Medieval world reflected in Japanese literature: Examples of Changes and Innovations in Literature (Poetry and Prose)

1459 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: compare and contrast medieval europe and medieval japan

Even without knowledge of the history in Medieval Japan, one can easily learn that Kamakura era was right in the transition period of the government and that of worldviews among people. The warrior class was gradually and surely coming to power, only by looking into the literature works of the era. Perhaps Emperor Gotoba was one of the aristocrats who were threatened with declination of their status and culture, which could have been his motives to command of the anthology: Shinkokinshū. This power rotation was vividly described in Heike monogatari. Later in the era, well-known works, such as Hōjōki and Tsurezuregusa, were written by monks, who were weary of their social lives, in less formalistic manners. A comparison of the two setsuwa shū: Konjaku monogatari shū and Uji shūi monogatari, also tells different views of world, religion, and human lives, among Kamakura people from various backgrounds between 12th century and 13th century. In this paper, I will discuss historical events the Kamakura people went through, physically and spiritually, that are reflected in their literature works.

One of the cultural features expressed in literature during Kamakura era is that poems were still part of life for nobles and monks in early Kamakura era, confirmed by the fact that Shinkokinshū, having commissioned by retired Emperor Gotoba in 1201, was compiled by nobles and monks, and that several poetic devises, such as honkadori, taigendome, and X-no-Y-no-X, were invented in order to appreciate language, poetic sounds, and older poems. Especially honkadori symbolizes Kamakura poets’ admiration for those of previous times in terms of their poetic skills, aesthetic sense, and knowledge of language and its power; actually this devise ...

... middle of paper ...

...re works surely are witnesses of history and those written during Kamakura era unexceptionally tell the 150-year events visible and invisible, including the changes of public focus from aristocrats to warriors, and to commoners, transition from superstitions society, depending too much on supernatural, to relatively realistic civilization, whether being pessimistic, indifferent, or easy-going, and literary revolution: writing as intelligence vs. writing for personal use.

Works Cited

Aoki, Seiishiro. (2001). Heike Monogatari. Tokyo: Kadokawa Gakugei Shuppan.

Jikan. Shinkokinshū no heya (Shinkokinshu’s room). http://home.cilas.net/~jikan314/shinkokinwakashu/kanbetu/01/0038.html Retrieved on June 17, 2010

Online. Saigyō no Shōgai to sono uta (Saigyō’s life and his poems). http://www.d4.dion.ne.jp/~happyjr/ibaraki/es_sazanamiya.html Retrieved on June 18, 2010

Show More
Related

  • The Narrow Road of the Interior written by Matsuo Basho

    1218 Words  | 3 Pages

    “Until the seventeenth century, Japanese Literature was privileged property. …The diffusion of literacy …(and) the printed word… created for the first time in Japan the conditions necessary for that peculiarly modern phenomenon, celebrity” (Robert Lyons Danly, editor of The Narrow Road of the Interior written by Matsuo Basho; found in the Norton Anthology of World Literature, Second Edition, Volume D). Celebrity is a loose term at times; it connotes fortune, flattery, and fleeting fame. The term, in this modern era especially, possesses an aura of inevitable transience and glamorized superficiality. Ironically, Matsuo Basho, (while writing in a period of his own newfound celebrity as a poet) places an obvious emphasis on the transience of life within his travel journal The Narrow Road of the Interior. This journal is wholly the recounting of expedition and ethos spanning a fifteen hundred mile feat, expressed in the form of a poetic memoir. It has been said that Basho’s emphasis on the Transient is directly related to his and much of his culture’s worldview of Zen Buddhism, which is renowned for its acknowledgement of the Transient as a tool for a more accurate picture of life and a higher achievement of enlightenment. Of course, in the realization that Basho does not appear to be unwaveringly religious, perhaps this reflection is not only correlative to Zen Buddhism, but also to his perspective on his newfound celebrity. Either way, Matsuo Basho is a profound lyricist who eloquently seeks to objectify and relay the concept of transience even in his own name.

    Read More

  • Book Exploration of State of War: The Violent Order of Fourteenth Century Japan by Thomas Donald Conlan

    1239 Words  | 3 Pages

    State of War: The Violent Order of Fourteenth Century Japan by Thomas Donald Conlan tracks the events in Japan between 1336 and 1392. Conlan provides his wisdom on how state and society operated in the Nanbokucho period through various source documents portraying the warriors not by their romanticized “knights of the round table” ideal, but rather showing that while there were alliances of connivence, they could be broken just as easily as they were made, revealing that pragmatism was paramount above all else.

    Read More

  • Samurai

    997 Words  | 2 Pages

    Musui’s Story is the exciting tale of a low class samurai’s life towards the end of the Tokugawa era. Although one would normally imagine a samurai to be a noble illustrious figure, Musui’s Story portrays the rather ignominious life of an unemployed samurai. Nonetheless, this primary account demonstrates the tenacity of samurai values and privileges present at the end of the Tokugawa shogunate. The social status of samurai had been elevated to such a state that even someone like Musui was easily able to gain influence in everyday affairs with his privileges. Not only that, but he had retained his values as a warrior and still kept great pride for his arts in weaponry.

    Read More

  • Kokoro and the Parallels of Historical Events

    1187 Words  | 3 Pages

    Throughout history artists have used art as a means to reflect the on goings of the society surrounding them. Many times, novels serve as primary sources in the future for students to reflect on past history. Students can successfully use novels as a source of understanding past events. Different sentiments and points of views within novels serve as the information one may use to reflect on these events. Natsume Soseki’s novel Kokoro successfully encapsulates much of what has been discussed in class, parallels with the events in Japan at the time the novel takes place, and serves as a social commentary to describe these events in Japan at the time of the Mejeii Restoration and beyond. Therefore, Kokoro successfully serves as a primary source students may use to enable them to understand institutions like conflicting views Whites by the Japanese, the role of women, and the population’s analysis of the Emperor.

    Read More

  • The Controversy Of Banning Kabuki's Theater

    1189 Words  | 3 Pages

    In the early nineteenth century there was a trend toward portraying all types of evil—such as torture, incest, and sadism—on stage, and after the Meiji Restoration of 1868 a movement was started to adapt Kabuki to the spirit of the modern world. Be that as it may, even as Kabuki has created in style and substance, it holds a hefty portion of the components it obtained amid the 1700s, from the physical virtuosity of its performers to the utilization of beautiful ensembles and portrayal of shocking occasions. Because of the emphasis in Kabuki on performance, there is little interest among scholars in offering critical analyses of its most important plays; many feel, in fact, that to read a Kabuki play in print gives the reader no indication of its artistic power. Pundits writing in English about seventeenth-and eighteenth-century Kabuki have in this manner tended to focus on the social and chronicled setting encompassing the improvement of the shape or on imaginative components, for example, acting, organize procedures, and music. The Kabuki play that has garnered the most critical attention is Chūsingura (1748; The Treasury of the Loyal Retainers). This play, about retainers' loyalty to a feudal lord even beyond his death, contains all the elements that make for great, melodramatic Kabuki theater,

    Read More

  • The Samurai Class In The Tokugawa Era

    1110 Words  | 3 Pages

    This essay will be about the samurai class in the Tokugawa era and all the events leading to their fall. It will also talk about how they did not technically ‘fall,’ but were in fact replaced by the commoner class in Japan. This commoner class brought on an economy centred around money rather than land, making the Samurai class bow down to the commoner class, since the Samurai were already in poverty at this point, however, they were still supported by what the commoner class had to offer so there were not wars between the classes. Unfortunately, this meant Samurai no longer thrived from their land economy. They had control over that part until this series of events unfolded; then, control was limited. This was the beginning of the so called ‘fall’ of the samurai class. Before the Meiji Restoration occurred, Samurai were a very prominent class in Japan, and were well respected and known, and most importantly, they were needed. However, when the Meiji Restoration came into effect, this brought in a new era of modernization. A modern Japan, where Samurai were seen as traditional and virtually unneeded in society. During their peak of samurai life, they had access to everything and were wealthy, but as the Tokugawa declined to the Meiji restoration, samurai experienced increasing poverty. “It was worth noting, that the possession of wealth

    Read More

  • Religious Freedom in Japan

    1474 Words  | 3 Pages

    Masatsusu, Mitsuyuki. 1982. The Modern Samurai Society: Duty and Dependence in Contemporary Japan. New York: AMACOM.

    Read More

  • Gender Ideals in Heian Society

    1083 Words  | 3 Pages

    The Heian period(794-1185), the so-called golden age of Japanese culture, produced some of the finest works of Japanese literature.1 The most well known work from this period, the Genji Monogatari, is considered to be the “oldest novel still recognized today as a major masterpiece.”2 It can also be said that the Genji Monogatari is proof of the ingenuity of the Japanese in assimilating Chinese culture and politics. As a monogatari, a style of narrative with poems interspersed within it, the characters and settings frequently allude to Chinese poems and stories. In addition to displaying the poetic prowess that the Japanese had attained by this time period, the Genji Monogatari also demonstrates how politics and gender ideals were adopted from the Chinese.

    Read More

  • The Writings of Yukio Mishima

    852 Words  | 2 Pages

    "Mishima, Yukio." Magill's Survey of World Literature, Rev. ed. Ed. Steven G. Kellman. Vol. 4. Pasadena, CA: Salem Press, 2009. 1732-1734. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 9 May 2011.

    Read More

  • Meiji Restoration

    1968 Words  | 4 Pages

    Earhart, H. Byron. The Religious Life of Man. Religion in the Japanese Experience: Sources and Interpretations. Edited by Frederick J. Streng. Encino, California: Dickenson Publishing Company, 1974.

    Read More

  • Ise Monogatari Annotated

    1021 Words  | 3 Pages

    Matthew Gerber. “The Importance of Poetry in Japanese Heian-era Romantic Relationships”. 2007 May. 2011 June 3.

    Read More

  • Manyoshu vs. Kokinshu: Roles and Significance

    1026 Words  | 3 Pages

    Keene, Donald. Anthology of Japanese literature, from the earliest era to the mid-nineteenth century. New York: Grove P, 1955.

    Read More

  • The Shinto Religion

    853 Words  | 2 Pages

    There are two major books that were ordered written by the Emperor of Japan during the initial adoption of writing into Japan, the two books are the Nihongi, and the Kojiki. The Nihongi and Kojiki are documents of ancient affairs in Japan. It includes how Japan was made, the first emperor of Japan, the birth of the kami, and many more things that we as Americans would consider “Mythology”, but in Japan, these books are history, and to many historians these books represent the purest form of Japanese culture and religion. Because of it being some of the oldest written documents in Japan, it holds many keys t...

    Read More

  • Noh Drama

    1631 Words  | 4 Pages

    Narihira, Ariwara. “The Tales of Ise.” Anthology of Japanese Literature. Ed. Donald Keene. New York: Grove Press, 1955. 67-71.

    Read More

  • Poetry Compare And Contrast Essay

    1076 Words  | 3 Pages

    In his preface of the Kokinshū poet Ki no Tsurayaki wrote that poetry conveyed the “true heart” of people. And because poetry declares the true heart of people, poetry in the minds of the poets of the past believed that it also moved the hearts of the gods. It can be seen that in the ancient past that poetry had a great importance to the people of the time or at least to the poets of the past. In this paper I will describe two of some of the most important works in Japanese poetry the anthologies of the Man’yōshū and the Kokinshū. Both equally important as said by some scholars of Japanese literature, and both works contributing greatly to the culture of those who live in the land of the rising sun.

    Read More

More about Medieval world reflected in Japanese literature: Examples of Changes and Innovations in Literature (Poetry and Prose)

Open Document