A Poetics of Courtly Male Friendship in Heian Japan
A Poetics of Courtly Male Friendship in Heian Japan

Author: Paul Gordon Schalow

Publisher: University of Hawaii Press

Published: 2006-12-31

Total Pages: 234

ISBN-13: 0824830202

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Western scholars have tended to read Heian literature through the prism of female experience, stressing the imbalance of power in courtship and looking for evidence that women hoped to move beyond the constraints of marriage politics. Paul Schalow’s original and challenging work inherits these concerns about the transcendence of love and carries them into a new realm of inquiry—the suffering of noblemen and the literary record of their hopes for transcendence through friendship. He traces this recurring theme, which he labels "courtly male friendship," in five important literary works ranging from the tenth-century Tale of Ise to the early eleventh-century Tale of Genji. Whether authored by men or women, the depictions of male friendship addressed in this work convey the differing perspectives of male and female authors profoundly shaped by their gender roles in the court aristocracy. Schalow’s analysis clarifies in particular how Heian literature articulates the nobleman’s wish to be known and appreciated fully by another man.

Courtly Visions
Courtly Visions

Author: Joshua S. Mostow

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2015-02-04

Total Pages: 364

ISBN-13: 9004249435

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Courtly Visions: The Ise Stories and the Politics of Cultural Appropriation traces—through the visual and literary record—the reception and use of the tenth-century literary romance through the seventeenth century. Ise monogatari (The Ise Stories) takes shape in a salon of politically disenfranchised courtiers, then transforms later in the Heian period (794-1185) into a key subtext for autobiographical writings by female aristocrats. In the twelfth century it is turned into an esoteric religious text, while in the fourteenth it is used as cultural capital in the struggles within the imperial household. Mostow further examines the development of the standardized iconographies of the Rinpa school and the printed Saga-bon edition, exploring what these tell us about how the Ise was being read and why. The study ends with an Epilogue that briefly surveys the uses Ise was put to throughout the Edo period and into the modern day.

The Disaster of the Third Princess
The Disaster of the Third Princess

Author: Royall Tyler

Publisher: ANU E Press

Published: 2009-06-01

Total Pages: 252

ISBN-13: 1921536675

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

These seven essays by the most recent English translator of The Tale of Genji emphasize three major interpretive issues. What is the place of the hero (Hikaru Genji) in the work? What story gives the narrative underlying continuity and form? And how does the closing section of the tale (especially the ten 'Uji chapters') relate to what precedes it? Written over a period of nine years, the essays suggest fresh, thought-provoking perspectives on Japan¿s greatest literary classic.

Tales of Idolized Boys
Tales of Idolized Boys

Author: Sachi Schmidt-Hori

Publisher: University of Hawaii Press

Published: 2021-06-30

Total Pages: 267

ISBN-13: 0824886798

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

In medieval Japan (14th–16th centuries), it was customary for elite families to entrust their young sons to the care of renowned Buddhist priests from whom they received a premier education in Buddhist scriptures, poetry, music, and dance. When the boys reached adolescence, some underwent coming-of-age rites, others entered the priesthood, and several extended their education, becoming chigo, or Buddhist acolytes. Chigo served their masters as personal attendants and as sexual partners. During religious ceremonies—adorned in colorful robes, their faces made up and hair styled in long ponytails—they entertained local donors and pilgrims with music and dance. Stories of acolytes (chigo monogatari) from the fourteenth to sixteenth centuries form the basis of the present volume, an original and detailed literary analysis of six tales coupled with a thorough examination of the sociopolitical, religious, and cultural matrices that produced these texts. Sachi Schmidt-Hori begins by delineating various dimensions of chigo (the chigo “title,” personal names, gender, sexuality, class, politics, and religiosity) to show the complexity of this cultural construct—the chigo as a triply liminal figure who is neither male nor female, child nor adult, human nor deity. A modern reception history of chigo monogatari follows, revealing, not surprisingly, that the tales have often been interpreted through cultural paradigms rooted in historical moments and worldviews far removed from the original. From the 1950s to 1980s, research on chigo was hindered by widespread homophobic prejudice. More recently, aversion to the age gap in historical master-acolyte relations has prevented scholars from analyzing the religious and political messages underlying the genre. Schmidt-Hori’s work calls for a shift in the hermeneutic strategies applied to chigo and chigo monogatari and puts forth both a nuanced historicization of social constructs such as gender, sexuality, age, and agency, and a mode of reading propelled by curiosity and introspection.

A Proximate Remove
A Proximate Remove

Author: Reginald Jackson

Publisher: Univ of California Press

Published: 2021-06-22

Total Pages: 250

ISBN-13: 0520382544

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Preface : benefits of the doubt : questioning discipline and the risks of queer reading -- Introduction -- Translation fantasies and false flags : desiring and misreading queerness in premodern Japan -- Chivalry in shambles : fabricating manhood amidst architectural disrepair -- Going through the motions : half-hearted courtship and the topology of queer shame -- Queer affections in exile : textual mediation and exposure at Suma Shore -- From harsh stare to reverberant caress : queer timbres of mourning in "The Flute" -- Conclusion : learning from loss -- Afterword : teaching removal.

A Kamigata Anthology
A Kamigata Anthology

Author: Sumie Jones

Publisher: University of Hawaii Press

Published: 2020-02-29

Total Pages: 545

ISBN-13: 0824881761

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This is the first of a three-volume anthology of Edo- and Meiji-era urban literature that includes An Edo Anthology: Literature from Japan’s Mega-City, 1750–1850 and A Tokyo Anthology: Literature from Japan’s Modern Metropolis, 1850–1920. The present work focuses on the years in which bourgeois culture first emerged in Japan, telling the story of the rising commoner arts of Kamigata, or the “Upper Regions” of Kyoto and Osaka, which harkened back to Japan’s middle ages even as they rebelled against and competed with that earlier era. Both cities prided themselves on being models and trendsetters in all cultural matters, whether arts, crafts, books, or food. The volume also shows how elements of popular arts that germinated during this period ripened into the full-blown consumer culture of the late-Edo period. The tendency to imagine Japan’s modernity as a creation of Western influence since the mid-nineteenth century is still strong, particularly outside Japan studies. A Kamigata Anthology challenges such assumptions by illustrating the flourishing phenomenon of Japan’s movement into its own modernity through a selection of the best examples from the period, including popular genres such as haikai poetry, handmade picture scrolls, travel guidebooks, kabuki and joruri plays, prose narratives of contemporary life, and jokes told by professional entertainers. Well illustrated with prints from popular books of the time and hand scrolls and standing screens containing poems and commentaries, the entertaining and vibrant translations put a spotlight on texts currently unavailable in English.

Reading Roman Friendship
Reading Roman Friendship

Author: Craig A. Williams

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2012-10-18

Total Pages: 389

ISBN-13: 1139789171

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This book invites us to approach friendship not as something that simply is, but as something performed in and through language. Roman friendship is read across a wide spectrum of Latin texts, from Catullus' poetry to Petronius' Satyricon to the philosophical writings of Cicero and Seneca, from letters exchanged by the Emperor Marcus Aurelius and his beloved teacher Fronto, to those written by men and women at an outpost in northern Britain. One of the most innovative features of this study is the equal attention it pays to Latin literature and to inscriptions carved in stone across the Roman Empire. What emerges is a richly varied and perhaps surprising picture. Hundreds of epitaphs, commissioned by men and women, citizens and slaves, record the commemoration of friends, which is of equal importance to understanding Roman friendship as Cicero's influential essay De amicitia.

Mapping Courtship and Kinship in Classical Japan
Mapping Courtship and Kinship in Classical Japan

Author: Doris G. Bargen

Publisher: University of Hawaii Press

Published: 2015-08-31

Total Pages: 401

ISBN-13: 082485733X

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Literary critiques of Murasaki Shikibu's eleventh-century The Tale of Genji have often focused on the amorous adventures of its eponymous hero. In this paradigm-shifting analysis of the Genji and other mid-Heian literature, Doris G. Bargen emphasizes the thematic importance of Japan’s complex polygynous kinship system as the domain within which courtship occurs. Heian courtship, conducted mainly to form secondary marriages, was driven by power struggles of succession among lineages that focused on achieving the highest position possible at court. Thus interpreting courtship in light of genealogies is essential for comprehending the politics of interpersonal behavior in many of these texts. Bargen focuses on the genealogical maze—the literal and figurative space through which several generations of men and women in the Genji moved. She demonstrates that courtship politics sought to control kinship by strengthening genealogical lines, while secret affairs and illicit offspring produced genealogical uncertainty that could be dealt with only by reconnecting dissociated lineages or ignoring or even terminating them. The work examines in detail the literary construction of a courtship practice known as kaimami, or “looking through a gap in the fence,” in pre-Genji tales and diaries, and Sei Shōnagon’s famous Pillow Book. In Murasaki Shikibu’s Genji, courtship takes on multigenerational complexity and is often used as a political strategy to vindicate injustices, counteract sexual transgressions, or resist the pressure of imperial succession. Bargen argues persuasively that a woman observed by a man was not wholly deprived of agency: She could choose how much to reveal or conceal as she peeked through shutters, from behind partitions, fans, and kimono sleeves, or through narrow carriage windows. That mid-Heian authors showed courtship in its innumerable forms as being influenced by the spatial considerations of the Heian capital and its environs and by the architectural details of the residences within which aristocratic women were sequestered adds a fascinating topographical dimension to courtship. In Mapping Courtship and Kinship in Classical Japan readers both familiar with and new to The Tale of Genji and its predecessors will be introduced to a wholly new interpretive lens through which to view these classic texts. In addition, the book includes charts that trace Genji characters’ lineages, maps and diagrams that plot the movements of courtiers as they make their way through the capital and beyond, and color reproductions of paintings that capture the drama of courtship.

On the Process of Civilisation in Japan
On the Process of Civilisation in Japan

Author: Wai Lau

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2022-11-03

Total Pages: 442

ISBN-13: 3031114248

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This book charts the process of civilisation in Japan. Using the theory of civilising processes developed by Norbert Elias, the author examines the complex underlying structural and psychological processes from the seventh century to the twentieth century. Furthermore, by drawing on rich historical data, the author illustrates how these complex processes led the Japanese to see themselves as ‘more civilised’ than their forebears and neighbouring countries. Although the theory serves as an important reference point, the author draws on other works to address different complex questions surrounding Japanese development. Therefore, this book presents three key themes: first, it gives an alternative understanding of the complex developments of Japanese society; second, it intercedes into an ongoing debate about the applicability of Elias’s theory in a non-Western context; and third, it expands Elias’s theory.

Interdisciplinary Edo
Interdisciplinary Edo

Author: Joshua Schlachet

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2024-07-11

Total Pages: 277

ISBN-13: 1040050107

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Interdisciplinary Edo brings together scholars from across the methodological spectrum to explore new approaches to innovative humanistic research on early modern Japan (1603–1868). It makes an intervention in the field by thinking across conventional disciplinary boundaries toward a holistic and cohesive approach to Japan’s early modern period. By taking historical, religious, literary, and art historical analyses into account, the contributors hope to begin a new, transdisciplinary conversation on political formation, social interaction, and cultural proliferation under the “Great Peace” of the Tokugawa regime. This book comprises 14 essays by specialists of history, literature, religious studies, and art history. Major topics include Edo-period Japan’s cultural, intellectual, and economic connections to the early modern world; environmental humanities and material culture; popular culture and aesthetics; and the question of how contemporary academic demarcation lines impact the current study of Tokugawa Japan. Individual essays range in scale from individual paintings and works of prose fiction to the tectonic plates underlying the Yamashiro basin and span topics from overseas medicinal exchange and premodern cartography to the history of intoxication. Interdisciplinary Edo will be of immediate interest to all scholars focusing on the early modern period, as well as to researchers studying other periods of Japanese studies. As part of an ongoing and inclusive process of pluralizing and deprovincializing global conceptions of early modernity, this book will contribute to historiographical interventions outside Japan studies as well.