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Kusamakura (novel)
is a Japanese novel by Natsume Sōseki published in 1906. It appeared in English in 1965 as ''The Three-Cornered World'', and in another translation by Meredith McKinney in 2008 under its original Japanese title ''Kusamakura'', which literally means "grass pillow" in Japanese and is a phrase that has connotations of travel. Plot The novel tells of an artist who retreats to the mountains, where he stays at a remote, almost deserted hotel. There he becomes intrigued by the mysterious hostess, O-Nami, who reminds him of the John Millais painting '' Ophelia''. Ostensibly looking for subjects to paint, the artist makes only a few sketches, but instead writes poetry. This poetry is inserted into a text that consists of scenes from the artist's reclusive life and essay-like meditations on art and the artist's position in society. In these musings, the artist quotes and mentions a variety of Japanese, Chinese and European painters, poets, and novelists. For example, he discusses the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Natsume Sōseki
, born , was a Japanese novelist. He is best known around the world for his novels ''Kokoro'', '' Botchan'', ''I Am a Cat'', '' Kusamakura'' and his unfinished work '' Light and Darkness''. He was also a scholar of British literature and writer of haiku, '' kanshi'', and fairy tales. From 1984 until 2004, his portrait appeared on the front of the Japanese 1,000 yen note. Early years Natsume Kin'nosuke was born on 9 February 1867 in the town of Babashita, Ushigome, Edo (present Kikui, Shinjuku, Tokyo), the fifth son of village head (''nanushi'') Natsume Kohē Naokatsu and his wife Chie. His father, a powerful and wealthy ''nanushi'', owned all land from Ushigome to Takadanobaba in Edo and handled most civil lawsuits at his doorstep. He was a descendant of Natsume Yoshinobu, a Sengoku period samurai and retainer of Tokugawa Ieyasu. Sōseki began his life as an unwanted child, born to his mother late in her life, forty years old and his father then fifty-three. When he was born, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Laurence Sterne
Laurence Sterne (24 November 1713 – 18 March 1768), was an Anglo-Irish novelist and Anglican cleric who wrote the novels ''The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman'' and ''A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy'', published sermons and memoirs, and indulged in local politics. He grew up in a military family travelling mainly in Ireland but briefly in England. An uncle paid for Sterne to attend Hipperholme Grammar School in the West Riding of Yorkshire, as Sterne's father was ordered to Jamaica, where he died of malaria some years later. He attended Jesus College, Cambridge on a sizarship, gaining bachelor's and master's degrees. While Vicar of Sutton-on-the-Forest, Yorkshire, he married Elizabeth Lumley in 1741. His ecclesiastical satire ''A Political Romance'' infuriated the church and was burnt. With his new talent for writing, he published early volumes of his best-known novel, ''The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman''. Sterne travelled to Fr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Oku No Hosomichi
''Oku no Hosomichi'' (, originally ), translated as ''The Narrow Road to the Deep North'' and ''The Narrow Road to the Interior'', is a major work of ''haibun'' by the Japanese poet Matsuo Bashō, considered one of the major texts of Japanese literature of the Edo period. The first edition was published posthumously in 1702. The text is written in the form of a prose and verse travel diary and was penned as Bashō made an epic and dangerous journey on foot through the Edo Japan of the late 17th century. While the poetic work became seminal of its own account, the poet's travels in the text have since inspired many people to follow in his footsteps and trace his journey for themselves. In one of its most memorable passages, Bashō suggests that "every day is a journey, and the journey itself home". The text was also influenced by the works of Du Fu, who was highly revered by Bashō. Of ''Oku no Hosomichi'', Kenji Miyazawa once suggested, "It was as if the very soul of Japan h ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Misao Fujimura
was a Japanese philosophy student and poet, largely remembered due to his farewell poem. Biography Fujimura was born in Hokkaidō. His grandfather was a former samurai of the Morioka Domain, and his father relocated to Hokkaidō after the Meiji Restoration as a director of the forerunner of Hokkaido Bank. Fujimura graduated from middle school in Sapporo, and then relocated to Tokyo where he attended a preparatory school for entry into Tokyo Imperial University. He later traveled to Kegon Falls in Nikko, a famed scenic area, and wrote his farewell poem directly on the trunk of a tree before committing suicide.Suicide Note His grave is at Aoyama Cemetery in Tokyo. The story was soon sensationalized in contemporary newspapers, and was commented upon by the famed writer |
Henrik Ibsen
Henrik Johan Ibsen (; ; 20 March 1828 – 23 May 1906) was a Norwegian playwright and theatre director. As one of the founders of modernism in theatre, Ibsen is often referred to as "the father of realism" and one of the most influential playwrights of his time. His major works include ''Brand'', '' Peer Gynt'', '' An Enemy of the People'', ''Emperor and Galilean'', ''A Doll's House'', ''Hedda Gabler'', '' Ghosts'', ''The Wild Duck'', ''When We Dead Awaken'', ''Rosmersholm'', and ''The Master Builder''. Ibsen is the most frequently performed dramatist in the world after Shakespeare, and ''A Doll's House'' was the world's most performed play in 2006. Ibsen's early poetic and cinematic play ''Peer Gynt'' has strong surreal elements. After ''Peer Gynt'' Ibsen abandoned verse and wrote in realistic prose. Several of his later dramas were considered scandalous to many of his era, when European theatre was expected to model strict morals of family life and propriety. Ibsen's later wo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Critic As Artist
"The Critic as Artist" is an essay by Oscar Wilde, containing the most extensive statements of his aesthetic philosophy. A dialogue in two parts, it is by far the longest one included in his collection of essays titled ''Intentions'' published on 1 May 1891. "The Critic as Artist" is a significantly revised version of articles that first appeared in the July and September 1890 issues of ''The Nineteenth Century'', originally entitled "The True Function and Value of Criticism." The essay is a conversation between its leading voice Gilbert and Ernest, who suggests ideas for Gilbert to reject. Summary The essay sets to collapse the distinction between fine art and criticism cherished by artists and critics such as Matthew Arnold and James Abbott McNeill Whistler James Abbott McNeill Whistler (; July 10, 1834July 17, 1903) was an American painter active during the American Gilded Age and based primarily in the United Kingdom. He eschewed sentimentality and moral allusion in paintin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Oscar Wilde
Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde (16 October 185430 November 1900) was an Irish poet and playwright. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of the most popular playwrights in London in the early 1890s. He is best remembered for his epigrams and plays, his novel ''The Picture of Dorian Gray'', and the circumstances of his criminal conviction for gross indecency for consensual homosexual acts in "one of the first celebrity trials", imprisonment, and early death from meningitis at age 46. Wilde's parents were Anglo-Irish intellectuals in Dublin. A young Wilde learned to speak fluent French and German. At university, Wilde read Literae Humaniores#Greats, Greats; he demonstrated himself to be an exceptional Classics, classicist, first at Trinity College Dublin, then at Magdalen College, Oxford, Oxford. He became associated with the emerging philosophy of aestheticism, led by two of his tutors, Walter Pater and John Ruskin. After university, Wilde m ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tristram Shandy
Tristram may refer to: Literature * the title character of ''The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman'', a novel by Laurence Sterne * the title character of ''Tristram of Lyonesse'', an epic poem by Algernon Charles Swinburne *"Tristram", a Pulitzer Prize-winning work by Edwin Arlington Robinson Legendary characters * Tristram or Tristan, a Knight of the Round Table in Arthurian legend * Tristram the Younger, last king of Lyonesse in the Italian romance ''I Due Tristani'', son of the above People * Tristram (name), a list of people with the given name or surname Other uses * Tristram, a town in the books and games of the '' Diablo'' video game series See also * Tristram's Woodpecker, a bird * Tristram's starling or Tristram's grackle, a bird * Tristram's jird, a species of gerbil * Sir Tristram (1971–1997), a Thoroughbred racehorse and sire * RFA Sir Tristram (L3505), a Landing Ship Logistics of the Round Table class * Tristan (other) Tristan is a Knigh ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Matsuo Bashō
born then was the most famous poet of the Edo period in Japan. During his lifetime, Bashō was recognized for his works in the collaborative '' haikai no renga'' form; today, after centuries of commentary, he is recognized as the greatest master of haiku (then called hokku). He is also well known for his travel essays beginning with '' Records of a Weather-Exposed Skeleton'' (1684), written after his journey west to Kyoto and Nara. Matsuo Bashō's poetry is internationally renowned, and, in Japan, many of his poems are reproduced on monuments and traditional sites. Although Bashō is famous in the West for his hokku, he himself believed his best work lay in leading and participating in renku. He is quoted as saying, "Many of my followers can write hokku as well as I can. Where I show who I really am is in linking haikai verses." Bashō was introduced to poetry at a young age, and after integrating himself into the intellectual scene of Edo (modern Tokyo) he quickly became we ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Literary Fiction
Literary fiction, mainstream fiction, non-genre fiction or serious fiction is a label that, in the book trade, refers to market novels that do not fit neatly into an established genre (see genre fiction); or, otherwise, refers to novels that are character-driven rather than plot-driven, examine the human condition, use language in an experimental or poetic fashion, or are simply considered serious art. ''Literary fiction'' is often used as a synonym for literature, in the exclusive sense of writings specifically considered to have considerable Art, artistic merit. While literary fiction is commonly regarded as artistically superior to genre fiction, the two are not mutually exclusive, and major literary figures have employed the genres of science fiction, crime fiction, Romance novel, romance, etc., to create works of literature. Furthermore, the study of genre fiction has developed within academia in recent decades. Slipstream genre is sometimes located in between the genre and no ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tao Yuanming
Tao Yuanming (; 365–427), also known as Tao Qian (; also T'ao Ch'ien in Wade-Giles), was a Chinese poet and politician who was one of the best-known poets during the Six Dynasties, Six Dynasties period. He was born during the Eastern Jin dynasty (265–420), Jin dynasty (317-420) and died during the Liu Song dynasty, Liu Song (420-479) dynasty (Jin-Song transition). Tao Yuanming spent much of his life in reclusion, living in the countryside, farming, reading, drinking wine, receiving the occasional guest, and writing poems in which he often reflected on the pleasures and difficulties of life, as well as his decision to withdraw from civil service. Tao's simple and direct style was somewhat at odds with the norms for literary writing in his time. Relatively well-known as a recluse poet in the Tang dynasty (618-907), during the Song dynasty, Northern Song dynasty (960-1127), influential literati figures such as Su Shi (1037-1101) declared him a paragon of authenticity and spon ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wang Wei (Tang Dynasty)
Wang Wei (; 699–759) was a Chinese poet, musician, painter, and politician of the middle Tang dynasty. He is regarded as one of the most famous men of arts and letters of his era. Many of his poems survive and 29 of them are included in the 18th-century anthology ''Three Hundred Tang Poems''. Wang Wei is especially known as a poet and painter of nature. Some 400 poems survive. These were first collected and originally edited into a corpus by his next-youngest brother, Wang Jin, by imperial command. Of his paintings, no authenticated specimens survive, although there is evidence of his work through influences on later paintings and descriptive accounts of his paintings. His musical talents were regarded very highly, although nothing survives of his music except reports. He furthermore had a successful career as a court official. Eventually, he became a devout Zen Buddhist and a vegetarian. Wang Wei spent ten years studying with Chán master Daoguang. Names His family name ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
