Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Japanese Literature
Presented by : Griffin F. Bingil
• 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 Before the introduction of kanji from China, there was
no writing system in Japan.
(until
Chinese; resulting in sentences that looked like
Chinese but were phonetically read as Japanese.
894)
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.
Medieval
Buddhism, and many writers were priests,
travelers, or ascetic poets
(1195 -
widespread interest in war tales, histories,
and related stories
Modern
referred to as the Edo Period).
Literature
forms of popular drama developed which would
later evolve
into kabuki(traditional Japanese theater).
1868)
among the growing population of townspeople, as
well as the development of lending libraries.
Meiji,
The Meiji era marked the re-opening of Japan to the
West, and a period of rapid industrialization.