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Japanese Literature
Japanese literature throughout most of its history has been influenced by cultural contact with neighboring Asian literatures, most notably China and its literature. Early texts were often written in pure Classical Chinese or , a Chinese-Japanese creole language. Indian literature also had an influence through the spread of Buddhism in Japan. During the Heian period, Japan's original culture () developed and literature also established its own style, with the significant usage and development of to write Japanese literature. Following the Perry Expedition which led to the end of the policy and the forced reopening of foreign trade, Western literature has also made influences to the development of modern Japanese writers, while Japanese literature has in turn become more recognized internationally, leading to two Japanese Nobel laureates in literature, namely Yasunari Kawabata and Kenzaburō Ōe. History Nara-period literature (before 794) Before the introduction of kanji f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Asian Literature
Asian literature is the literature produced in Asia. Examples *East Asian literature ** Chinese literature ** Japanese literature ** Korean literature **Mongolian literature ** Taiwanese literature *South Asian literature ** Indian literature **Pakistani literature **Bangladeshi folk literature ** Sri Lankan literature ** Bhutanese literature *Southeast Asian literature **Thai literature **Philippine literature **Malaysian literature ** Indonesian literature **Burmese literature **Cambodian literature ** Laotian literature **Singaporean literature **Vietnamese literature *Central Asian literature **Kazakh literature **Tajik literature **Uzbek literature **Kyrgyz literature *West Asian literature **Persian literature **Arabic literature **Jewish literature **Turkish literature Classical Indian literature Classical Chinese and Japanese literature In Tang and Song dynasty China, famous poets such as Li Bai authored works of great importance. They wrote ''shī'' (Classical Chinese: ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kanji
are the logographic Chinese characters taken from the Chinese family of scripts, Chinese script and used in the writing of Japanese language, Japanese. They were made a major part of the Japanese writing system during the time of Old Japanese and are still used, along with the subsequently-derived syllabic scripts of ''hiragana'' and ''katakana''. The characters have Japanese pronunciation, pronunciations; most have two, with one based on the Chinese sound. A few characters were invented in Japan by constructing character components derived from other Chinese characters. After World War II, Japan made its own efforts to simplify the characters, now known as shinjitai, by a process similar to China's simplified Chinese characters, simplification efforts, with the intention to increase literacy among the common folk. Since the 1920s, the Japanese government has published character lists periodically to help direct the education of its citizenry through the myriad Chinese characte ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Pillow Book
is a book of observations and musings recorded by Sei Shōnagon during her time as court lady to Empress Consort Teishi during the 990s and early 1000s in Heian-period Japan. The book was completed in the year 1002. The work is a collection of essays, anecdotes, poems, and descriptive passages that have little connection to one another except for the fact that they are ideas and whims of Shōnagon's spurred by moments in her daily life. In it she included lists of all kinds, personal thoughts, interesting events in court, poetry, and some opinions on her contemporaries. While it is mostly a personal work, Shōnagon's writing and poetic skill makes it interesting as a work of literature, and it is valuable as a historical document. Shōnagon meant her writing in ''The Pillow Book'' for her eyes only, but part of it was accidentally revealed to the Court during her life: "she inadvertently left it er writingon a cushion she put out for a visiting guest, who eagerly carried it off ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tanka (poetry)
is a genre of classical Japanese poetry and one of the major genres of Japanese literature. Etymology Originally, in the time of the ''Man'yōshū'' (latter half of the eighth century AD), the term ''tanka'' was used to distinguish "short poems" from the longer . In the ninth and tenth centuries, however, notably with the compilation of the '' Kokinshū'', the short poem became the dominant form of poetry in Japan, and the originally general word ''waka'' became the standard name for this form. Japanese poet and critic Masaoka Shiki revived the term ''tanka'' in the early twentieth century for his statement that ''waka should be renewed and modernized''. ''Haiku'' is also a term of his invention, used for his revision of standalone hokku, with the same idea. Form Tanka consist of five units (often treated as separate lines when romanized or translated) usually with the following pattern of '' on'' (often treated as, roughly, the number of syllables per unit or line): :5-7-5-7- ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kokin Wakashū
The , commonly abbreviated as , is an early anthology of the ''waka'' form of Japanese poetry, dating from the Heian period. An imperial anthology, it was conceived by Emperor Uda () and published by order of his son Emperor Daigo () in about 905. Its finished form dates to 920, though according to several historical accounts the last poem was added to the collection in 914. The compilers of the anthology were four court poets, led by Ki no Tsurayuki and also including Ki no Tomonori (who died before its completion), Ōshikōchi no Mitsune, and Mibu no Tadamine. Significance The ''Kokinshū'' is the first of the , the 21 collections of Japanese poetry compiled at Imperial request. It was the most influential realization of the ideas of poetry at the time, dictating the form and format of Japanese poetry until the late nineteenth century; it was the first anthology to divide itself into seasonal and love poems. The primacy of poems about the seasons pioneered by the ''Kokinsh ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Murasaki Shikibu
was a Japanese novelist, poet and lady-in-waiting at the Imperial court in the Heian period. She is best known as the author of '' The Tale of Genji,'' widely considered to be one of the world's first novels, written in Japanese between about 1000 and 1012. Murasaki Shikibu is a descriptive name; her personal name is unknown, but she may have been , who was mentioned in a 1007 court diary as an imperial lady-in-waiting. Heian women were traditionally excluded from learning Chinese, the written language of government, but Murasaki, raised in her erudite father's household, showed a precocious aptitude for the Chinese classics and managed to acquire fluency. She married in her mid-to late twenties and gave birth to a daughter before her husband died, two years after they were married. It is uncertain when she began to write ''The Tale of Genji'', but it was probably while she was married or shortly after she was widowed. In about 1005, she was invited to serve as a lady-in-wait ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Syllabary
In the linguistic study of written languages, a syllabary is a set of written symbols that represent the syllables or (more frequently) moras which make up words. A symbol in a syllabary, called a syllabogram, typically represents an (optional) consonant sound (simple onset) followed by a vowel sound (nucleus)—that is, a CV or V syllable—but other phonographic mappings, such as CVC, CV- tone, and C (normally nasals at the end of syllables), are also found in syllabaries. Types A writing system using a syllabary is ''complete'' when it covers all syllables in the corresponding spoken language without requiring complex orthographic / graphemic rules, like implicit codas ( ⇒ /C1VC2/) silent vowels ( ⇒ /C1V1C2/) or echo vowels ( ⇒ /C1V1C2/). This loosely corresponds to ''shallow'' orthographies in alphabetic writing systems. ''True'' syllabograms are those that encompass all parts of a syllable, i.e. initial onset, medial nucleus and final coda, but since onset and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Iroha
The is a Japanese poem. Originally the poem was attributed to the founder of the Shingon Esoteric sect of Buddhism in Japan, Kūkai, but more modern research has found the date of composition to be later in the Heian period (794–1179). The first record of its existence dates from 1079. It is famous because it is a perfect pangram, containing each character of the Japanese syllabary exactly once. Because of this, it is also used as an ordering for the syllabary, in the same way as the ''A'', ''B'', ''C'', ''D''... sequence of the Latin alphabet. Text The first appearance of the Iroha, in was in seven lines: six with seven morae each, and one with five. It was also written in man'yōgana. 以呂波耳本部止 千利奴流乎和加 餘多連曽津祢那 良牟有為能於久 耶万計不己衣天 阿佐伎喩女美之 恵比毛勢須 Structurally, however, the poem follows the standard 7–5 pattern of Japanese poetry (with one hypometric line), and in modern times it is g ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Urashima Tarō
is the protagonist of a Japanese fairy tale (''otogi banashi''), who in a typical modern version is a fisherman rewarded for rescuing a turtle, and carried on its back to the Dragon Palace (Ryūgū-jō) beneath the sea. There he is entertained by the princess Otohime as a reward. He spends what he believes to be several days with the princess, but when he returns to his home village, he discovers he has been gone for at least 100 years. When he opens the forbidden jewelled box (tamatebako), given to him by Otohime on his departure, he turns into an old man. The tale originates from the legend of Urashimako (Urashima no ko or Ura no Shimako) recorded in various pieces of literature dating to the 8th century, such as the ''Fudoki'' for Tango Province, '' Nihon Shoki'', and the '' Man'yōshū''. During the Muromachi to Edo periods, versions of ''Urashima Tarō'' appeared in storybook form called the '' Otogizōshi'', made into finely painted picture scrolls and picture books or m ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Man'yōshū
The is the oldest extant collection of Japanese (poetry in Classical Japanese), compiled sometime after AD 759 during the Nara period. The anthology is one of the most revered of Japan's poetic compilations. The compiler, or the last in a series of compilers, is today widely believed to be Ōtomo no Yakamochi, although numerous other theories have been proposed. The chronologically last datable poem in the collection is from AD 759 ( 4516). It contains many poems from a much earlier period, with the bulk of the collection representing the period between AD 600 and 759. The precise significance of the title is not known with certainty. The contains 20 volumes and more than 4,500 poems, and is divided into three genres: , songs at banquets and trips; , songs about love between men and women; and songs to mourn the death of people. These songs were written by people of various statuses, such as the Emperor, aristocrats, junior officials, soldiers ( songs), ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
