or is a Japanese

literary Literature is any collection of Writing, written work, but it is also used more narrowly for writings specifically considered to be an art form, especially prose fiction, drama, and poetry. In recent centuries, the definition has expanded to ...

genre, dating back to

Ki no Tsurayuki was a Japanese author, poet and court noble of the Heian period. He is best known as the principal compiler of the ''Kokin Wakashū'', also writing its Japanese Preface, and as a possible author of the ''Tosa Diary'', although this was publishe ...

's ''

Tosa Nikki The ''Tosa Nikki'' (''Tosa Diary'' 土佐日記) is a poetic diary written anonymously by the tenth-century Japanese poet Ki no Tsurayuki. The text details a 55-day journey in 935 returning to Kyoto from Tosa province, where Tsurayuki had been the ...

'', compiled in roughly 935. Nikki bungaku is a genre including prominent works such as the ''

'', ''

Kagerō Nikki is a work of classical Japanese literature, written around 974, that falls under the genre of '' nikki bungaku'', or diary literature. The author of ''Kagerō Nikki'' was a woman known only as the Mother of Michitsuna. Using a combination of wak ...

'', and ''

Murasaki Shikibu Nikki is the title given to a collection of diary fragments written by the 11th-century Japanese Heian era lady-in-waiting and writer Murasaki Shikibu. It is written in kana, then a newly-developed writing system for vernacular Japanese, more common a ...

''. While diaries began as records imitating daily logs kept by Chinese government officials, private and literary diaries emerged and flourished during the

Heian period The is the last division of classical Japanese history, running from 794 to 1185. It followed the Nara period, beginning when the 50th emperor, Emperor Kanmu, moved the capital of Japan to Heian-kyō (modern Kyoto). means "peace" in Japanese. ...

(794–1192 AD). The English term ''poetic diary'' was used by the

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial Colleges, fourth-oldest ins ...

scholar/translator

Earl Miner Earl Roy Miner (February 21, 1927 – April 17, 2004) was a professor at Princeton University, and a noted scholar of Japanese literature and especially Japanese poetry; he was also active in early modern English literature (for instance, his ob ...

in his book, ''Japanese Poetic Diaries''. Traditionally, composed of a series of poems held together by prose sections, the poetic diary has often taken the form of a

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 ...

or a

travel journal The genre of travel literature encompasses outdoor literature, guide books, nature writing, and travel memoirs. One early travel memoirist in Western literature was Pausanias, a Greek geographer of the 2nd century CE. In the early modern period ...

. Since

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

Beat Generation The Beat Generation was a literary subculture movement started by a group of authors whose work explored and influenced American culture and politics in the post-war era. The bulk of their work was published and popularized by Silent Generatio ...

writers in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

such as

Gary Snyder Gary Snyder (born May 8, 1930) is an American poet, essayist, lecturer, and environmental activist. His early poetry has been associated with the Beat Generation and the San Francisco Renaissance and he has been described as the "poet laureate of ...

Jack Kerouac Jean-Louis Lebris de Kérouac (; March 12, 1922 – October 21, 1969), known as Jack Kerouac, was an American novelist and poet who, alongside William S. Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg, was a pioneer of the Beat Generation. Of French-Canadian a ...

Philip Whalen Philip Glenn Whalen (October 20, 1923 – June 26, 2002) was an American poet, Zen Buddhist, and a key figure in the San Francisco Renaissance and close to the Beat generation. Biography Born in Portland, Oregon, Whalen grew up in The Dalles f ...

, and

Joanne Kyger Joanne Kyger (November 19, 1934 – March 22, 2017) was an American poet. The author of over 30 books of poetry and prose, Kyger was associated with the poets of the San Francisco Renaissance, the Beat Generation, Black Mountain, and the New ...

, as well as post-beat writers such as

Andrew Schelling Andrew Schelling (born January 14, 1953 in Washington D.C.), is an American poet and translator. Life Schelling grew up in the townships of New England west of Boston. Early influences were the wildlands of New England, and Asian art viewed in th ...

and

Michael Rothenberg Michael Rothenberg (1951 – 2022) was an American poet, songwriter, editor, artist, and environmentalist. Born in Miami Beach, Florida, Rothenberg received his Bachelor of Arts in English at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. H ...

have studied and written in Western-style poetic diary form.

History

Although scholars have found diaries dating back to the eighth century, most of those were mere records kept on daily matters of state. At that time, Japan looked to China as a model of culture and civilization and sought to copy Chinese official government diaries. Thus, early Japanese diaries were factual, written in

Chinese characters Chinese characters () are logograms developed for the writing of Chinese. In addition, they have been adapted to write other East Asian languages, and remain a key component of the Japanese writing system where they are known as ''kanji' ...

, and influenced by official, male perspectives.Miner

(c. 872 – 945), a famed poet and author, is credited with writing the first literary diary.Kodansha His ''Tosa Nikki'', written in 935, records his journey from Tosa in

Shikoku is the smallest of the four main islands of Japan. It is long and between wide. It has a population of 3.8 million (, 3.1%). It is south of Honshu and northeast of Kyushu. Shikoku's ancient names include ''Iyo-no-futana-shima'' (), '' ...

Kyoto Kyoto (; Japanese: , ''Kyōto'' ), officially , is the capital city of Kyoto Prefecture in Japan. Located in the Kansai region on the island of Honshu, Kyoto forms a part of the Keihanshin metropolitan area along with Osaka and Kobe. , the ci ...

through the alleged perspective of a female companion. Departing from the tradition of diaries written in Chinese, Tsurayuki used vernacular Japanese

characters Character or Characters may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Literature * ''Character'' (novel), a 1936 Dutch novel by Ferdinand Bordewijk * ''Characters'' (Theophrastus), a classical Greek set of character sketches attributed to The ...

waka Waka may refer to: Culture and language * Waka (canoe), a Polynesian word for canoe; especially, canoes of the Māori of New Zealand ** Waka ama, a Polynesian outrigger canoe ** Waka hourua, a Polynesian ocean-going canoe ** Waka taua, a Māori w ...

poetry, and a female narrator to convey the emotional aspects of the journey. The catalyst of the nikki bungaku tradition, however, is often attributed to

Michitsuna's mother Fujiwara no Michitsuna no Haha (藤原道綱母, 935–995) was a waka poet in the Mid Heian period. She was in her mid-thirties when she began to write her journal ''Kagerō Nikki,'' written in a combination of waka poems and prose. Her diary g ...

and her ''Kagerō Nikki''. In this three part diary, she details the 21-year period between her courtship with

Fujiwara no Kaneie was a Japanese statesman, courtier and politician during the Heian period.Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005). "Fujiwara no Kaneie" in ; Brinkley, Frank ''et al.'' (1915). He also was known as Hōkō-in Daijin and Higashi-sanjō-dono. Career Kan ...

and the beginning of her son's courtship. Expressing her personal feelings and exploring her marriage and social situation, Mother of Michitsuna pioneered a new wave of courtier women's kana literature.³ Other exemplars of Heian nikki bungaku include the ''Izumi Shikibu Nikki'' attributed to Izumi Shikibu, Murasaki Shikibu’s ''Murasaki Shikibu Nikki'', Sugawara no Takasue no Musume’s ''

Sarashina Nikki The is a memoir written by the daughter of Sugawara no Takasue, a lady-in-waiting of Heian-period Japan. Her work stands out for its descriptions of her travels and pilgrimages and is unique in the literature of the period, as well as one of the ...

'', and

Fujiwara no Nagako Fujiwara no Nagako ( – after 1119) was a servant of two Japanese tennōs of the Heian period. She became famous as the author of a '' nikki bungaku''. Career She became famous under the two notnames of Sanuki Tenji (Court lady of the Sanuki Pr ...

’s ''Sanuki no Suke no Nikki''. Although there remains debate as to whether the nikki bungaku genre, with its emphasis on the diary as a literary art, continues to modern times, prominent examples of diary literature abound. The medieval period saw the rise of diaries such as

Abutsu-ni Abutsu-ni (阿仏尼, c. 12221283; the ''-ni'' suffix means "nun") was a Japanese poet and nun. She served as a lady-in-waiting to Princess Kuni-Naishinnō, later known as Empress Ankamon-in. In approximately 1250 she married fellow poet Fujiwara n ...

’s '' Izayoi Nikki'' and travel diaries such as

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 ma ...

's ''

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 l ...

''. In the modern period, confessional diaries such as Higuchi Ichiyō's ''Ichiyō Nikki'' and

Nagai Kafu Nagai may refer to: *Nagai (surname), a Japanese surname *Nagai, Yamagata, a city in Yamagata Prefecture, Japan *An alternative name for Nagapattinam district, Tamil Nadu, India * Nagai (''Star Wars''), a fictional alien race in the ''Star Wars'' f ...

's '' Danchōtei Nichijō'' have gained in importance.

General characteristics

Nikki bungaku as a term has only been around since the early 20th century and debate continues over strict delineation. However, three major characteristics of Japanese diary literature, though exceptions abound, are "the frequent use of poems, breaking away from the daily entry as a formal device, and a stylistic heightening." For example, Tsurayuki's ''Tosa Nikki'' contains fifty-seven waka. Revealing that the "events of the months and years gone by are only vague in memory, and often I have just written what I recall," Mother of Michitsuna also reveals that nikki are not limited to a daily log of events.Shirane 2007 On the third point, one can see a literary intent when comparing Bashō's ''Oku no Hosomichi'' with the log kept by his travel companion, Iwanami Sora. Other common observations include that diaries attempt at an "expression of the self" as opposed to a "search for the self." ⁵ For example, in writing her ''Kagero Nikki'', Mother of Michitsuna claims a motive “to answer, should anyone ask, what is it like, the life of a woman married to a highly placed man?”⁴ Heian nikki in particular, according to scholar Haruo Shirane, are united in “the fact that they all depict the personal life of a historical personage.”Shirane 1987 Thematically, many diaries lay heavy emphasis on time and poetry.

Influences

Influence of waka

The

ushered a revival of Japanese classical poetry,

, and native vernacular writing,

kana The term may refer to a number of syllabaries used to write Japanese phonological units, morae. Such syllabaries include (1) the original kana, or , which were Chinese characters (kanji) used phonetically to transcribe Japanese, the most pr ...

. Waka, traditional Japanese thirty-one syllable poetry, was used for purposes ranging from official proclamations and poetry contests to private matters of courtship, and became crucial to success in the life of the aristocracy. Due to the importance of waka in communication, imperial waka anthologies such as the '' Kokinshū'' were compiled as poetic standards. Nikki bungaku grew out of waka's rise in popularity. It has even been speculated that the ''Kagerō Nikki'' grew out of a request to compile a family poetry collection. Literary diaries from Heian and Muromachi periods included waka, and subsequent diaries were often associated with poetic forms such as

haikai ''Haikai'' (Japanese 俳諧 ''comic, unorthodox'') may refer in both Japanese and English to ''haikai no renga'' (renku), a popular genre of Japanese linked verse, which developed in the sixteenth century out of the earlier aristocratic renga. I ...

haiku is a type of short form poetry originally from Japan. Traditional Japanese haiku consist of three phrases that contain a ''kireji'', or "cutting word", 17 '' on'' (phonetic units similar to syllables) in a 5, 7, 5 pattern, and a ''kigo'', or se ...

, and free verse.Miner 41-44 More than just developing from a poetic tradition, "it seems clear that poetry is conceived of as the most basic or purest literary form and that its presence, almost alone, is enough to change a journal of one’s life into an art diary."

Influence of monogatari

Monogatari 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 st ...

, or the Japanese narrative literature, and nikki bungaku greatly influenced each other. In fact, with some works having multiple names—''

Ise Monogatari is a Japanese ''uta monogatari'', or collection of ''waka (poetry), waka'' poems and associated narratives, dating from the Heian period. The current version collects 125 sections, with each combining poems and prose, giving a total of 209 poems i ...

'' or ''Zaigo Chūjō no Nikki'' and the ''

Heichū Monogatari ''Tales of Heichū'' (''Heichū monogatari'') belongs to the genre of ''uta monogatari'' poem tales that emerged in Japanese literature from the mid 10th to the early 11th centuries. As early as the ''Collection of Ten-Thousand Leaves'' ('' Manyō ...

'' or ''Heichū Nikki''—the line between the two genres was not always clear. In writing her ''Kagerō Nikki'', Mother of Michitsuna starts with her motive of realism in contrast to the monogatari she has read. Despite the overt rejection of the monogatari form, one can see the influence of the genre on diary literature in terms of style and paradigm; the discontent of the authors of both the ''

'' and ''Kagero Nikki'' seems to stem from the gap between their realities and life as idealized in monogatari. Lastly, perhaps the most famous of all monogatari, '' Genji Monogatari'', delves into psychological aspects of its characters' private lives much like that of nikki bungaku.

Influence on other literature

Mother of Michitsuna's ''Kagerō Nikki'' ushered in the second period of Heian literature and women's kana prose. Starting a tradition of psychological exploration and self-expression through Japanese vernacular, nikki bungaku not only gives modern readers an idea of historical events but also a view into the lives and minds of their authors. Literary diaries are also believed to have influenced

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 abou ...

's classic ''Genji Monogatari'', arguably the first and one of the greatest court novels of all time. Lastly, though the definition is disputable, one can argue that the Japanese literary diary tradition continues to the present and remains an important element of culture and personal expression.

References

;Notes ;External links
"A Darkness of Heart"
A Hank Glassman essay on Japanese literary tradition.
The Princeton Companion to Classical Japanese Literature.
Defines Nikki (Nikki Bungaku) ;Bibliography *Miner, Earl. "The Traditions and Forms of the Japanese Poetic Diary." ''Pacific Coast Philology'', Vol.3. (Apr. 1968),pp. 38–48
Link
*"Ki no Tsurayuki." ''Kodansha Encyclopedia of Japan.'' Online ed. 1993
Link
*"Nikki Bungaku." ''Kodansha Encyclopedia of Japan.'' Online ed. 1993
Link
*Shirane, Haruo, ed. ''Traditional Japanese Literature: An Anthology, Beginnings to 1600.'' New York: Columbia UP, 2007. *Shirane, Haruo. Review: ''The Poetics of Nikki Bungaku: A Comparison of the Traditions, Conventions, and Structure of Heian Japan's Literary Diaries with Western Autobiographical Writings'' by Marilyn Jeanne Miller. ''The Journal of the Association of Teachers of Japanese'', Vol. 21, No. 1. (Apr. 1987), pp. 98–102
Link
{{Authority control Diaries Genres of poetry Japanese poetry ja:日記#日本人と日記