Japanese Culture: Identity and Tradition

JPS2150/JPS3150
Japanese Culture: Identity and Tradition
Semester I 2006

Examination Question Information

The examination consists of two parts. You are required to answer SIX questions in total, THREE from Part I and THREE from Part II. There are five questions to choose from in Part I and four questions to choose from in Part II. Answers to questions from Part I (worth 20 marks each) should aim to be approximately 300 words (3 paragraphs, or 30 lines) in length, and answers to questions from Part II (worth 10 marks each) should aim to be approximately 100 words (1 paragraph, or 10 lines) in length.

Part I (20 marks ea, 3 paragraphs)
The questions in Part I require you to be able to:

1. discuss the development of/changes in poetry in the pre-modern period
First there was the manyooshuu, and then this progressed into the forms of Waka/tanka, which were natively Japanese. Themes of nature, love and longing, the progressions of a love affair, and impermanence in the Buddhist sense.

along slender threads
of delecate twisted green
translucent dew drops
string as small fragile jewles-
new pillow webs in spring

Henjoo

lost in idle brooding
That swells with the long rains
A river of tears
That soaks only my sleeves -
There is no way to meet you.

Then we have Renga, or linked verse poetry, of the initial and capping verses. 5,7,5. The linked chain does not make a coherent whole. Classical and comic renga, 100 stanzas vs 36. Began as a frivolous diversion from waka / tanka, then develops into a serious form in the muromachi. Desc. of every day life. More spontaneous and speedy. A laracin diversion to serious waka.

Haiku
5,7,5, three lines.
Many topics and themes, everyday to profound.
response to a present moment
microcosm and macrocosm, universal and particular.
Free of conventions apart from the formal structure.
Matsu Basho brought it to full maturity in sixteen hundreds.
The 'present moment' theme.
Formed from the opening stanza of renga - or Hokku
They began to be deemed as being able to be appreciated as verses unto themselves.

It was Basho who wrote the famous:
An ancient pond -
A frog jumps in,
The sound of water

様々の
ことを思い出す
桜かな

Basho
2. discuss the features of Heian prose literature
monogatari

"The Tale of Genji : (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition) (Penguin Classics Deluxe Editio)" (Murasaki Shikibu)

The elements of tsukurimonogatari and utamonogatari came together in the 10th century to form the full narrative from. The use of poetry was an integral part of communication in court life. This is where Murasaki Shikibu walks in with her tale of Genji, which uses physiological realism in an organised, structured scheme which makes it often touted as the world's first novel.
This period of literature was dominated by women.
Sophisticated use of anticipation or build-up
repetition, sustained imagery, and of course, transience, impermanence, sadness, greif,
Aware/mono no aware - the essential pathos of life/things. the inevitable awareness of life's/love's impermenance.
Because it was written in 'women's hand', and read mostly by women in court life, the story itself is about a fictional man who actually cared and loved for his wives, even after he had fallen out of love with them. Of course this is fictional but it related to the wants of court ladies, who, much like the women who read romance novels of today, dreamed of the perfect man.

Diaries
Women were pawns in court life, but could be influential if they were strong headed.
Jealousy and rivalry between women, as men several concubines, yet jealousy was a shunned emotion.
Men came and visited as they pleased, and this was kind of the defining quality of a man. therefore the women were always in waiting, listless, and their emotion was consumed by jealousy.
Poetry was central to the communication between men and women, which built up import around the writing of letters etc.
They also wrote diaries concerned with matters that they delt with. Family, death, love, nature, time.

When, then, if not at the ripe age of 27, are you going to turn around and say, no, this is not what I want to do. You need to make the decision!

The literary work and the circumstances are believed to be intimately connected. This is to say that they weren't making this all up. They are an artistic reconstruction of fact. The recordings were irregular and free. Contrasted with the natural/fact diaries kept by men in Chinese - the women wrote about emotions of life in the native script of kana.

Literary expression regarded as an expression of the flow of experience/sensitive response of the writer.
Miscellaneous.
Observations, thoughts, comments on behaviour, and what is proper. (The pillow book, essays in idleness)

"The Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon" (Columbia University Press)

Essays in idleness sets the ground for the aesthetic of beauty as bound to perishability (think sakura). The irregular, and asymmetrical, the aesthetic of beginnings and ends, the importance of understatement, restraint and detachment. It is central to the development of Japanese taste, and is at the root of many well known understandings of Japanese culture right up till now.

"Essays in Idleness" (Columbia University Press)

3. discuss the features of Noh as a dramatic art
4. discuss the emergence and development of Kabuki
5. discuss the purpose of the Tea Ceremony

Part II (10 marks ea, 100 words)
The questions in Part II require you to be able to:

1. describe the features of narrative picture scrolls (emaki/emakimono) OR ukiyo-e
2. discuss two of the aesthetic concepts dealt with in the unit
3. discuss the theme of giri-ninjō as it appears in the work of Chikamatsu Monzaemon
(you will be required to be able to give an example of a specific work in which this
theme is operating, explaining how it is operating in the example you give)
4. describe the ways in which the fiction of the writer Ihara Saikaku can be said to
manifest a realism
Alive in the 16 hundreds
Describes life in the pleasure quarters - the books of the floating world.
With the rigid stratification of classes in the Tokugawa/Edo period, there was a strong emphasis on Confucian doctrines like obedience and duty, loyalty and obligation. The alternate attendance system in place, peace brought a boom in economics and transportation. The lower classes, who were literate, began artistic pursuits of their own. Urban culture flourished. Ihara Saikaku's work was popular when he wrote it, but was disregarded in the 18th and 19th centuries as 'not proper', but was rediscovered as a pioneer of realism in literature.

"好色一代男" (作者不詳)

Three categories for his work:
#1 'Love', desire sex - the pleasure quarter.

"Five Women Who Loved Love" (Ihara Saikaku)

#2 Love/fidelity, honour, vengence, duty/obligation/loyalty (giri) of the samurai

"The Great Mirror of Male Love" (Ihara Saikaku)

#3 Focus of the merchants / townsmen
Financial success or failure
Scrambling to pay debts

"This Scheming World (Tuttle Classics of Japanese Literature)" (Ihara Saikaku)

He's noted for his realism, because of the actual depiction of people's lives, everything is plausible - there's nothing supernatural, and he realistically depicted humans, with all their eccentricities. He focuses on detailed descriptions of the material world and its objects.
The plot is simple and straightforward, and is often episodical / in sketches. The use of colloquial language also ads to the realism. It provides a vivid picture of the merchant class.
Despite the social realism, there is no social criticism. He depicts his characters without criticism and as participants in human life.

I'm writing my essay now... being a busy beaver!

But it's a bit of a chore really.


I AM interested in what I'm writing about. The whole wabi thing strangely hits home. Like this one:

"People often say that a set of books look ugly if all volumes are not in the same format, but I was impressed to hear the Aboot Kouyuu say " It is typical of the unintelligent man to insist on assembling complete sets of everything. Imperfect sets are better". In everything, no matter what it may be, uniformity is undesirable. Leaving something incomplete makes it interesting, and gives one the feeling that there is room for growth."
Kenkoo, on wabi-sabi aesthetics.

It's influence traditionally and also in modern times.

Aware / mono no aware
The beauty of pathos, poignancy, sensitivity to things, the capacity to be moved emotionally by things.
An inherent pathos/poingancy of life. Inherently fleeting, insubstantial (and therefore lonely) nature.
It is this that in the beginning Japanese poets saw as the highest form of Aesthetic impression.

Waka (classical, court poetry) this is the central element / aesthetic of the tale of Genji.

In oldest use an exclamation of surprise or delight, but then gradually becomes a reaction tinged with melancholy/poignancy/sadness.

In the Manyooshuu, mid 8th century) it is most commonly used to express the emotion evoked in poets on hearing the melancholy call of birds and animals.

Kokinshuu (905), perceive the brevity of life by observing nature.

"to the quiet and the ephemeral beauty of a dew touched garden in the morning"
This sensitivity to things as central to the refined elegance (miyabi) which was the key element in the life / behaviour of the courtier and court lady.

My early medieval period (late 12th, early 13th) the association of aware with sadness and loneliness (sabi) had become particularly strong.

Aware/ mono no aware the most fundamental aesthetic concept in Japanese culture.

Yuugen
The beauty of mystery and depth, profundity, the mystery and profundity of existence.

Suggestion / understatement / intimation / symbolism gesturing towards great depth. Towards things that cannot be grasped or expressed in language. Towards the eternal or spiritual.

Associated not only with Noh theatre, but also poetry. Monochrome / ink painting, Zen gardens, the Tea Ceremony and te arts of the medieval period. But most chiefly associated with the Noh theatre.

Manifested in Noh through
It's a symbolic theatre, not based on direct realism. Through stillness and minimalist movements of the actor. This is because it is meant to prompt the viewer into a consideration of the profound.

Developed primarily out of a shift in the late Heian / early Kamakura periods towards placing the highest value in poetry on lingering on emotion or resonance (yojoo), depth and mystery through suggestion.

[There are some beautiful examples in the slides. ]

Wabi / Sabi
The two are
Wabi - Lack, deprived, poverty stricken.
Sabi - loneliness, the desolate, oldness and agedness, fadedness.

Associated with most of the art forms and artistic practices of the medieval period (kamakura, Muromachi) but in particular, as sabi, with poetry (renga and haiku [primarily bashoo].

The wabi aesthetic in the Tea Ceremony.
-Simple, aesthetic, unpretentious beauty.
Lack of adornment of utensils, chashitsu and the practice of the ceremony itself.
Evokes elemental, pure beauty. An elemental beauty. Transcendent.

Imperfect, irregular beauty.

Austere, irregular beauty.
Rigourous simplicty and lack of adornment in the tea utensils.

Overview -- Essays in Idleness (つれずれぐさ）
Kamakura - Muromachi Period

Aware, Yuugen, wabi/sabi. These three concepts are interconnected.

These three are the most important aesthetics in Japanese culture, and have played the most significant role.

How is tradition constructed?

How is it that elements central to tradition
The 'classics' are not immutable. They are constructed that they reflects the
They are constructed by history.
What makes it a classic, or great - eligible to be deemed in a cultural tradition, is how it is conceived and how value in it is generated, how it is reproduced and constructed in different ways.
Any work in any genre is constantly being reproduced and re created from the instant it is created.

There was this literary hierarchy of 'value', ranging from the highest of Chinese literature to the bottom - monogatari.

Learning and culture in general was all about Chinese learning.
This was demoted around the medieval period, and then further demoted at the coming of the Meiji restoration, when western literature was put on the highest rung.

In the kokinshuu, the preface was written in native language, in an attempt to raise the regard for the Japanese language.

I'm going to have to spend all day tomorrow in the library researching my Tea Ceremony Essay.

It's influence traditionally and also in modern times.

Aware / mono no aware
The beauty of pathos, poignancy, sensitivity to things, the capacity to be moved emotionally by things.
An inherent pathos/poingancy of life. Inherently fleeting, insubstantial (and therefore lonely) nature.
It is this that in the beginning Japanese poets saw as the highest form of Aesthetic impression.

Waka (classical, court poetry) this is the central element / aesthetic of the tale of Genji.

In oldest use an exclamation of surprise or delight, but then gradually becomes a reaction tinged with melancholy/poignancy/sadness.

In the Manyooshuu, mid 8th century) it is most commonly used to express the emotion evoked in poets on hearing the melancholy call of birds and animals.

Kokinshuu (905), perceive the brevity of life by observing nature.

"to the quiet and the ephemeral beauty of a dew touched garden in the morning"
This sensitivity to things as central to the refined elegance (miyabi) which was the key element in the life / behaviour of the courtier and court lady.

My early medieval period (late 12th, early 13th) the association of aware with sadness and loneliness (sabi) had become particularly strong.

Aware/ mono no aware the most fundamental aesthetic concept in Japanese culture.

Yuugen
The beauty of mystery and depth, profundity, the mystery and profundity of existence.

Suggestion / understatement / intimation / symbolism gesturing towards great depth. Towards things that cannot be grasped or expressed in language. Towards the eternal or spiritual.

Associated not only with Noh theatre, but also poetry. Monochrome / ink painting, Zen gardens, the Tea Ceremony and te arts of the medieval period. But most chiefly associated with the Noh theatre.

Manifested in Noh through
It's a symbolic theatre, not based on direct realism. Through stillness and minimalist movements of the actor. This is because it is meant to prompt the viewer into a consideration of the profound.

Developed primarily out of a shift in the late Heian / early Kamakura periods towards placing the highest value in poetry on lingering on emotion or resonance (yojoo), depth and mystery through suggestion.

[There are some beautiful examples in the slides. ]

Wabi / Sabi
The two are
Wabi - Lack, deprived, poverty stricken.
Sabi - loneliness, the desolate, oldness and agedness, fadedness.

Associated with most of the art forms and artistic practices of the medieval period (kamakura, Muromachi) but in particular, as sabi, with poetry (renga and haiku [primarily bashoo].

The wabi aesthetic in the Tea Ceremony.
-Simple, aesthetic, unpretentious beauty.
Lack of adornment of utensils, chashitsu and the practice of the ceremony itself.
Evokes elemental, pure beauty. An elemental beauty. Transcendent.

Imperfect, irregular beauty.

Austere, irregular beauty.
Rigourous simplicty and lack of adornment in the tea utensils.

Overview -- Essays in Idleness (つれずれぐさ）
Kamakura - Muromachi Period

Aware, Yuugen, wabi/sabi. These three concepts are interconnected.

These three are the most important aesthetics in Japanese culture, and have played the most significant role.

The Tea Ceremony
Originated in China (as much of what we look at did) but it was cultivated especially by Japan.

Technically speaking it's not an art form as such, it's a practice, a living art, if you like. But it has no written or visual aspect of it.

Tea was brought to Japan from China, right at the beginning of contact with China.

Not only as a beverage, but also a social pastime of the people of the court.

The popularity decreases, but Zen Buddhism preists at the end of the 12th century bring it back into popularity with renewed contact with China. This was because of it's health attributes - to mind and body, and as a stimulant during long mediation sessions (to keep them alert and awake). 禅　means to meditate.

Powdered tea was developed for this purpose.

By the 13th and 14th centuries, consumption spreads over all classes, and in the 14th century tea judging contests arise as a pastime amongst the samurai elite.

The display of initially primarily elite scrolls

During the 15th century rules were codified:　茶室
Based on study rooms in Zen temples. This was the appropriate place to gather for tea. The consumption of tea becomes an aesthetic practice.

The 16th century saw the development of the tea room that we see today. Tatami room (small) with a recess for displaying a single aesthetic arangement. (Flower, hanging). And maybe a recess for boiling the tea. Sometimes with a low "crawling" entranceway.

The tea room is austere, natural, rather than showing displays of wealth etc.
The wabi-cha aesthetic here - taking this to the extreme, we have what we see today.

Use native, rough textured pottery, unadorned, minimal utensils. 4.5 - 6 mats in the tea room. The room is unadorned except for the simplest of hanging or arrangement.

It's a ritualised practice of the consumption of tea for an aesthetic and spiritual experience. There's an appreciation of the objects of the objects in the room. The bamboo whisk, and the bowl etc. Each utensil is there for not only it's practical use but also it's aesthetic appreciation.

The entire process is scripted.

It's powdered tea, so it needs to be whisked.
Contemplating the tea bowl
Contemplating the flower on display.

The actual tea drinking is a miniscule amount of time compared to everything else.

There is only one bowl used, so each othe guests iff number(guests) > 1.

There is a host figure who does the preparation and the serving and the cleaning up.

Guests bring a serviette

The Wabi aesthetic - the concept of beauty associated with austereness, simplicity, poverty... more on that later.

The process is also about meditation. Practice is a key element in Zen. Not just Zazen, which is sitting mediation. Pracice itself is also viewed as a form of meditation.
Wabi - lack, lacking things, deprived, poverty-stricken.
Tea Ceremony isn't the only art form which employs it.
-Simple, unpretentious beauty.
Manifested in utensils, and the room itself.
Purity. The beauty of purity. Elemental beauty - not complicated.
Transcendant beauty, The lack of ornamentality.
Imperfect, irregular beauty.
Wooden pillars, cracks in the bowl. Bumps, etc aren't smoothed out.

We have a concept of beauty that rises from the irregularity and appreciation of natural untouched things.
things un worked by human hands.

Austere, stark beauty
Tranquility
Purity
A cold, 'withered' beauty (contrast to vivid or striking beauty - fullness of development and colour and completeness.)
Simple beauty

The tea ceremony as a spiritual practice.
Tea drinking was still around before Zen Buddhism arrived, but was re introduced in the Kamakura period by Zen Budddhist priests and monks.

The chief emphasis of Zen Buddhism - attain enlightenment through meditation
Other sects are more Salvationist like Christianity and Islam, where faith is placed in Jesus Christ / God. Whereas with Zen it is attained through contemplation. Through eradication of the self through meditation.
That can be anything from sweeping the floor, to anything really. Can be considered a form of meditation.

The tea ceremony as a spiritual practice
naturalness , irregularity, imperfection maps over the humility and harmony of the natural world.

The goal is to become to loose awareness of the self, and become one with the cosmos. It doesn't happen every time of course, but that's the goal.

[] Is there anywhere to do it in メルボルン？

好色
好色本
好色
一代の男 The life of an amorous man.
He elevated writing about this thing to it's own kind of genre.

Koushoku became a form of writing (trashy romance?) in Tokugawa Japan. About the physical side of love. Initiated by Saikaku, a writer who became popular for writing about sex. The tale of genji has the same theme, but it isn't expressed in the same way. He presents it as physical desire. The pleasure quarters were a legitimate way for merchants to spend time and money.

Saikaku's writing is probably the most accessible of all the literature we cover in this class for English readers. They're surprisingly engaging even if not so deep as modern writing.

Homosexuality was not perceived as being out of the ordinary, it was ordinary. You only get homosexuality as being deviant after contact with the west. It was not unusual in Tokugawa Japan. So writers wrote about it freely.

[] what about constructing a timeline of Japanese Art History . Wiki style so that people can add to them? Advertise it for the subject so people can add to it. Blog style?


What about a vertical timeline that goes down a page where you can edit text in boxes. put images etc.