was a Japanese author and Buddhist monk. His most famous work is ''

Tsurezuregusa is a collection of essays written by the Japanese monk Kenkō (兼好) between 1330 and 1332. The work is widely considered a gem of medieval Japanese literature and one of the three representative works of the zuihitsu genre, along with ''The P ...

'' (''Essays in Idleness''), one of the most studied works of

medieval Japanese literature Japan's medieval period (the Kamakura period, Kamakura, Nanbokuchō period, Nanbokuchō and Muromachi period, Muromachi periods, and sometimes the Azuchi–Momoyama period) was a transitional period for the nation's literature. Kyoto ceased being ...

. Kenko wrote during the

Muromachi The is a division of Japanese history running from approximately 1336 to 1573. The period marks the governance of the Muromachi or Ashikaga shogunate (''Muromachi bakufu'' or ''Ashikaga bakufu''), which was officially established in 1338 by t ...

and

Kamakura period The is a period of Japanese history that marks the governance by the Kamakura shogunate, officially established in 1192 in Kamakura by the first ''shōgun'' Minamoto no Yoritomo after the conclusion of the Genpei War, which saw the struggle bet ...

Life and work

Painting of Yoshida Kenko by Utagawa Hiroshige

Kenkō was probably born in 1283, the son of an administration official. Forged documents by the Yoshida Shinto authorities claimed that his original name was Urabe Kaneyoshi (卜部兼好), and that his last name was later Yoshida (吉田); all of this was recently demonstrated to be false, in new research by Ogawa Takeo. ; see also 「卜部兼好伝批判−「兼好法師」から「吉田兼好」へ」（『国語国文研究』49号、2014年3月） He became an officer of guards at the Imperial palace. Late in life he retired from public life and became a Buddhist monk and

hermit A hermit, also known as an eremite (adjectival form: hermitic or eremitic) or solitary, is a person who lives in seclusion. Eremitism plays a role in a variety of religions. Description In Christianity, the term was originally applied to a Ch ...

. The reasons for this are unknown, but it has been conjectured that either his unhappy love for the daughter of the

prefect Prefect (from the Latin ''praefectus'', substantive adjectival form of ''praeficere'': "put in front", meaning in charge) is a magisterial title of varying definition, but essentially refers to the leader of an administrative area. A prefect's ...

of Iga Province or his mourning over the death of

Emperor Go-Uda was the 91st emperor of Japan, according to the traditional order of succession. His reign spanned the years from 1274 through 1287. This 13th-century sovereign was named after the 9th-century Emperor Uda and ''go-'' (後), translates literall ...

caused his transformation. Although he also wrote poetry and entered some poetry contests at the imperial court (his participation in 1335 and 1344 is documented), Kenkō's enduring fame is based on ''Tsurezuregusa'', his collection of 243 short essays, published posthumously. Although traditionally translated as "Essays in Idleness," a more accurate translation would be "Notes from Leisure Hours" or "Leisure Hour Notes." Themes of the essays include the beauty of

nature Nature, in the broadest sense, is the physical world or universe. "Nature" can refer to the phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general. The study of nature is a large, if not the only, part of science. Although humans are ...

, the transience of life, traditions, friendship, and other abstract concepts. The work was written in the ''

zuihitsu is a genre of Japanese literature consisting of loosely connected personal essays and fragmented ideas that typically respond to the author's surroundings. The name is derived from two Kanji meaning "at will" and "pen." The provenance of the ter ...

'' ("follow-the-brush") style, a type of

stream-of-consciousness In literary criticism, stream of consciousness is a narrative mode or method that attempts "to depict the multitudinous thoughts and feelings which pass through the mind" of a narrator. The term was coined by Daniel Oliver in 1840 in ''First Li ...

writing that allowed the writer's brush to skip from one topic to the next, led only by the direction of thoughts. Some are brief remarks of only a sentence or two; others recount a story over a few pages, often with discursive personal commentary added. The ''Tsurezuregusa'' was already popular in the 15th century and was considered a classic from the 17th century onward. It is part of the modern Japanese high school curriculum, as well in some

International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme The International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme (IBDP) is a two-year educational programme primarily aimed at 16-to-19-year-olds in 140 countries around the world. The programme provides an internationally accepted qualification for entry into ...

schools.

References

External links

Essays by Yoshida Kenko at Quotidiana.org

{{DEFAULTSORT:Yoshida, Kenko 1283 births 1352 deaths Buddhist writers Japanese writers Japanese essayists Japanese hermits Japanese Buddhist clergy Kamakura period Buddhist clergy

Life and work

See also

References

External links