Mount Fuji.

• Jippensha Ikku

– known as Japan's Mark Twain.

– wrote Tōkaidōchū Hizakurige, a mix

of travelogue and comedy.


1868)

• Many genres of literature made their début during the Edo Period.

• There are outside influences

trickled during the period.

– Minor Western Influences from the

Dutch settlement at Nagasaki

– Chinese vernacular fiction • Greatest outside influence on the

development of Early Modern Japanese

fiction.


1868)• Ikara Saikaku

– Said to have given birth to the modern consciousness of the novel in Japan.

– Mixed vernacular dialogue into his

humorous and cautionary tales of

the pleasure quarters.

• Tsuga Teisho, Takebe Ayatari, and

Okajima Kanzan– Instrumental in developing the

yomihon (historical romances almost

entirely in prose) • Influenced by Chinese ndVernacular Novels:

– Three Kingdoms and Shui hu zhuan


1868)• Ueda Akinari:

– Wrote two yomihon masterpieces.

• Ugetsu monogatari and Harusame

monogatari

– wrote the extremely popular

fantasy/historical romance (yomihon)

• Nansō Satomi Hakkenden

• Santō Kyōden

– Wrote yomihon mostly set in the gay

quarters until the Kansei edicts

(Confucian philosophy) banned such work.

– He then turned to comedic kibyōshia (genre of

Japanese picture book kusazōshi)


1868)• Genres included horror, crime stories,

morality stories, comedy, and pornography—often

accompanied by colorful

woodcut prints.

• In the Tokugawa (in earlier

periods) scholarly work

continued to be published in

Chinese, which was the

language of the learned.

Modern Literature (1868–1945)

Modern Literature (1868–1945)• The Meiji period

– Marks the re-opening of Japan to the West.

– A period of rapid industrialization.

• The Introduction of European literature

– brought free verse into the poetic repertoire.

– It became widely used for longer works embodying

new intellectual themes.

• Young Japanese prose writers and

dramatists

– struggled with a whole galaxy of new ideas and

artistic schools.

• Novelists

– the first to assimilate some of the new concepts successfully.


• A new colloquial literature developed

centering on the "I novel", with

some unusual protagonists.

– An exampe is Wagahai wa neko

de aru (I Am a Cat).

By: Natsume Sōseki


• Shiga Naoya (god of the novel), and Mori Ōgai– were instrumental in adopting and

adapting Western literary

conventions and techniques.

• Ryūnosuke Akutagawa– known especially for his historical

short stories.

• Ozaki Kōyō, Kyōka Izumi, and

Ichiyo Higuchi– a strain of writers whose style hearkens

back to early-Modern Japanese literature.


• In the early Meiji period (1868–1880s),– Fukuzawa Yukichi

• authored Enlightenment literature

– Pre-modern popular books depicted

the quickly changing country.

• In the mid-Meiji (late 1880s–early

1890s)– Realism was brought in by

Tsubouchi Shōyō and

Futabatei Shimei

– Classicism of Ozaki Kōyō, Yamada

Bimyo and Kōda Rohan gained popularity.


• Ichiyō Higuchi– a rare female writer in this era

– wrote short stories on powerless

women of this age in a simple style in

between literary and colloquial.

• Kyōka Izumi– pursued a flowing and elegant style

– wrote early novels such as The

Operating Room (1895) in literary

style and later ones including The

Holy Man of Mount Koya (1900) in colloquial.


• Romanticism– brought in by Mori Ōgai with his anthology of

translated poems (1889)

– Tōson Shimazaki and the magazines, Myōjō and Bungaku-kai

in early 1900s carried it to it’s height.

• Mori Ōgai– Wrote some modern novels, including:

• The Dancing Girl (1890)

• Wild Geese (1911)

– Later wrote historical novels.


• Natsume Sōseki– often compared with Mori Ōgai,

– wrote I Am a Cat (1905) with humor

and satire,

– depicted fresh and pure youth in

Botchan (1906) and Sanshirô (1908).

– eventually pursued transcendence of

human emotions and egoism in his

later works including:• Kokoro (1914)

• Light and darkness (1916)– his last and unfinished novel.


• Shimazaki

– shifted from Romanticism to Naturalism.

– established with his:• The Broken Commandment(1906)

• Katai Tayama's Futon (1907).

• Naturalism

– hatched "I Novel“

(Watakushi-shôsetu) that describes

about the authors themselves and

depicts their own mental states.


• Neo-romanticism– came out of anti-naturalism

– led by Kafū Nagai, Jun'ichirō Tanizaki,

Kōtarō Takamura, Hakushū Kitahara,

and so on in the early 1910s.

• Saneatsu Mushanokōji,

Naoya Shiga and others. – founded a magazine Shirakaba

in 1910.

– They shared a common characteristic, Humanism.


• Shiga's style

– Autobiographical

– depicted states of his mind

– classified as "I Novel"

• Ryūnosuke Akutagawa

– highly praised by Soseki.

– wrote short stories including

Rashōmon (1915) with an

intellectual and analytic attitude

– represented Neo-realism in the mid-1910s.


• During the 1920s and early 1930s

– the proletarian literary movement,

comprising such writers as

Takiji Kobayashi, Denji

Kuroshima, Yuriko Miyamoto,

and Ineko Sata

• produced a politically radical

literature depicting the harsh lives

of people in the society.


• War-time Japan– saw the début of several authors

– best known for the beauty of their language and

their tales of love and sensuality.• Notably:

– Jun'ichirō Tanizaki

– Japan's first winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, Yasunari

Kawabata, a master of psychological fiction.

– Ashihei Hino• wrote lyrical bestsellers glorifying the war.

– Tatsuzō Ishikawa• attempted to publish a disturbingly realistic account

of the advance on Nanjing.

– Writers who opposed the war include DenjiKuroshima,Mitsuharu Kaneko, Hideo Oguma, and Jun Ishikawa.

Post-war Literature

Post-war Literature

• World War II, and Japan's defeat

– It deeply influenced Japanese

literature.

– Many authors wrote stories of

disaffection, loss of purpose,

and the coping with defeat.

END

• Source:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_literature

• Thank You!

• Hope you learned a lot!

a brief history of japanese literature

Education

ancient literature

medieval literature

genres of literature

modern consciousness

nara period

theheian period

tokugawa period

hokusaiillustrated fiction