The Taiheiki

The Taiheiki PDF

Author: Kojima Hōshi

Publisher:

Published: 1959

Total Pages: 474

ISBN-13:

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"This celebrated literary classic has delighted generations of Japanese. In its pages, you will find a vivid contemporary description of the fourteenth-century intrigues and battles that led to the destruction of the Hojo family, the military overlords of the nation, and made it possible for the Emperor Go-Daigo (1288-1339), one of Japan's most remarkable sovereigns, to reassert the power of the throne. Go-Daigo's first hesitant attempts to overthrow the Hojo, the early defeats suffered by his supporters, his dethronement and exile, the legendary exploits of his generals, the growing strength of his arms, and his ultimate return to the throne are all recounted in engrossing detail. The anonymous authors of The Taiheiki diversify their narrative through skillful use of the rich treasure house of the Chinese dynastic histories, the verse of the Six Dynasties and T'ang, and the Confucian teachings underlying the strict warrior code of loyalty and filial piety. They write with a deep sense of the inevitability of karma--determined fate and the impermanence of man and his works--but the spirit of the age is reflected in their praise of valor and military prowess, their taste for descriptions of the trappings of war, and their frequent irreverent asides. Considered a part of the gunki monogatari, or war tales canon in Japan, The Taiheiki celebrates martial adventure and can be seen as a prose counterpart to the Homeric epics of the Iliad and the Odyssey." -- Amazon.com

Japanese Political Theatre in the 18th Century

Japanese Political Theatre in the 18th Century PDF

Author: Akihiro Odanaka

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2020-07-16

Total Pages: 363

ISBN-13: 0429620004

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Bunraku has fascinated theatre practitioners through its particular forms of staging, such as highly elaborated manipulation of puppets and exquisite coordination of chanters and shamisen players. However, Bunraku lacks scholarship dedicated to translating not only the language but also cultural barriers of this work. In this book, Odanaka and Iwai tackle the wealth of bunraku plays underrepresented in English through rexamining their siginifcance on a global scale. Little is written on the fact that bunraku theatre, despites its elegant figures of puppets and exotic stories, was often made as a place to manifest the political concerns of playwrights in the 18th century, hence a reflection of the audience's expectation that could not have materialized outside the theatre. Japanese Political Theatre in the 18th Century aims to make bunraku texts readable for those who are interested in the political and cultural implications of this revered theatre tradition.

From Sovereign to Symbol

From Sovereign to Symbol PDF

Author: Thomas Conlan

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2011-11-10

Total Pages: 246

ISBN-13: 0199778108

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Rather than looking at the collapse of Japan's first warrior government as the manipulation of rival courts by warrior factions, this study argues that the crucial ideological conflict of the 14th century was between the conservative forces of ritual precedent and the ritual determinists steeped in Shingon Buddhism.

Seeds in the Heart

Seeds in the Heart PDF

Author:

Publisher: Columbia University Press

Published: 1999

Total Pages: 1284

ISBN-13: 9780231114417

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Donald Keene, a noted authority in the field, offers a guide through the first 900 years of Japanese literature. This period not only defined the unique properties of Japanese prose and prosody, but also produced some of its greatest works.

A Book of Five Swords and a Scroll

A Book of Five Swords and a Scroll PDF

Author: Stanford D. Carman

Publisher: Lulu.com

Published: 2007-02

Total Pages: 146

ISBN-13: 1411627393

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A Book of Five Swords and a Scroll, is about five Japanese swords that came to the United States after W.W.II and a Japanese hanging scroll of a 'Seated Samurai. The book is richly illustrated with over 110 photographs of these swords, map segments, and other associated materials. There are three original short stories centered around three of the swords. The book also contains sections regarding Medieval Japan, the Samurai, Japanese Sword Smiths, and Japanese Sword Care and Cleaning; Detail Technical Data of these swords is included, and there is a short biography of artist of the scroll. The chapter about the scroll, regards a person famous in 14th Century Japanese History. Two of these swords are over 450 years old. n addition there is a short biography of a unique US Marine that fought at Wake Island, Dec 8, 1941 - Dec 23, 1941 in WWII and taken as a Prisiner Of War by the Japanese. He spent a total of 1350 Days as a POW in Camps in China and Japan. This version of the book is in Color.

The Iwakura Mission to America and Europe

The Iwakura Mission to America and Europe PDF

Author: Ian Nish

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2008-10-23

Total Pages: 172

ISBN-13: 1135318808

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Examines the top ministerial team sent in 1872 by the new Meiji government to the West in order to idenitify, classify and assess Western technology and culture, and to open a dialogue to review the so-called 'unequal treaties'.

Authorizing the Shogunate

Authorizing the Shogunate PDF

Author: Vyjayanthi R. Selinger

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2013-07-11

Total Pages: 211

ISBN-13: 9004255338

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The Genpei War of 1180-1185 signaled a crucial shift in Japanese history because it gave birth to the shogunate, or government run by warriors. How was the emergence of this new polity following a contentious civil war explained in literary texts? This book argues that political authority is made visible in the variant texts of the Heike monogatari corpus through rituals that map the ideal social-cosmic order, overwriting untidy historical realities. Artifacts of material culture likewise provide the social and political codes to authenticate warrior power and manage its violence. Through its focus on ritual and material practices, this book offers a new perspective on how texts from fourteenth century Japan harnessed symbolic understandings of authority to evoke order and contain rupture. Equally significant is its analysis of the Genpei jōsuiki a Heike monogatari variant that played a critical role in the retrospection of medieval Japan through the early modern period.

Sukeroku’s Double Identity

Sukeroku’s Double Identity PDF

Author: Barbara Thornbury

Publisher: University of Michigan Press

Published: 2020-06-01

Total Pages: 113

ISBN-13: 0472901907

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The aim of this book is to show that seemingly illogical double identity of the townsman, Sukeroku, and the samurai, Soga Goro, in the play Sukeroku is a surviving element of what was once a complex and coherent structure based on a traditional performance calendar. To show how the calendar function and what Sukeroku's double identity signifies, the book is divided into two parts. Part One studies the structure of Edo kabuki. The first chapter, which outlines that structure, is based for the most part on writings of the Tokugawa period. The second chapter then looks at the concepts of sekai, "tradition," and shuko, "innovation." Kabuki was the product of material that had become a familiar part of Japanese culture by repeated use and dramatization over long periods of time, starting before kabuki began, and material that was relatively new and was used to transform the older, set material. The double identity in Sukeroku came about as a result of this interplay between what was received by way of traditional and what was added by way of innovation. Part Two considers the significance of the double identity. The author concludes that Sukeroku's double identity gave Edo audiences a hero who was an idealization of the contemporary Tokugawa townsman and at the same time a transformation of a samurai god-hero of the past. The first chapter of Part Two traces the development of Sukeroku's Soga Goro/samurai identity, from its origins in the early dramatic forms of no, kowaka, and ko-joruri, to the representation of Soga Goro in kabuki by Ichikawa Danjuro I. The seconds then looks at the transformation of Soga Gorointo Sukeroku by discussing the origins of Sukeroku and its introductions to Edo kabuki by Ichikawa Danjuro I and his son, Danjuro II, since their work was the basis of all later developments.