Japanese Culture: Identity and Tradition

What will be required of us in the exam?
Focus on the content of the lectures and the weekly required reading. You won't have to reproduce detailed information from the weekly reading. It wont be directly based on the readings.
There will be a series of short answer section.
The readings is to give you a deeper, more full understanding.

"Discuss the features of Heian literature"
The Tale of Genji (monogatari)
Aspects of the diary form.
The Pillow Book
Women were the primary authors of all that literature.
Answering this successfully depends on the amount of reading you have done.

Narratives / The Tale of the Heike
War tales
Narrative accounts of military struggles and battles.
Based on fact but embellished. Rekishi monogatari
Anonymously written or compiled.
The main two examples:
Heike Monogatari
We looked at this in the video.
The rise and fall of the Taira clan. Shift in political power from the court to the warrior class in the mid to late 12th century.
This is a significant shift into a new era. A shift of focus in power. The Emperor however remains until today as the symbol of power.

The chronicle of great peace (taiheiki)
Deals with the establishment of the Ashikaga / Muromachi shougunate in the late 14th century, and the fighting between the Northern and Southern Courts involved.

These both serve as significant sources, particularly the modern period, the ethic of the Samurai, because they deal mainly with them.

Th Heike monogatari.
Second only to Genji as a work of Prose literature.
But Heike is written with a mix of Japanese and Chinese words, like modern Japanese, unlike Genji.
It's heroes are commonly featured in Kabuki and Bubraku plays.

Themes/motifs
Fate (shouja Hissui). Impermanence (mujou)
those who flourish are destined to fall. Pride must have it's fall.
This theme is prominent throughout all Japanese literature.
The Taira are depicted as arrogant and conceited.
-all must fall. The brave, the resolute etc.
We all must perish!

Impermanence - life indeed is an empty vanity. It's all destined to end.
A bit like the glass is only temporarily intact.

The force of destiny.

Another theme is the historical one of the fall of the court and the rise of the Samurai.
Significant change in the political climate.

Genji/Minamoto clan

-The establishment of the first military government.
-The masculinity of the warriors, the femininity of the court.

The story covers a period of 90 years from 1131 to 1221.
Main focus on the 18 years from the time of Taira Kiyomori becoming Premier to the destruction of the Heike forces at Dan-no-ura.

Look at the structure / Features
It has been from the beginning an oral/performed narrative.
The authorship is a bit jumbled. Not clear entirely about how it was assembled.
It was one of the first highly successful examples of combining Chi and Jap words together, as with the modern standard.
Uses great rhythmic devices by utilising units of 12 syllables - 5:7 or 7:5 (like the poems) in the narration.
There are only 97 poems (all Waka / Tanka)
Appreciated for musical quality

Representatives of Men: Genji Warriors. Action, strong, brave, resolute, masculine, violent
Females tragic, sad, strong but suffering (due to having made the mistake of entering the lives of ambitious men) They are not wilting flowers, but they are one of tragedy of events that are upon them.

Tsukuri monogatari (Made Up)
They were fantasy w/ supernatural. Arose from folk law. Arose when literary culture came from China.
"The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter"

Uta monogatari (Poems)
Consist of poems and surrounding prose that is an account of the composition of the poems.
These tend to be realistic descriptions primarily of court life. They tend to be unconnected anecdotes rather than a continuation.

"Ise Monogatari".
The author is one of the good looking, great lover of history. He would usually compose poetry in relation to a particular woman.

These all came together to form the full prose form, the monogatari.

Poetry was vital for communication in Court love and romance.

Supreme masterpiece is the Genji Monogatari.
Single most important literary work.
Influences all literature and following forms of art.
Like Shakespeare in terms of plays, but doesn't convey the importance.

Lady in waiting to the Empress.

One of the great long works of world literature.
Often regarded as the world's first novel.
Psychological realism. You get a detailed picture of the characters.
Rigourously maintained time sequence.
Anticipation or build-up
Repeated imagery. Dreams
Transience or impermanence (Buddhist Influence)
Clever use of sound imagery. Sadness, grief or tragedy with the river.

Given the complexity, it's astounding that the poems were simple and undeveloped. It's a testament to the genius of Murasaki Shikibu.

Life, love, relationships are all fleeting and destined not to last. Impermanence.

Mono no aware

The inevitable awareness of life / love's impermanence. has a sad or poignant theme.

Has the ideas of karma and retribution.

Revolves around the rise of fujiwara power. Genji is not of the fujiwara plan. Relates to how he and others not of the clan come to an unfortunate end.

Diaries
Important in early Japanese literature.
We're looking at those from the Heian period.
Poetic diaries. As opposed to 'fact' diaries that simply relate record or fact, written in Chinese, and were only for men.
They were written in native kana, and reserved mainly for women.
They had considerable artistic licence, since the purpose of the form was to convey the authors emotion or feeling at a particular point in their life. The primary focus is not the factual information.

There can be great gaps between entries. They are dates, however.

They could write a diary covering a love affair. In this way they can have a sense of unity.
Murasaki also wrote her diary which conveys something of what it was like to be a lady of court in that period.

Diaries: Sensitive flows of the author.

Miscellanies
Collection of miscellaneous thoughts on correct behaviour and proper practice. You can get a more direct sense of the authors voice, since there is no intention of artifice.
"Following the meandering of the brush"
The pillow book - written at the same time as Genji. Author is a lady in waiting to another empress. Sei Shounagon.
Consists of lists or catalogues. Anecdotes on life at court, observations on nature, and on other people's behaviour.
Often used as a reference for other writers of poetry. She had lists of beautiful places.
Lists of things that she find awkward.
Things that look pretty but are bad inside.
Things that should not be seen by firelight.
Wit and humour. She has written it for fun, for her own amusement. Which doesn't happen again for ages. Most other authors are concerned with pathos 'aware'.
She engages freely with men in conversation, and doesn't hold back in showing how good she is at it.

"Essays in idleness". Written several centuries later in the Kamakura period.

The Nature of beauty and proper behaviour. Important for aesthetics in pre modern Japan. Things that are beautiful are beautiful because they are showing signs of their impermanence. A scroll fraying at the edges.
He also puts forward irregularity and asymmetry that become bedrock of Japanese aesthetics.
Mood viewing is considered to be most beautiful when it is partially hidden by clouds, or just about to disappear or come out.
Sakura - more beautiful when they are falling, not when they are all in perfect full bloom.
This has been a classic since the 17th century.
It is used in the education of the young right up until now. Dictates how people should behave and what is beautiful.
Influential in plays etc. Many of the not quite understood concepts of beauty in the Japanese can be attributed to this work. It's at the root of that particular response.

Order symmetry balance completion are aesthetics in western culture.

Notes and materials. Includes Slides with and without images, my notes to read from and the Presentation Outline to be submitted.

Literature I: Poetry [Week 3/Lecture 3]

▲Varley, H. Paul. 2000. Japanese culture. 4th ed. Honolulu: University of Hawaii
Press. pp.4—47, 58—61, 95—98, 121—124, 193—197

▲**Miner, E. R. Introduction To Japanese Court Poetry. Chapter 8 (pp.144—159)

▲**Levy, Ian Hideo. 1981. The ten thousand leaves: a translation of the Manyoshu,
Japan's premier anthology of classical poetry, Princeton library of Asian
translations. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. Introduction (pp.
3—33)

First anthology of poetry.
Collection from the second quarter of the 7th century to the middle of the eighth.
Poems from people of many walks of life
Some say that it preserves 'pure' Japanese voice, free from Chinese and Korean influence.
But there is a great mix of styles. Some Confucian and Taoist written in Chinese, and some just primitive Shinto.
A work that reflects the dramatic cultural growth of the time. Fujiwara Capital, the first City. The Buddhist growth and architecture. Nara (modelled after Tang China). The Manyoshuu was yet another of these grand things.
The writings are ingenious, and stretch back even back to Japan's pre literate past.
There are many based on Buddhism.

Girl with your basket,
with your pretty basket,
with your shovel.
your pretty shovel,
gathering shoots on the hillside here,
I want to ask your home.
Tell me your name!

On the plain of land,
smoke from the hearths rises, rises
On the plain of waters,
gulls rise one after another.

Yamato. The land. The birthplace of Japanese civilisation. The emperor's palace was always built somewhere around the Asuka plain, in the Yamato area (Western Honshuu). The position changed each time an emperor died to prevent pollution. They were always built around this area, however, until the capital was moved to Nara in northern Yamato.

The use of Chinese writing in Japanese court, while stilted, was the catalyst to consciousness of verbal expression as a specifically aesthetic, rather than ritual medium, and this consciousness was applied to Japanese writing as well.

Nature began to yeild to Princess Nukada's aesthetic judgements.
Japanese poems don't have meter or rhyme, but rely on rhythm of phrases with alternating numbers of syllables. By the 7th century the 5/7 rhythm had been established.
The two major forms are the 長歌 and 短歌.
Now many days and months have passed
since the voice of his morning commandments
fell silent,
and the Prince's courtiers
do not know which way to turn.

I struggled up here,
kicking the rocks apart,
but it did no good:
my wife, whom I thought
was of this world,
is ash.

“There is a high degree of imagistic and formulaic interplay within Hitomaro's poetry. it occurs not only between “public” and “private” expressions, but also between the three classical thematic categories of The Ten Thousand Leaves.” (p. 20)

Celebration
Longing
Bereavement

This is a land of fearful gossip!
Do not show your emotion,
do not be revealed in scarlet hues,
even if the longing kills you.

(IV.683)

Eroticism in The Ten Thousand Leaves is formulaic.

Whether sexual or just between friends, it's all under the heading if “Personal Exchange”

koi not “Love” but “Longing”.

751

Though several days
have yet to pass
since we saw each other,
how intensely I long for her,
driving madness upon madness!

752

What can I do
when she bears on my mind like this,
mere visions of her obsessing me?
What can I do
inside the thicket of men's eyes?

753

I thought that, after we had met,
my desire would be assuaged a while,
but now my longing rages all the more.

A development in the “Personal Exchanges” poems is the that of the psychological metaphor.

Like the hidden stream
trickling beneath the trees
down the autumn mountainside,
so does my love increase
more than yours, my Lord. (II, 92)

“Here nature provides an image of passion as an incremental force, an action of the emotions that, imperceptible at first, gathers in time. It is far more than a merely ornamental “prelude,” for it brings off a dynamic interplay between nature and the psyche in a way similar to that of the Homeric simile.”
More metaphor:

It is because my thoughts of her
follow one upon another -
like the bridge of planks
across the shallows of Mano Cove -
that I see my wife in my dreams?

(IV.490)

“The astonishing ease with which the phenomena of nature are transformed into symbolic images of psychological states is one of the great accomplishments of Japanese literature.”

Book five includes poems of times when it was all about Chinese.

But thankfully for the sake of Japanese literature, Japanese poets didn't just want to copy, and they applied their own language into their compositions.

Would I could obtain
a dragon steed right now,
so I could fly
to the capital at Nara,
beautiful in the blue earth.

(V.806)

Uses the Chinese Dragon Steed and also the Japanese pillow word of Nara in the same poem.

Okura shall take his leave now.
My child must be crying
and its mother,
who bears it on her back,
must be waiting for me.

(III.337)

Followed immediately by a poems in praise of wine, as a response to the self righteousness:

Rather than making pronouncements
with an air of wisdom,
it's better to down the wine
and sob drunken tears.

(III.341)

It's the contrasting natures of Taoism and Confucianism, one worshiping and proffering the freedom to commune with nature and one adhering to social and family responsibilities.

But this testifies the breadth of the Manyoushuu with the seriousness and carelessness of the two poets Okura and Tabito.

The manyoushuu was written in the mix of Semantic and Phonetic Chinese, as it was written before the mature development of hiragana. After it was written, the 8th century saw Chinese become more popular for writing, so native literature suffered. But in 951 the Emperor decided to decipher it which took thousands of scholars many centuries, and their texts are the bases for modern interpretations.

▲**Rodd, Laurel Rasplica, Mary Catherine Henkenius, and Tsurayuki Ki. 1984.
Kokinshu: a collection of poems ancient and modern, Princeton library of
Asian translations. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. Introduction
(pp. 3—34)

▲**Miner, E. R. 1979. Japanese linked poetry: an account with translations of renga
and haikai sequences. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.
Introduction (pp. 3—18)

Kobayashi Masaki "Kaidan"
Ghost stories and horror stories. Miminashi no houichi.
Buddhist Acolyte who is blind.

Can see the rest of it in the library if you wish.

MUSO is now live.

In presentation, discuss women in Heian Japan.
Transformation of Masculine to Feminine literature in Japan.
Love/Desire theme in Genji


What was happening in Europe at the time? Look up some timelines on Wikipedia.

Don't panic if you can't get to 10 references on a topic if there aren't many. The literary and dramatic arts have had a lot written on them.

Footnotes are preferred to end notes. Choose any referencing system, just be consistent.
Make sure you're acknowledging all sources.

You can pretty much write on anything you like.

There's all this bad reporting about Japan going around in the Herald Sun, and also the Age. Still playing on the steriotypes. I wonder what their sources are?? Or what calls for that kind of article?

I wish we were ablt to post comments on all articles. I guess we can, on our own sites.