Japanese literature

 Japanese literature is one of the major literatures of the world, comparable to

English literature in age and variety. From the seventh century C.E., when the
earliest surviving works were written, until the present day, there has never
been a period when literature was not being produced in Japan. Possibly the
earliest full-length novel, The Tale of Genji was written in Japan in the early
eleventh century. In addition to novels, poetry, and drama, other genres such as
travelogues, personal diaries and collections of random thoughts and
impressions, are prominent in Japanese literature. In addition to works in the
Japanese language, Japanese writers produced a large body of writing in
classical Chinese.
Japanese Literature is generally divided into three main periods: Ancient,
Medieval, and Modern.
Characteristics of Japanese
Literature
• Japanese literature can be difficult to read and
understand
• Statements are often ambiguous, omitting as
unnecessary the particles of speech which would
normally identify words as the subject or object of a
sentence, or using colloquial verb forms from a
specific region or social class.
• In many cases the significance of a simple sentence
can only be understood by someone who is familiar
with the cultural or historical background of the work.
• The nature of the Japanese language influenced the
development of poetic forms.
• All Japanese words end in one of five simple vowels, making
it difficult to construct effective rhymes.
• Japanese words also lack a stress accent, so that poetry was
distinguished from prose mainly by being divided into lines
of specific numbers of syllables rather than by cadence and
rhythm.
• These characteristics made longer poetic forms difficult, and
most Japanese poems are short, their poetic quality coming
from rich allusions and multiple meanings evoked by each
word used in the composition.
Main Periods of Japanese
Literature
Ancient Literature (until 894)
• Before the introduction of kanji from China, there was no writing
system in Japan.
• Chinese characters were used in Japanese syntactical formats, and the
literary language was classical Chinese; resulting in sentences that
looked like Chinese but were phonetically read as Japanese.
• Chinese characters were used, not for their meanings, but because
they had a phonetic sound which resembled a Japanese word.
• Chinese characters were later adapted to write Japanese speech,
creating what is known as the man'yōgana, the earliest form of kana,
or syllabic writing.
• The earliest works were created in the Nara Period.
•  Kojiki (712: a work recording Japanese mythology and legendary history)
•  Nihonshoki (720; a chronicle with a slightly more solid foundation in historical
records than Kojiki)
•  Man'yōshū (Ten Thousand Leaves, 759); an anthology of poetry.
Classical Literature (894-1194; The Heian
Period)
• consider a golden era of art and literature.
• The Tale of Genji (early eleventh century) by Murasaki Shikibu
• Kokin Wakashū (905, waka poetry anthology)
• The Pillow Book (990s), an essay about the life, loves, and pastimes of
nobles in the Emperor's court written by Murasaki Shikibu's
contemporary and rival, Sei Shonagon
• During this time, the imperial court patronized poets, many of whom
were courtiers or ladies-in-waiting. Editing anthologies of poetry was
a national pastime.
Medieval Literature (1195 - 1600)
• is marked by the strong influence of Zen Buddhism, and many writers
were priests, travelers, or ascetic poets
• Japan experienced many civil wars which led to the development of a
warrior class, and a widespread interest in war tales, histories, and
related stories
• The Tale of the Heike (1371), an epic account of the struggle between
the Minamoto and Taira clans for control of Japan at the end of the
twelfth century.
Early-Modern Literature (1600-1868)
• The literature of this time was written during the generally peaceful
Tokugawa Period (commonly referred to as the Edo Period).
• forms of popular drama developed which would later evolve
into kabuki(traditional Japanese theater).
• Many genres of literature made their début during the Edo Period,
inspired by a rising literacy rate among the growing population of
townspeople, as well as the development of lending libraries.
Meiji, Taisho, and Early Showa literature
(1868-1945)
• The Meiji era marked the re-opening of Japan to the West, and a
period of rapid industrialization.
• Young Japanese prose writers and dramatists struggled with a whole
galaxy of new ideas and artistic schools, but novelists were the first to
successfully assimilate some of these concepts
• In the early Meiji era (1868-1880s), Fukuzawa Yukichi and Nakae
Chomin authored Enlightenment literature, while pre-modern popular
books depicted the quickly changing country
• Higuchi Ichiyo, a rare woman writer in this era, wrote short stories on
powerless women of this age in a simple style, between literary and
colloquial. Izumi Kyoka, a favored disciple of Ozaki, pursued a flowing
and elegant style and wrote early novels such as The Operating
Room (1895) in literary style and later ones including The Holy Man of
Mount Koya (1900) in colloquial language.
• Mori Ogai introduced Romanticism to Japan with his anthology of
translated poems (1889), and it was carried to its height by Shimazaki
Toson and his contemporaries and by the
magazines Myōjō and Bungaku-kai in the early 1900s.
• Shimazaki shifted from Romanticism to Naturalism, which was
established with the publication of The Broken Commandment (1906)
and Katai Tayama's Futon (1907). 
• Naturalism led to the “I” novel. Neo-romanticism came out of anti-
naturalism and was led by Nagai Kafu, Junichiro Tanizaki, Kotaro
Takamura, Kitahara Hakushu and others during the early 1910s.
Mushanokoji Saneatsu, Shiga Naoya and others founded a
magazine, Shirakaba, in 1910 to promote Humanism.
• War-time Japan saw the début of several authors best known for the
beauty of their language and their tales of love and sensuality, 
• Japan's first winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, Kawabata
Yasunari, a master of psychological fiction.
Post-War Literature

• Japan’s defeat in World War II influenced Japanese literature during

the 1940s and 1950s.
• Many authors wrote stories about disaffection, loss of purpose, and
the coping with defeat.
• Dazai Osamu's novel The Setting Sun tells of a soldier returning from
Manchukuo. Mishima Yukio, well known for both his nihilistic writing
and his controversial suicide by seppuku
• Prominent writers of the 1970s and 1980s were identified with
intellectual and moral issues in their attempts to raise social and
political consciousness.
• Oe Kenzaburo wrote his best-known work, A Personal Matter in 1964
and became Japan's second winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature.
• Murakami Haruki is one of the most popular and controversial of
today's Japanese authors. His genre-defying, humorous and surreal
works have sparked fierce debates in Japan over whether they are
true "literature" or simple pop-fiction: 
Modern Themes
• Although modern Japanese writers covered a wide variety of subjects,
one particularly Japanese approach stressed their subjects' inner
lives, widening the earlier novel's preoccupation with the narrator's
consciousness
• In keeping with the general trend toward reaffirming national
characteristics, many old themes re-emerged in modern literature,
and some authors turned consciously to the past.
• There was a growing emphasis on women's roles, the Japanese
persona in the modern world, and the malaise of common people lost
in the complexities of urban culture.
Common Modern Themes 
• Japan has produced many literary "schools." Loyalty, obligation, and self-sacrifice
compromised by human emotion and affected by elements of the supernatural are
major themes of classic Japanese literature.
• “Kisetsukan” (“the feel of the season”) is an important concept in Japanese cultural and
artistic traditions. The Japanese often write about the seasons in their correspondence.
• The changing seasons is a theme addressed in “The Take of Genji”, an influential 11th
century novel. The poems in the “Kokin Wakashu”, an anthology of waka poems
compiled in the 10th century, are arranged in the order of the seasons. In haiku, every
poem must contain an appropriate “kigo” (‘season word”). There is even a book that
lists all recognized kigo by season.
• “Monogatari”, a style of literary narrative that concentrates on the life of a single
character, was used in the “Tale of Genji” and is still used in television dramas today.
Contemporary Literature
• Popular fiction, non-fiction, and children's literature all flourished in
urban Japan during the 1980s.
• Many popular works fell between "pure literature" and pulp novels,
including all sorts of historical serials, information-packed
docudramas, science fiction, mysteries, detective fiction, business
stories, war journals, and animal stories.
• Manga (comic books) have penetrated almost every sector of the
popular market. They include virtually every field of human interest,
such as a multi volume high-school history of Japan and, for the adult
market, a manga introduction to economics, and pornography. 
Japanese Haiku
“Lighting One Candle” by Yosa Buson
The light of a candle
Is transferred to another candle—
Spring twilight
• Haikus focus on a brief moment in time,
juxtaposing two images, and creating a
sudden sense of enlightenment. A good
example of this is haiku master Yosa Buson’s
comparison of a singular candle with the
starry wonderment of the spring sky.
“The Old Pond” by Matsuo Bashō
An old silent pond
A frog jumps into the pond—
Splash! Silence again.
• This traditional example comes from Matsuo Bashō,
one of the four great masters of Haiku. Historically,
haikus are a derivative of the Japanese Hokku. Hokkus
are collaborative poems which follow the 5/7/5 rule.
They are meant to comment on the season or
surroundings of the authors and create some sort of
contrasting imagery separated by a kireji or “cutting
word” (like “Splash!”).
Rashōmon by Akutagawa Ryūnosuke
• The story, set in 12th-century Kyōto, reveals in spare and elegant
language the thoughts of a man on the edge of a life of crime and the
incident that pushes him over the brink. Combined with Akutagawa’s later
story “Yabu no naka” (1921; “In a Grove”), “Rashōmon” was the starting
point for Japanese director Kurosawa Akira’s classic
film Rashōmon (1950).

• the lesson is most probably this. Human beings are inevitably duplicitous

and self-serving, but if only they would develop the courage and
decency to admit the “truth” about themselves, the world would be a
better place.
• The story was first published in 1915 in Teikoku Bungaku. Akira
Kurosawa's film Rashomon (1950) is in fact based primarily on
another of Akutagawa's short stories, "In a Grove"; only the film's title
and some of the material for the frame scenes, such as the theft of a
kimono and the discussion of the moral ambiguity of thieving to
survive, are borrowed from "Rashōmon".