The ''Harusame monogatari'' (

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 ...

: 春雨

物語 is a literary form in traditional Japanese literature – an extended prose narrative tale comparable to the epic novel. ''Monogatari'' is closely tied to aspects of the oral tradition, and almost always relates a fictional or fictionalized ...

hiragana is a Japanese syllabary, part of the Japanese writing system, along with ''katakana'' as well as ''kanji''. It is a phonetic lettering system. The word ''hiragana'' literally means "flowing" or "simple" kana ("simple" originally as contrast ...

: はるさめものがたり）, translated as ''"The Tales of Spring Rain"'' (less commonly "Tales of the Spring Rain") is the second famous collection of

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

ese stories by

Ueda Akinari Ueda Akinari or Ueda Shūsei (, July 25, 1734 in Osaka – August 8, 1809 in Kyoto) was a Japanese author, scholar and ''waka'' poet, and a prominent literary figure in 18th-century Japan. He was an early writer in the ''yomihon'' genre and ...

after the ''

Ugetsu Monogatari is a collection of nine supernatural tales first published in 1776. It is the best known work of Japanese author Ueda Akinari. Largely adapted from traditional Japanese and Chinese ghost stories, the collection is among the most important work ...

'' ("Tales of Moonlight and Rain"). The collection of ten stories is part of the

yomihon is a type of Japanese book from the Edo period (1603–1867). Unlike other Japanese books of the periods, such as kusazōshi, they had few illustrations, and the emphasis was on the text. In storylines, Buddhist ethics such as karma are often prea ...

genre of

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-Japanes ...

, which is a notable representative of Japan's contribution to the world's

Early Modern literature The history of literature of the early modern period (16th, 17th and partly 18th century literature), or early modern literature, succeeds Medieval literature, and in Europe in particular Renaissance literature. In Europe, the Early Modern per ...

, though this second collection of Ueda's was not printed until a century after his death in 1907. The 1907 printing was based on an incomplete manuscript, and the full edition was not published till 1950.

The semi-historical stories reflect Akinari's

kokugaku ''Kokugaku'' ( ja, 國學, label=Kyūjitai, ja, 国学, label=Shinjitai; literally "national study") was an academic movement, a school of Japanese philology and philosophy originating during the Tokugawa period. Kokugaku scholars worked to refo ...

interests in historical fiction. * Chikatabira (血かたびら, The Bloody Robe) - historical * Amatsu otome (天津処女, The Amatsu Maid) - historical * Kaizoku (海賊, The Pirate) - historical * Nise no en (二世の縁, The Destiny That Spanned Two Lifetimes)- also known as "The Marriage Bond." The story of a relationship reincarnated by means of

Sokushinbutsu are a kind of Buddhist mummy. In Japan the term refers to the practice of Buddhist monks observing asceticism to the point of death and entering mummification while alive. Mummified monks are seen in a number of Buddhist countries. Only in Japa ...

. * Me hitotsu no kami (目ひとつの神) - historical * Shinikubi no egao (死首の咲顔, The Smile on the Face of the Corpse) * Suteishi maru (捨石丸, The ship Suteishi) - the name of the lost vessel suteishi means a discarded stone in a

Japanese rock garden The or Japanese rock garden, often called a zen garden, is a distinctive style of Japanese garden. It creates a miniature stylized landscape through carefully composed arrangements of rocks, water features, moss, pruned trees and bushes, and us ...

, or a sacrificed stone in

Go (game) Go is an abstract strategy board game for two players in which the aim is to surround more territory than the opponent. The game was invented in China more than 2,500 years ago and is believed to be the oldest board game continuously played ...

. * Miyagi ga tsuka (宮木が塚, The Grave of Miyagi) * Uta no homare (歌のほまれ, In praise of Song) - historical * Hankai (樊噲) - "a picaresque narrative of the eventful life of a young man ... who later calls himself Hankai" (Jackman, 1975)

Comparisons with ''Ugetsu Monogatari''

Both collections share Akinari's "

-inspired delight in the mysterious and problematic". Unlike ''Ugetsu Monogatari'' the Harusame Monogatari is not essentially a collection of ghost stories. The elegant style of the earlier collection is replaced with a terse "sometimes choppy" style.

Translations

* ''Tales of the Spring Rain: Harusame Monogatari by Ueda Akinari''. 249 pages. University of Tokyo Press (1975)Barry Jackman "The Harusame Monogatari of Ueda Akinari (1734-1809)." Ph.D. diss., Columbia University, 1973. , Barry Jackman trans. Tales of the Spring Rain: Harusame Monogatari by Ueda Akinari. Tokyo: Japan Foundation, 1975

References

{{reflist Edo-period works

Contents

Comparisons with ''Ugetsu Monogatari''

Translations

References