Favor of Crows
Favor of Crows

Author: Gerald Vizenor

Publisher: Wesleyan University Press

Published: 2015-04-14

Total Pages: 169

ISBN-13: 0819574333

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A collection of original haiku from a preeminent Native American poet and novelist. Favor of Crows is a collection of new and previously published original haiku poems over the past forty years. Gerald Vizenor has earned a wide and devoted audience for his poetry. In the introductory essay the author compares the imagistic poise of haiku with the early dream songs of the Anishinaabe, or Chippewa. Vizenor concentrates on these two artistic traditions, and by intuition he creates a union of vision, perception, and natural motion in concise poems; he creates a sense of presence and at the same time a naturalistic trace of impermanence. The haiku scenes in Favor of Crows are presented in chapters of the four seasons, the natural metaphors of human experience in the tradition of haiku in Japan. Vizenor honors the traditional practice and clever tease of haiku, and conveys his appreciation of Matsuo Basho and Yosa Buson in these two haiku scenes, "calm in the storm / master basho soaks his feet /water striders," and "cold rain / field mice rattle the dishes / buson's koto." Vizenor is inspired by the sway of concise poetic images, natural motion, and by the transient nature of the seasons in native dream songs and haiku. "The heart of haiku is a tease of nature, a concise, intuitive, and an original moment of perception," he declares in the introduction to Favor of Crows. "Haiku is visionary, a timely meditation and an ironic manner of creation. That sense of natural motion in a haiku scene is a wonder, the catch of impermanence in the seasons." Check for the online reader's companion at favorofcrows.site.wesleyan.edu.

Classical World Literatures
Classical World Literatures

Author: Wiebke Denecke

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2013-11-25

Total Pages: 369

ISBN-13: 0199973695

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Ever since Karl Jaspers's "axial age" paradigm, there have been a number of influential studies comparing ancient East Asian and Greco-Roman history and culture. However, to date there has been no comparative study involving multiple literary traditions in these cultural spheres. This book compares the dynamics between the younger literary cultures of Japan and Rome and the literatures of their venerable predecessors, China and Greece. How were writers of the younger cultures of Rome and Japan affected by the presence of an older "reference culture," whose sophistication they admired, even as they anxiously strove to assert their own distinctive identity? How did they tackle the challenge of adopting the reference culture's literary genres, rhetorical refinement, and conceptual vocabulary for writing texts in different languages and within distinct political and cultural contexts? Classical World Literatures captures the striking similarities between the ways early Japanese authors wrote their own literature through and against the literary precedents of China, and the ways Latin writers engaged and contested Greek precedents. But it also brings to light suggestive divergences that are rooted in geopolitical, linguistic, sociohistorical, and aesthetic differences between early Japanese and Roman literary cultures. Proposing a methodology of "deep comparison" for the cross-cultural comparison of premodern literary cultures and calling for an expansion of world literature debates into the ancient and medieval worlds, Classical World Literatures is both a theoretical intervention and an invitation to read and re-read four major literary traditions in an innovative and illuminating light.

Masaoka Shiki
Masaoka Shiki

Author: Shiki Masaoka

Publisher: Columbia University Press

Published: 1997

Total Pages: 140

ISBN-13: 9780231110914

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These poems--more than a hundred haiku, several tanka, and three kanshi--are arranged chronologically within each genre, revealing the development of Masaoka Shiki's (1867-1902) art and the seamless way in which he wove his life and illness into his poetry. Watson's introduction deftly explores the course of Shiki's life and places him in relation to Japanese history, literature and thought.

Utamakura, Allusion, and Intertextuality in Traditional Japanese Poetry
Utamakura, Allusion, and Intertextuality in Traditional Japanese Poetry

Author: Edward Kamens

Publisher: Yale University Press

Published: 1997-01-01

Total Pages: 348

ISBN-13: 9780300068085

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Kamens focuses especially on one figure, "the buried tree," which refers to fossilized wood associated in particular with an utamakura site, the Natori River, and is mentioned in poems that first appear in anthologies in the early tenth century. The figure surfaces again at many points in the history of traditional Japanese poetry, as do the buried trees themselves in the shallow waters that otherwise conceal them. After explaining and discussing the literary history of the concept of utamakura, Kamens traces the allusive and intertextual development of the figure of the buried tree and the use of the place-name Natorigawa in waka poetry through the late nineteenth-century. He investigates the relationship between utamakura and the collecting of fetishes and curios associated with utamakura sites by waka connoisseurs.

Traditional Japanese Literature
Traditional Japanese Literature

Author: Haruo Shirane

Publisher: Columbia University Press

Published: 2012-09-25

Total Pages: 601

ISBN-13: 0231504535

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Haruo Shirane's critically acclaimed Traditional Japanese Literature: An Anthology, Beginnings to 1600, contains key examples of both high and low styles of poetry, drama, prose fiction, and essays. For this abridged edition, Shirane retains substantial excerpts from such masterworks as The Tale of Genji, The Tales of the Heike, The Pillow Book, the Man'yoshu, and the Kokinshu. He preserves his comprehensive survey of secular and religious anecdotes (setsuwa) as well as classical poems with extensive commentary. He features no drama; selections from influential war epics; and notable essays on poetry, fiction, history, and religion. Texts are interwoven to bring into focus common themes, styles, and allusions while inviting comparison and debate. The result is a rich encounter with ancient and medieval Japanese culture and history. Each text and genre is enhanced by extensive introductions that provide sociopolitical and cultural context. The anthology is organized by period, genre, and topic—an instructor-friendly structure—and a comprehensive bibliography guides readers toward further study. Praise for Traditional Japanese Literature: An Anthology, Beginnings to 1600 "Haruo Shirane has done a splendid job at this herculean task."—Joshua Mostow, University of British Columbia "A comprehensive and innovative anthology.... All of the introductions are excellent."—Journal of Asian Studies "One of those impressive, erudite, must-have titles for anyone interested in Asian literature."—Bloomsbury Review "An anthology that comprises superb translations of an exceptionally wide range of texts.... Highly recommended."—Choice "A wealth of material."—Monumenta Nipponica

Japanese Poetry and its Publics
Japanese Poetry and its Publics

Author: Dean Anthony Brink

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2017-10-02

Total Pages: 320

ISBN-13: 1351397702

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This book aims to explore precisely how modern Japanese poetry has remained central to public life in both Japan and its former colony of Taiwan. Though classical Japanese poetry has captivated the imagination of Asian studies scholars, little research has been conducted to explore its role in public life as a discourse influential in defining both the modern Japanese empire and contemporary postcolonial negotiations of identity. This book shows how highly visible poetry in regular newspaper columns and blogs have in various historical situations in Japan and colonial Taiwan contested as well as promoted diverse colonial imaginaries. This poetry reflects both contemporary life and traditional poetics with few counterpoints in Western media. Methodologically, this book offers a defense of the public influence of poetry, each chapter enlisting a wide range of social and media theorists from Japan, Europe, and North America to explore specific historical moments in an original recasting of intertextuality as a vital feature of active inter-evental material engagements. In this book, rather than recite a standard survey of literary movements and key poets, the approach taken is to examine uses of poetry shown not only to support colonialism and imperialism, emerging objectionable forms of exploitation as well as the destruction of ecologies (including old-growth forests in Taiwan and the Fukushima Disaster), but also to present a medium of resistance, a minor literature for registering protest, forming transnational affiliations, and promoting grass-roots democracy. The book is based on years of research and fieldwork partially in conjunction with the production of a documentary film, Horizons of the Rising Sun: Postcolonial Nostalgia and Politics in the Taiwan Tanka Association Today (2017).

Japanese Tales of Fantasy and Folklore
Japanese Tales of Fantasy and Folklore

Author:

Publisher: Tuttle Publishing

Published: 2024-09-03

Total Pages: 168

ISBN-13: 1462924972

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Supernatural tales from the most famous anthology in all of Japanese literature! The Konjaku Monogatari Shu is a collection of tales from Buddhist and popular Japanese folklore that was compiled in the twelfth century. The stories in this book tell of fearsome demons, tengu goblins, kitsune fox spirits, flying hermits and gods who suddenly appear out of nowhere to rescue foolish humans. There are tales of vengeful animals, robbers, bandits and murderers, as well as ordinary people from all walks of life. This volume contains the largest collection of Konjaku Monogatari stories ever translated into English. It presents the low and the high, the humble and the devout, and the flirting, farting and fornicating of everyday men and women. The ninety tales in this book include: A Clerk from Higo Province Escapes from a Demon's Scheme — A man riding his horse to work loses his way. A woman invites him to rest in her house, promising to help him, but the man soon realizes she is a demon, and flees. He hides in a cave, while the demon woman eats his horse. From deep in the cave comes the voice of another demon, and the man prays to Kannon, the Buddhist Goddess of Mercy, to save him. His prayers are heard, the demons release him, and he devouts himself to a life of piety. Empress Somedono Is Abused by a Tengu Goblin — A beautiful empress is plagued by an evil spirit, but an exorcism by a mystical high priest banishes the spirit. Delighted, her father asks the priest to live with them in the palace, but the priest ends up falling in love with the empress. The only way he can live with himself is by taking the form of a tengu goblin and casting a spell over the empress so that she will give in to his demands. A Fox Whose Ball is Returned Repays a Man's Kindness — A sorceress called to exorcise a haunted house discovers the spirit is a kitsune fox. A beautiful white ball materializes, belonging to the kitsune. A samurai, watching the exorcism, takes it. Desperate, the kitsune begs for its ball back, promising to protect the samurai, who reluctantly, agrees. One night, lost in the dark, the samurai calls on the kitsune for help and is guided safely home.

The Art of Haiku
The Art of Haiku

Author: Stephen Addiss

Publisher: Shambhala Publications

Published: 2022-11-29

Total Pages: 353

ISBN-13: 1645471217

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In the past hundred years, haiku has gone far beyond its Japanese origins to become a worldwide phenomenon—with the classic poetic form growing and evolving as it has adapted to the needs of the whole range of languages and cultures that have embraced it. This proliferation of the joy of haiku is cause for celebration—but it can also compel us to go back to the beginning: to look at haiku’s development during the centuries before it was known outside Japan. This in-depth study of haiku history begins with the great early masters of the form—like Basho, Buson, and Issa—and goes all the way to twentieth-century greats, like Santoka. It also focuses on an important aspect of traditional haiku that is less known in the West: haiku art. All the great haiku masters created paintings (called haiga) or calligraphy in connection with their poems, and the words and images were intended to be enjoyed together, enhancing each other, and each adding its own dimension to the reader’s and viewer’s understanding. Here one of the leading haiku scholars of the West takes us on a tour of haiku poetry’s evolution, providing along the way a wealth of examples of the poetry and the art inspired by it.