Background / History of Japanese Literature
The oldest Japanese Literature is divided into two aspects called Kojiki or Records of Ancient Matter and Nihongi or Chronicles of Japan. The Kojiki relates to the creation of the world and it is the first written record in Japan, part of which is considered a sacred text of the Shintō religion.
It talks about the gods and goddesses of the mythological period and contains facts about ancient Japan. On the other hand, Nihongi tells the history of poetry in Japan and shows the profound influence of the Chinese.
Under classical literature is the existence of the Heian Period, the golden era of Japanese art and literature. The oldest collection of Japanese poetry collected in the year 800 was called Man’yoshu (Under classical literature is the existence of the Heian Period, the golden era of Japanese art and literature. The oldest collection of Japanese poetry collected in the year 800 was called Man’yoshu (Collection of Myriad Leaves). The first example of a work of fiction in the form of a novel was written by a court lady named Murasaki Shikibu entitled Genji Monogatari (The Tale of Genji). Japan experienced many civil wars which led to the development of a warrior class, and subsequent war tales, histories, and related stories. Most of the topics in literary works are all about life and death, simple lifestyles, and Seppuku such as The Tale of the Heike, an epic account compiled before 1330 of the struggle between the Taira clan and Minamoto clan for control of Japan at the end of the 12th century in the Genpei War.
In modern literature, the evolution of Japanese Literature happened in four periods. The first one is the Edo or Tokugawa Period, the time when the Japanese decided to move the capital of Japan from Kyoto to Edo (modern Tokyo). Scholarly work continued to be published in Chinese, which was the language of the learned much as Latin in Europe. Japan’s Shakespeare is Chikamatsu Monzaemon who is a Kabuki dramatist. The importation of Chinese vernacular fiction that proved the greatest outside influence on the development of Early Modern Japanese fiction and Genres included horror, crime stories, comedy, and pornography--- often accompanied by colorful woodcut prints. The next one is the Meiji Period, is the re-opening of Japan to the West, and a period of rapid industrialization. Novelists were the first to assimilate some of these concepts successfully. Japan’s first winner of the Nobel prize for literature is Kawabata Yasunari, for his narrative mastery, which with great sensibility expresses the essence of the Japanese mind. The last period is the Post-War and Contemporary Period where most people wrote stories of disaffection, loss of purpose, and coping with defeat. Prominent writers of the 1970s and 1980s were identified with intellectual and moral issues in their attempts to raise social and political consciousness. Modern Japanese writers covered a wide variety of subjects, one particular Japanese approach stressed their subjects’ inner lives, widening the earlier novel’s preoccupation with the narrator’s consciousness.
•Noh play
The national theatre of Japan, which was originally reserved for the nobility. Legend says that the Noh dance was invented by the gods.
•Joruri play
A puppet play or doll theatre wherein the dolls are beautifully made and life-like in size.
•Kabuki
The play for the masses. It is less intellectual and more realistic, even sensational.
•Tanka (5-7-5-7-7)
It is a five line poem. The first and third lines have five syllables each and the others seven, making a total of thirty-one syllables per poem.
•Haiku (5-7-5)
It is a seventeen-syllable poem of three lines arranged in lines of five-seven-five.
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