Yamamba

Yamamba PDF

Author: Rebecca Copeland

Publisher: Stone Bridge Press, Inc.

Published: 2021-06-22

Total Pages: 144

ISBN-13: 1611729483

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Alluring, nurturing, dangerous, and vulnerable the yamamba, or Japanese mountain witch, has intrigued audiences for centuries. What is it about the fusion of mountains with the solitary old woman that produces such an enigmatic figure? And why does she still call to us in this modern, scientific era? Co-editors Rebecca Copeland and Linda C. Ehrlich first met the yamamba in the powerful short story “The Smile of the Mountain Witch” by acclaimed woman writer Ōba Minako. The story revealed the compelling way creative women can take charge of misogynistic tropes, invert them, and use them to tell new stories of female empowerment. This unique collection represents the creative and surprising ways artists and scholars from North America and Japan have encountered the yamamba.

Yamamba's Mountains

Yamamba's Mountains PDF

Author: Linda C. Ehrlich

Publisher: ATBOSH Media Ltd.

Published: 2019-11

Total Pages: 20

ISBN-13: 1626131724

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These writings are inspired by the medieval-period Japanese Noh play Yamamba, and by Ohba Minako’s short story “Smile of a Mountain Witch” which contemporizes the Yamamba legend.Yamamba (sometimes written as “Yamauba”) is an elderly figure who is alternately described as a “witch” or a “holy spirit.” The first act of the Noh play presents a priest and dancer on pilgrimage to Zenkoji Temple (literally “Temple of the Good Light”) who encounter a powerful and ambiguous figure of an old woman in the mountain. The travellers comment on the strange changes in Nature that day, with the sky suddenly darkening. By the second act, the old woman has exited and returned to reveal herself fully as Yamamba, her true self, with matted white hair and a reddened face. Yamamba is a paradoxical figure. She aids the woodsman and the weaver, but also hides the sun behind storm clouds and frightens the traveller. Stamping the ground, pointing to the center of the earth with her fan, Yamamba leans on her cane (decorated with evergreen leaves) and shares with us her journey as she traverses the mountain paths, in pain.

The Woman’s Hand

The Woman’s Hand PDF

Author: Paul Gordon Schalow

Publisher: Stanford University Press

Published: 1996

Total Pages: 546

ISBN-13: 9780804727228

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This volume has a dual purpose. It aims to define the state of Japanese literary studies in the field of women's writing and to present cross-cultural interpretations of Japanese material of relevance to contemporary work in gender studies and comparative literature.

Japanese No Dramas

Japanese No Dramas PDF

Author:

Publisher: Penguin UK

Published: 1992-10-29

Total Pages: 384

ISBN-13: 0141907800

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Japanese nõ theatre or the drama of 'perfected art' flourished in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries largely through the genius of the dramatist Zeami. An intricate fusion of music, dance, mask, costume and language, the dramas address many subjects, but the idea of 'form' is more central than 'meaning' and their structure is always ritualized. Selected for their literary merit, the twenty-four plays in this volume dramatize such ideas as the relationship between men and the gods, brother and sister, parent and child, lover and beloved, and the power of greed and desire. Revered in Japan as a cultural treasure, the spiritual and sensuous beauty of these works has been a profound influence for English-speaking artists including W. B. Yeats, Ezra Pound and Benjamin Britten.

The Book of Yokai, Expanded Second Edition

The Book of Yokai, Expanded Second Edition PDF

Author: Michael Dylan Foster

Publisher: Univ of California Press

Published: 2024

Total Pages: 479

ISBN-13: 0520403886

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"Revised and expanded, this second edition of The Book of Yōkai features an all new yōkai picture gallery-with dozens of stunning color images-tracing the visual history of yōkai across centuries. With additional entries and fifty new illustrations, Michael Dylan Foster unpacks the history and cultural context of an even larger cast of yōkai, interpreting their varied meanings and introducing people who have pursued them through the ages. Monsters, spirits, fantastic beings, and supernatural creatures haunt the folklore and popular culture of Japan. Broadly labeled yōkai, they appear in many forms, from tengu mountain goblins and kappa water sprites, to shape-shifting kitsune foxes and long-tongued ceiling-lickers. Popular today in anime, manga, film, and video games, many yōkai originated in local legends, folktales, and regional ghost stories. The Book of Yōkai invites readers to examine how people create, transmit, and collect folklore, and how they make sense of the mysteries in the world around them"--

The Book of Yokai

The Book of Yokai PDF

Author: Michael Dylan Foster

Publisher: Univ of California Press

Published: 2015-01-14

Total Pages: 330

ISBN-13: 0520271017

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Monsters, ghosts, fantastic beings, and supernatural phenomena of all sorts haunt the folklore and popular culture of Japan. Broadly labeled yokai, these creatures come in infinite shapes and sizes, from tengu mountain goblins and kappa water spirits to shape-shifting foxes and long-tongued ceiling-lickers. Currently popular in anime, manga, film, and computer games, many yokai originated in local legends, folktales, and regional ghost stories. Drawing on years of research in Japan, Michael Dylan Foster unpacks the history and cultural context of yokai, tracing their roots, interpreting their meanings, and introducing people who have hunted them through the ages. In this delightful and accessible narrative, readers will explore the roles played by these mysterious beings within Japanese culture and will also learn of their abundance and variety through detailed entries, some with original illustrations, on more than fifty individual creatures. The Book of Yokai provides a lively excursion into Japanese folklore and its ever-expanding influence on global popular culture. It also invites readers to examine how people create, transmit, and collect folklore, and how they make sense of the mysteries in the world around them. By exploring yokai as a concept, we can better understand broader processes of tradition, innovation, storytelling, and individual and communal creativity. Ê

Genesis, Structure, and Meaning in Gary Snyder's Mountains and Rivers Without End

Genesis, Structure, and Meaning in Gary Snyder's Mountains and Rivers Without End PDF

Author: Anthony Hunt

Publisher: University of Nevada Press

Published: 2016-12-20

Total Pages: 354

ISBN-13: 0874174767

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When Gary Snyder’s long poem Mountains and Rivers Without End was published in 1996, it was hailed as a masterpiece of American poetry. Anthony Hunt offers a detailed historical and explicative analysis of this complex work using, among his many sources, Snyder’s personal papers, letters, and interviews. Hunt traces the work’s origins, as well as some of the sources of its themes and structure, including Nō drama; East Asian landscape painting; the rhythms of storytelling, chant, and song; Jungian archetypal psychology; world mythology; Buddhist philosophy and ritual; Native American traditions; and planetary geology, hydrology, and ecology. His analysis addresses the poem not merely by its content, but through the structure of individual lines and the arrangement of the parts, examining the personal and cultural influences on Snyder’s work. Hunt’s benchmark study will be rewarding reading for anyone who enjoys the contemplation of Snyder’s artistry and ideas and, more generally, for those who are intrigued by the cultural and intellectual workings of artistic composition.

Japan's Golden Age

Japan's Golden Age PDF

Author: Dallas Museum of Art

Publisher: Yale University Press

Published: 1996-01-01

Total Pages: 332

ISBN-13: 0300094078

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A time of dramatic social and political change, and of brilliant artistic innovation and achievement, the Momoyama period (1568 - 1615) was one of the most dynamic eras in Japan’s history. This book displays spectacular Momoyama masterpieces in many media - paintings, sculpture, calligraphy, tea ceremony utensils, lacquerware, ceramics, metalwork, arms and armor, textiles, and Noh masks - and places each work of art into its historical and cultural context.

Traditional Japanese Theater

Traditional Japanese Theater PDF

Author: Karen Brazell

Publisher: Columbia University Press

Published: 1998

Total Pages: 580

ISBN-13: 9780231108737

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The first book of its kind: a collection of the most important genres of Japanese performance--noh, kyogen, kabuki, and puppet theater--in one comprehensive, authoritative volume.

A Sense of the Whole

A Sense of the Whole PDF

Author: Mark Gonnerman

Publisher: Catapult

Published: 2015-06-09

Total Pages: 212

ISBN-13: 1619025027

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In 1997, Mark Gonnerman organized a yearlong research workshop on Gary Snyder's Mountains and Rivers Without End at the Stanford Humanities Center. Members of what came to be known among faculty, students, and diverse community members as the Mountains & Rivers Workshop met regularly to read and discuss Snyder's epic poem. Here the poem served as a commons that turned the multiversity into a university once again, if only for a moment. The Workshop invited writers, teachers and scholars from Northern California and Japan to speak on various aspects of Snyder's great accomplishment. This book captures the excitement of these gatherings and invites readers to enter the poem through essays and talks by David Abram, Wendell Berry, Carl Bielefeldt, Tim Dean, Jim Dodge, Robert Hass, Stephanie Kaza, Julia Martin, Michael McClure, Nanao Sakaki, and Katsunori Yamazato. It includes an interview with Gary Snyder, appendices, and other resources for further study. Snyder once introduced a reading of this work with reference to whitewater rapids, saying most of his writing is like a Class III run where you will do just fine on your own, but that Mountains and Rivers is more like Class V: if you're going to make it to take–out, you need a guide. As a collection of commentaries and background readings, this companion volume enhances each reader's ability to find their way into and through an adventurous and engaging work of art.