A Brief History of Japanese

Literature

By:
Dalman, Denver A.

Members:
Escultura, Kristian Elicieo
Tigley, Joseph Arle
Preston, Clement
 History of Japanese Literature
• Japanese Literature can be divided into four
main periods.
*Ancient (until 794)
*Classical (794-1185)
*Medieval (1185-1603)
*Modern (1603-1945)
-Early-modern Literature
(1603-1868)
-Modern Literature (1868-1945)
Ancient Literature
(until 794)
 Ancient Literature (until 794)
• They don’t have their own writing system.
• Chinese characters were further adopted.
• The earliest works were created
in the Nara period.
– Kojiki
– Nihon Shoki
– Man'yōshū
• Urashima Taro
– has been identified as the earliest
example of a story involving time
travel.
Classical Literature
(794-1185)
 Classical Literature (794-1185)
• Generally refers to literature produced
during the Heian period (the golden era of
art and literature).
• Important Writings of the Period
– Genji Monogatari (early 11th century)
By: Murasaki Shikibu .
– Kokin Wakashū (905)
– Makura no Sōshi (990s)
By: Sei Shōnagon
 Classical Literature (794-1185)
• Iroha poem
– one of two standard orderings for the
Japanese syllabary.
• Taketori Monogatari (The
10th-century Japanese narrative)
• Konjaku Monogatarishū
– a collection of over a thousand
stories in 31 volumes.
Medieval Literature
(1185-1603)
Medieval Literature (1185-1603)
• Work from this period is notable for its
insights into life and death, simple
lifestyles, and redemption through killing.
• The Tale of the Heike (1371)
• Other Important Tales
– Kamo no Chōmei's Hōjōki (1212)
– Yoshida Kenkō's Tsurezuregusa (1331).
• Other Notable Genres
– Renga(linked verse)
– Noh (theater)
Early-modern Literature
(1603–1868)
 Early-modern Literature (1603–
1868)
• Tokugawa Period (commonly referred to as
the Edo Period)
• In the New Capital of Edo (modern
Tokyo)
– forms of popular drama developed which
later evolve into kabuki.
• Chikamatsu Monzaemon (jōruri and
kabuki dramatist)
– became popular at the end of the
17th century, and he is also known
as the Japan's Shakespeare.
 Early-modern Literature (1603–
1868)
• Matsuo Bashō
– Wrote Oku no Hosomichi (1702), a travel diary.
• Hokusai
– illustrated fiction as well as his famous
36 Views of Mount Fuji.
• Jippensha Ikku
– known as Japan's Mark Twain.
– wrote Tōkaidōchū Hizakurige, a mix
of travelogue and comedy.
 Early-modern Literature (1603–
1868)
• Many genres of literature made their début
during the Edo Period.
• There are outside influences
trickled during the period.
– Minor Western Influences from the
Dutch settlement at Nagasaki
– Chinese vernacular fiction
• Greatest outside influence on the
development of Early Modern Japanese
fiction.
 Early-modern Literature (1603–
1868)
• Ikara Saikaku
– Said to have given birth to the modern consciousness of
the novel in Japan.
– Mixed vernacular dialogue into his
humorous and cautionary tales of
the pleasure quarters.
• Tsuga Teisho, Takebe Ayatari, and
Okajima Kanzan
– Instrumental in developing the
yomihon (historical romances almost
entirely in prose)
• Influenced by Chinese ndVernacular Novels:
– Three Kingdoms and Shui hu zhuan
 Early-modern Literature (1603–
• Ueda Akinari: 1868)
– Wrote two yomihon masterpieces.
• Ugetsu monogatari and Harusame
monogatari
– wrote the extremely popular
fantasy/historical romance (yomihon)
• Nansō Satomi Hakkenden
• Santō Kyōden
– Wrote yomihon mostly set in the gay
quarters until the Kansei edicts
(Confucian philosophy) banned such work.
– He then turned to comedic kibyōshia (genre of
Japanese picture book kusazōshi)
 Early-modern Literature (1603–
1868)
• Genres included horror, crime stories,
morality stories, comedy, and
pornography—often
accompanied by colorful
woodcut prints.
• In the Tokugawa (in earlier
periods) scholarly work
continued to be published in
Chinese, which was the
language of the learned.
Modern Literature
(1868–1945)
 Modern Literature (1868–1945)
• The Meiji period
– Marks the re-opening of Japan to the West.
– A period of rapid industrialization.
• The Introduction of European literature
– brought free verse into the poetic repertoire.
– It became widely used for longer works embodying
new intellectual themes.
• Young Japanese prose writers and
dramatists
– struggled with a whole galaxy of new ideas and
artistic schools.
• Novelists
– the first to assimilate some of the new concepts successfully.
Modern Literature (1868–1945)

• A new colloquial literature developed

centering on the "I novel", with
some unusual protagonists.
– An exampe is Wagahai wa neko
de aru (I Am a Cat).
By: Natsume Sōseki
Modern Literature (1868–1945)
• Shiga Naoya (god of the novel), and Mori Ōgai
– were instrumental in adopting and
adapting Western literary
conventions and techniques.
• Ryūnosuke Akutagawa
– known especially for his historical
short stories.
• Ozaki Kōyō, Kyōka Izumi, and
Ichiyo Higuchi
– a strain of writers whose style hearkens
back to early-Modern Japanese literature.
Modern Literature (1868–1945)
• In the early Meiji period (1868–1880s),
– Fukuzawa Yukichi
• authored Enlightenment literature
– Pre-modern popular books depicted
the quickly changing country.
• In the mid-Meiji (late 1880s–early
1890s)
– Realism was brought in by
Tsubouchi Shōyō and
Futabatei Shimei
– Classicism of Ozaki Kōyō, Yamada
Bimyo and Kōda Rohan gained popularity.
Modern Literature (1868–1945)
• Ichiyō Higuchi
– a rare female writer in this era
– wrote short stories on powerless
women of this age in a simple style in
between literary and colloquial.
• Kyōka Izumi
– pursued a flowing and elegant style
– 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.
Modern Literature (1868–1945)
• Romanticism
– brought in by Mori Ōgai with his anthology of
translated poems (1889)
– Tōson Shimazaki and the
magazines, Myōjō and Bungaku-kai
in early 1900s carried it to it’s height.
• Mori Ōgai
– Wrote some modern novels, including:
• The Dancing Girl (1890)
• Wild Geese (1911)
– Later wrote historical novels.
Modern Literature (1868–1945)
• Natsume Sōseki
– often compared with Mori Ōgai,
– wrote I Am a Cat (1905) with humor
and satire,
– depicted fresh and pure youth in
Botchan (1906) and Sanshirô (1908).
– eventually pursued transcendence of
human emotions and egoism in his
later works including:
• Kokoro (1914)
• Light and darkness (1916)
– his last and unfinished novel.
Modern Literature (1868–1945)
• Shimazaki
– shifted from Romanticism to Naturalism.
– established with his:
• The Broken Commandment(1906)
• Katai Tayama's Futon (1907).
• Naturalism
– hatched "I Novel“
(Watakushi-shôsetu) that describes
about the authors themselves and
depicts their own mental states.
Modern Literature (1868–1945)
• Neo-romanticism
– came out of anti-naturalism
– led by Kafū Nagai, Jun'ichirō Tanizaki,
Kōtarō Takamura, Hakushū Kitahara,
and so on in the early 1910s.
• Saneatsu Mushanokōji,
Naoya Shiga and others.
– founded a magazine Shirakaba
in 1910.
– They shared a common characteristic,
Humanism.
Modern Literature (1868–1945)
• Shiga's style
– Autobiographical
– depicted states of his mind
– classified as "I Novel"
• Ryūnosuke Akutagawa
– highly praised by Soseki.
– wrote short stories including
Rashōmon (1915) with an
intellectual and analytic attitude
– represented Neo-realism in the mid-1910s.
Modern Literature (1868–1945)
• During the 1920s and early 1930s
– the proletarian literary movement,
comprising such writers as
Takiji Kobayashi, Denji
Kuroshima, Yuriko Miyamoto,
and Ineko Sata
• produced a politically radical
literature depicting the harsh lives
of people in the society.
 Modern Literature (1868–1945)
• War-time Japan
– saw the début of several authors
– best known for the beauty of their language and
their tales of love and sensuality.
• Notably:
– Jun'ichirō Tanizaki
– Japan's first winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, Yasunari
Kawabata, a master of psychological fiction.
– Ashihei Hino
• wrote lyrical bestsellers glorifying the war.
– Tatsuzō Ishikawa
• attempted to publish a disturbingly realistic account
of the advance on Nanjing.
– Writers who opposed the war include Denji
Kuroshima,Mitsuharu Kaneko, Hideo Oguma, and Jun
Ishikawa.
 Post-war
Literature
 Post-war Literature

• World War II, and Japan's defeat

– It deeply influenced Japanese
literature.
– Many authors wrote stories of
disaffection, loss of purpose,
and the coping with defeat.
 END
• Source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_literature

• Thank You!
• Hope you learned a lot!