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Overview
The
written literature of Japan forms one of
the richest of Oriental traditions.
It has received foreign influences since
its beginning in the 8th century.
Before the middle of the 19th century,
the source of influence was the culture
of China. After the middle of the 19th
century, the impact of modern Western
culture became predominant.
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EARLY
AND HEIAN LITERATURE
Official
embassies to the Sui (589-618) and Tang
(618-907) dynasties of China (kenzuishi
and kentoshi, respectively), initiated
in 600, were the chief means by which
Chinese culture, technology and methods
of government were introduced on a
comprehensive basis in Japan. The
Kojiki (712; Record of Ancient Matter)
and the Nihon shoki (720; Chronicles of
Japan), the former written in hybrid
Sino-Japanese and the latter in
classical Chinese, were compiled under
the sponsorship of the government for
the purpose of the authenticating the
legitimacy of its policy.
However,
among these collections of myths,
genealogies, legends of folk heroes, and
historical records, there appear a
number of songs - largely irregular in
meter and written with Chinese
characters representing Japanese words
or syllables - that offer insight into
the nature of preliterate Japanese
verse.
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The
first major collection of native poetry,
again written with Chinese character,
was the Man'yoshu (late 8th century; The
Ten Thousand Leaves), which contains
verses, chiefly the 31-syllable waka,
that were composed in large part between
the mid-7th and mid-8th centuries.
The earlier poems in the collection are
characterized by the direct expression
of strong emotion, but those of alter
provenance show the emergence of the
rhetorical conventions and expressive
subtlety that dominated the subsequent
tradition of court poetry.
A
revolutionary achievement of the mid-9th
century was the development of a native
orthography 9kana) for the phonetic
representation of Japanese.
Employing radically abbreviated Chinese
characters to denote Japanese sounds,
the system contributed to a deepening
consciousness of a native literary
tradition distinct from that of China.
Poets compiled collections (shikashu)
of their verses and, drawings partly on
these, the Kokin wakashu (905; Collection
from Ancient and Modern Times), the
first of 21 imperial anthologies of
native poetry, was assembled in the
early 10th century.
The
introduction of kana also led to the
development of a prose literature in the
venacular, early examples of which are
the Ise monogatari (mid-10th
century; Tales of Ise), a
collection of vignettes centered on
poems; and the diary Tosa nikki
(935; The Tosa Diary). In
the late 10th century; the ascendancy of
the Fujiwara regents, whose power over
emperors depended on the reception of
their daughters as imperial consorts,
resulted in the formation of literary
coteries of women in the courts of
empresses, and it was these women who
produced the great prose classics of the
11th century. Such works as Genji
monogatari (early 11th century; The
Tale of Genji), a fictional
narrative by Murasaki Shikibu, and the Makura
no soshi (996-1012; The Pillow
Book of Sei Shonagon), a collection
of essays by Sei Shonagon, are
considered by Japanese to be a watershed
in the development of the native
literary tradition.
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MEDIEVAL
LITERATURE
The
chief development in poetry during the
medieval period (mid-12th to 16th
century) was linked verse (renga).
Arising from the court tradition of waka,
renga was cultivated by the
warrior class as well as by courtiers,
and some among the best renga
poets, such as Sogi, were commoners.
A major development in prose literature
of the medieval era was the war tale (gunki
monogatari). Heike
monogatari (early 13th century; The
Tale of the Heike) relates the
events of the war between the Taira and
Minamoto families that finally brought
an end to imperial rule; it was
disseminated among all levels of society
by itinerant priests who chanted the
story to the accompaniment of a lutelike
instrument, the biwa. THe
social upheaval of the early years of
the era led to the appearance of works
deeply influenced by the Buddhist notion
of the inconstancy of worldly affairs (mujo).
The theme of mujo provides the
ground note of Heike monogatari
and essay collections Hojoki (1212;
The Ten Foot Square Hut), by Kamo
no Chomei, and Tsurezuregusa (ca
1330; Essays in Idleness), by
Yoshida Kenko.
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EDO
LITERATURE
The
formation of a stable central government
in Edo (now Tokyo), after some 100 years
of turmoil, and the growth of a market
economy based on the widespread use of a
standardized currency led to the
development in the Edo period
(1600-1868) of a class of wealthy
townsmen. General prosperity
contributed to an increase in literacy,
and literary works became marketable
commodities, giving rise to a publishing
industry. Humorous fictional
studies of contemporary society such as Koshoku
ichidai otoko (1682; The
Life of an Amorous Man), by Ihara
Saikaku, were huge commercial successes,
and prose works, often elaborately
illustrated, that were directed toward a
mass audience became a staple of
Edo-period literature. Commercial
playhouses were established for the
performance of puppet plays (joruri)
and kabuki, whose plots often
centered on conflicts arising from the
rigidly hierarchical social order that
was instituted by the Tokugawa shogunate.
The
17-syllable form of light verse know as haikai
(later know as haiku), whose
subject matter was drawn from nature and
the lives of ordinary people, was raised
to the level of great poetry by Matsuo
Nasho. He is especially well known
for his travel diaries, such as the
Oku no hosomichi (1694; The
Narrow Road to the Deep North).
A number of philologists, among them
Keichu, Kamo no Mabuchi and Motoori
Norinaga, wrote scholarly studies on
early literary texts, such as Kojiki,
Man'yoshu, and The Tale Genji.
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MODERN
LITERATURE
The
imperial restoration of 1868 was
followed by the wholesale introduction
of Western technology and culture, which
largely displaced Chinese culture.
As a result, the novel became
established as a serious and respected
genre of the literature of Japan. A
related development was the gradual
abandonment of literary language in
favor of the usages of colloquial
speech.
Futabatei
Shimei produced what has been called
Japan's first modern novel, Ukigumo
(1887-1889; Drifting Clouds).
What is strikingly fresh about the novel
is the colloquial style of the language,
Futabatei's conception of his hero's
plight within the context of a quickly
changing society, and his subtle
psychological examination of the
protagonist. in the 1890's,
Futabatei's psychological insight was
adopted by several young writers.
One of the most impressive works of
fiction in this style was the story Takekurabe
(1895-1896; Growing Up), by
Higuchi Ichiyo. In this tale of
children living in a red-light district,
Ichiyou describes adolescent loneliness
and the confusion attending the onset of
puberty. Another writer, Shimazaki
Toson, relates in his first novel, Hakai
(1906; The Broken Commandment),
the story of a schoolteacher who hides
the fact that he was born in a community
of outcaste people until he realizes his
only salvation lies in living openly
with the truth. After Hakai,
however, Toson retreated into his own
private world to write in the genre of
person history known as the
"I-novel" (shishosetsu).
The
modern Japanese realistic novel was
brought to full maturity by Natsume
Soseki. His heroes are usually
university-educated men made vulnerable
by the new egoism and an overly keen
perception of their separation from the
rest of the world. Guilt,
betrayal, and isolation are for Soseki
the inevitable consequences of the
liberation of the self and all the
uncertainties that have come with the
advent of Western culture. These
motifs are explored in his novels Kokoro
(1914; The Heart), Mon
(1910; The Gate), and Kojin (1912-1913;
The Wayfarer). Mori Ogai
first won acclaim with three romantic
short stories set in Germany. The
most popular Maihime (1890; The
Dancing Girl), deals with the doomed
love affair of a a young Japanese
student in Berlin with a German dancer.
His most representative late works are
fictionalized studies in history and
biography, such as the life of an
Edo-period doctor presented in Shibue
Chusai (1916). Akutagawa
Ryunosuke was one of Japan's most famous
short-story writers. Such stories
as Rashomon (1915; Rashomon), and
Yabu no naka (1922; In a Grove)
are brilliantly told, combining
psychological subtlety and a sardonic
tone with a fanciful delight in the
grotesque. Nagai Kafu, whose life
and work reflected the tension between
the modern and a yearning for the old
Japan, is best known for his elegiac
works.
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The
writer who most clearly reflected the
sense of loss and confusion following
the shattering experience of World War
II was Dazai Osamu. Dazaio's Shayo
(1947; The Setting Sun) and the
novel published just before his suicide,
Ningen shikkaku (1948; No
Longer Human), attracted a large
readership. Not long after the
defeat, Tanizaki Jun'ichiro published
his masterpiece, the massive novel Sasameyuki
(1943-1948; The Makioka Sisters).
A chronicle of the lives of the
daughters of a patrician merchant family
in its last stages of decline before the
outbreak of war, it is a beautiful elegy
to the final passing of all that
remained of an older and more elegant
world.
In
novels such as Yukiguni
(1935-1948; Snow Country), Nobel
laureate Kawabata Yasunari creates
enormous distances between his
characters, suggesting a dread of
intimacy that threatens even the most
promising of human relationships.
After the war, Kawabata took to writing
what he called "elegies to the lost
Japan" in such works as Yama no
oto (1949-1954; The Sound of the
Mountain). Yet Japanese
writing in the early postwar years could
not be characterized solely in terms of
the shock and dislocation of defeat.
There was, in fact, a vigorous
renascence of literary activity after
1945, and a new group of writers who
debuted at this time came to be known as
the "first generation" of
postwar authors. Members of this
group include Noma Hiroshi and Ooka
Shohei. The "second
generation" of postwar writers
includes Abe Kobo and Mishima Tukio.
Abe would eventually create a
distinctive type of Kafkaesque
existential allegory in novels such as Suna
no onna (1962; The Woman in the
Dunes), while Mishima attracted an
international readership with his
opulent aestheticism in such works as Kinkakuji
(1956; The Temple of The Golden
Pavilion).
Critics
have posited a turning point in the
1950's, after which Japanese fiction ca
no longer be easily characterized in
terms of the early postwar
consciousness. Beginning about
this time, a revival and restructuring
of the I-novel form was achieved by a
"third generation" of postwar
writers such as Kojima Nobui, Yasuika
Shotaro, Yo, Yoshiyuki Junnosuke, and
Shimao Toshio. Also included in this
group is Endo Shusaku, a Catholic
convert who examines the issues of
betrayal, cowardice, and martyrdom in
novels such as Chimmoki (1966; Silence).
From the 1960s onward, writers have
sought to synthesize various approaches
to fiction or to experiment with new
modes of representation. Oe
Kenzaburo, who received the Nobel Prize
for literature in 1994, has been a
prodigiously inventive fore in
contemporary fiction, continuously
experimenting with form and mode of
presentation in such novels as Kojinteki
na taiken (1964; A Personal
Matter) and Man'en gannen no
futtoboru (1967; The Silent Cry).
Tsushima Tuki, the daugther od Dazai
Osamu has explored the lives of women
who are single parents in Choji
(1978; Child of Fortune).
Finally,
the generation raised on the
international culture of the last
decades has found its voice in writers
such as Murakami Ryu, author of Kagirinaki
tomei ni chikai buru (1976; Almost
Transparent Blue), and Murakami
Haruki, whose Noruue no mori (1987;
Norwegian Wood) sold more than 3
million copies. Toshimoto Banana,
who was born in 1964, portrays the lives
of people in desperately isolated
situations in Kitchin (1987; Kitchen).
These writers have been immensely
popular with young readers both in Japan
and abroad.
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