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Japanese literature throughout most of its history has been influenced by cultural contact with neighboringAsian literatures, most notablyChina and itsliterature. Early texts were often written in pureClassical Chinese orlit. 'Chinese writing' (漢文,kanbun), a Chinese-Japanese creole language.[1]Indian literature also had an influence through the spread ofBuddhism in Japan.
During theHeian period, Japan's originalkokufū culture (lit. 'national culture') developed and literature also established its own style, with the significant usage and development ofkana (仮名) to write Japanese literature.[2]
Following the end of thesakoku policy and especially during the increasing westernization of theMeiji era,Western literature has also had an influence on the development of modern Japanese writers, while Japanese literature has in turn become more recognized internationally, leading to twoJapanese Nobel laureates in literature, namelyYasunari Kawabata andKenzaburō Ōe.[a]
Before the introduction ofkanji from China to Japan, Japan had no writing system; it is believed that Chinese characters came to Japan at the very beginning of the 5th century, brought by immigrants from Korea and China. Early Japanese texts first followed the Chinese model,[1] before gradually transitioning to a hybrid of Chinese characters used in Japanese syntactical formats, resulting in sentences written with Chinese characters but read phonetically in Japanese.
Chinese characters were also further adapted, creating what is known asman'yōgana, the earliest form ofkana, or Japanese syllabic writing.[3] The earliest literary works in Japan were created in the Narai period.[1] These include theKojiki (712), a historical record that also chronicles ancient Japanese mythology and folk songs; theNihon Shoki (720), a chronicle written in Chinese that is significantly more detailed than theKojiki; and theMan'yōshū (759), a poetry anthology. One of the stories they describe is the tale ofUrashima Tarō.
TheHeian period has been referred to as the golden era of art and literature in Japan.[4] During this era, literature became centered on a cultural elite of nobility and monks.[5] The imperial court particularly patronized the poets, most of whom were courtiers or ladies-in-waiting. Reflecting the aristocratic atmosphere, the poetry was elegant and sophisticated and expressed emotions in a rhetorical style. Editing the resulting anthologies of poetry soon became a national pastime. Theiroha poem, now one of two standard orderings for the Japanesesyllabary, was also developed during the early Heian period.
The Tale of Genji (Genji Monogatari), written in the early 11th century by female courtierMurasaki Shikibu, is considered the pre-eminent novel of Heian fiction.[6] Other important writings of this period include theKokin Wakashū (905), awaka-poetry anthology, andThe Pillow Book (Makura no Sōshi; 990s).The Pillow Book was written bySei Shōnagon, Murasaki Shikibu's contemporary and rival, as an essay about the life, loves, and pastimes of nobles in the Emperor's court.[7] Another notable piece of fictional Japanese literature wasKonjaku Monogatarishū, a collection of over a thousand stories in 31 volumes. The volumes cover varioustales from India,China and Japan.
The 10th-century Japanese narrative,The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter (Taketori Monogatari), can be considered an early example of proto-science fiction. The protagonist of the story, Kaguya-hime, is a princess from the Moon who is sent to Earth for safety during a celestial war, and is found and raised by a bamboo cutter. She is later taken back to her extraterrestrial family in an illustrated depiction of a disc-shaped flying object similar to aflying saucer.[8]
During theKamakura period (1185–1333), Japan experienced many civil wars which led to the development of a warrior class, and subsequent war tales, histories, and related stories.[9] Work from this period is notable for its more somber tone compared to the works of previous eras, with themes of life and death, simple lifestyles, and redemption through killing.[10] A representative work isThe Tale of the Heike (Heike Monogatari; 1371), an epic account of the struggle between theMinamoto andTaira clans for control of Japan at the end of the 12th century. Other important tales of the period includeKamo no Chōmei'sHōjōki (1212) andYoshida Kenkō'sTsurezuregusa (1331).
Despite a decline in the importance of the imperial court, aristocratic literature remained the center of Japanese culture at the beginning of the Kamakura period. Many literary works were marked by a nostalgia for the Heian period.[11] The Kamakura period also saw a renewed vitality of poetry, with a number of anthologies compiled,[9][12] such as theShin Kokin Wakashū compiled in the early 1200s. However, there were fewer notable works by female authors during this period, reflecting the lowered status of women.[11]
As the importance of the imperial court continued to decline, a major feature of Muromachi literature (1333–1603) was the spread of cultural activity through all levels of society. Classical court literature, which had been the focal point of Japanese literature up until this point, gradually disappeared.[13][11] New genres such asrenga, or linked verse, andNoh theater developed among the common people,[14] andsetsuwa such as theNihon Ryoiki were created by Buddhist priests for preaching.[citation needed] The development of roads, along with a growing public interest in travel and pilgrimages, brought rise to the greater popularity of travel literature from the early 13th to 14th centuries.[15] Notable examples of travel diaries includeFuji kikō (1432) andTsukushi michi no ki (1480).[16][17]
Literature during this time was written during the largely peacefulTokugawa shogunate (commonly referred to as theEdo period). Due in large part to the rise of the working and middle classes in the new capital ofEdo (modernTokyo), forms of popular drama developed which would later evolve intokabuki. Thejōruri and kabuki dramatistChikamatsu Monzaemon (1653–1725) became popular at the end of the 17th century, and he is also known as Japan'sShakespeare.
Many different genres of literature made their debut during the Edo period, helped by a rising literacy rate among the growing population of townspeople, as well as the development of lending libraries.Ihara Saikaku (1642–1693) might be said to have given birth to the modern consciousness of the novel in Japan, mixing vernacular dialogue into his humorous and cautionary tales of the pleasure quarters, the so-calledUkiyozōshi ("floating world") genre. Ihara'sLife of an Amorous Man is considered the first work in this genre. Although Ihara's works were not regarded as high literature at the time because it had been aimed towards and popularized by thechōnin (merchant classes), they became popular and were key to the development and spread ofukiyozōshi.
Matsuo Bashō (1644–1694) is recognized as the greatest master ofhaiku (then calledhokku). His poems were influenced by his firsthand experience of the world around him, often encapsulating the feeling of a scene in a few simple elements. He made his life's work the transformation ofhaikai into a literary genre. For Bashō,haikai involved a combination of comic playfulness and spiritual depth, ascetic practice, and involvement in human society. In particular, Bashō wroteOku no Hosomichi, a major work in the form of atravel diary, considered "one of the major texts of classical Japanese literature."[18]
Fukuda Chiyo-ni (1703–1775) is widely regarded as one of the greatest haiku poets. Before her time, haiku by women were often dismissed and ignored. Her dedication toward her career not only paved a way for her career but it also opened a path for other women to follow. Her early poems were influenced by Matsuo Bashō, although she did later develop her own unique style as an independent figure in her own right. While still a teenager, she had already become very popular all over Japan for her poetry. Her poems, although mostly dealing with nature, work for unity of nature with humanity.[19] Her own life was that of thehaikai poets who made their lives and the world they lived in one with themselves, living a simple and humble life. She was able to make connections by being observant and carefully studying the unique things around her ordinary world and writing them down.[20]
Rangaku was an intellectual movement situated in Edo and centered on the study ofDutch (and by subsequentlywestern) science and technology, history, philosophy, art, and language, based primarily on the Dutch books imported via Nagasaki. ThepolymathHiraga Gennai (1728–1780) was a scholar ofrangaku and a writer of popular fiction.Sugita Genpaku (1733–1817) was a Japanese scholar known for his translation ofKaitai Shinsho (New Book of Anatomy) from the Dutch-language anatomy bookOntleedkundige Tafelen. As a full-blown translation from a Western language, it was the first of its kind in Japan. Although there was a minor Western influence trickling into the country from theDutch settlement at Nagasaki, it was the importation ofChinese vernacular fiction that proved the greatest outside influence on the development of Early Modern Japanese fiction.
Jippensha Ikku (1765–1831) is known as Japan'sMark Twain and wroteTōkaidōchū Hizakurige, which is a mix of travelogue and comedy.Tsuga Teisho,Takebe Ayatari, andOkajima Kanzan were instrumental in developing theyomihon, which were historical romances almost entirely in prose, influenced by Chinese vernacular novels such asSangoku-shi (三国志,Three Kingdoms) andSuikoden (水滸伝,Water Margin).
Twoyomihon masterpieces were written byUeda Akinari (1734–1809):Ugetsu Monogatari andHarusame Monogatari.Kyokutei Bakin (1767–1848) wrote the extremely popular fantasy/historical romanceNansō Satomi Hakkenden over a period of twenty-eight years to complete (1814–1842), in addition to otheryomihon.Santō Kyōden wroteyomihon mostly set in the red-light districts until theKansei edicts banned such works, and he turned to comedickibyōshi. Genres included horror, crime stories, morality stories, comedy, and pornography — often accompanied by colorful woodcut prints.
Hokusai (1760–1849), perhaps Japan's most famouswoodblock print artist, also illustrated fiction as well as his famous36 Views of Mount Fuji.
Nevertheless, in the Tokugawa period, as in earlier periods, scholarly work continued to be published in Chinese, which was the language of the learned much as Latin was in Europe.[21]
TheMeiji period marked the re-opening of Japan to the West, ending over two centuries ofnational seclusion, and marking the beginning of a period of rapid industrialization. The introduction ofEuropean literature brought free verse into the poetic repertoire. It became widely used for longer works embodying new intellectual themes. Young Japanese prose writers and dramatists faced a suddenly-broadened horizon of new ideas and artistic schools, with novelists amongst some of the first to assimilate these concepts successfully into their writing.
Natsume Sōseki's (1867–1916) humorous novelWagahai wa neko de aru (I Am a Cat, 1905) employed a cat as the narrator, and he also wrote the famous novelsBotchan (1906) andKokoro (1914). Natsume,Mori Ōgai, andShiga Naoya, who was called "god of the novel" as the most prominent "I novel" writer, were instrumental in adopting and adapting Western literary conventions and techniques.Ryūnosuke Akutagawa is known especially for his historical short stories.Ozaki Kōyō,Kyōka Izumi, andIchiyo Higuchi represent a strain of writers whose style hearkens back to early-Modern Japanese literature.
In the early Meiji period (1868–1880s),Fukuzawa Yukichi authored Enlightenment literature, while pre-modern popular books depicted the quickly changing country.Realism was brought in byTsubouchi Shōyō andFutabatei Shimei in the mid-Meiji period (late 1880s–early 1890s) while the Classicism of Ozaki Kōyō, Yamada Bimyo andKōda Rohan gained popularity.Ichiyō Higuchi, a rare female writer in this era, wrote short stories on powerless women of this age in a simple style in between literary and colloquial.Kyōka Izumi, a favored disciple of Ozaki, pursued a flowing and elegant style and wrote early novels such asThe Operating Room (1895) in literary style and later ones includingThe Holy Man of MountKoya (1900) in colloquial language.
Romanticism was brought in by Mori Ōgai with his anthology of translated poems (1889) and carried to its height byTōson Shimazaki, alongside magazines such asMyōjō andBungaku-kai in the early 1900s. Mori also wrote some modern novels includingThe Dancing Girl (1890),The Wild Geese (1911), then later wrote historical novels. Natsume Sōseki, who is often compared with Mori Ōgai, wroteI Am a Cat (1905) with humor and satire, then depicted fresh and pure youth inBotchan (1906) andSanshirō (1908). He eventually pursued transcendence of human emotions and egoism in his later works includingKokoro (1914) and his last and unfinished novelLight and darkness (1916).
Shimazaki shifted from Romanticism toNaturalism which was established with hisThe Broken Commandment (1906) andKatai Tayama'sFuton (1907). Naturalism hatched "I Novel" (Watakushi-shōsetu) that describes the authors themselves and depicts their own mental states. Neo-romanticism came out of anti-naturalism and was led byKafū Nagai,Jun'ichirō Tanizaki,Kōtarō Takamura,Hakushū Kitahara and others in the early 1910s.Saneatsu Mushanokōji,Naoya Shiga and others founded a magazineShirakaba in 1910. They shared a common characteristic, Humanism. Shiga's style was autobiographical and depicted states of his mind and sometimes classified as "I Novel" in this sense.Ryūnosuke Akutagawa, who was highly praised by Soseki, wrote short stories includingRashōmon (1915) with an intellectual and analytic attitude and represented Neo-realism in the mid-1910s.
During the 1920s and early 1930s the proletarian literary movement, comprising such writers asTakiji Kobayashi,Denji Kuroshima,Yuriko Miyamoto andIneko Sata produced a politically radical literature depicting the harsh lives of workers, peasants, women, and other downtrodden members of society, and their struggles for change.
Pre-war Japan saw the debut of several authors best known for the beauty of their language and their tales of love and sensuality, notably Jun'ichirō Tanizaki and Japan's first winner of theNobel Prize for Literature,Yasunari Kawabata, a master of psychological fiction.Ashihei Hino wrote lyrical bestsellers glorifying the war, whileTatsuzō Ishikawa attempted to publish a disturbingly realistic account of the advance on Nanjing. Writers who opposed the war includeDenji Kuroshima,Mitsuharu Kaneko,Hideo Oguma andJun Ishikawa.
World War II, and Japan's defeat, deeply influenced Japanese literature. Many authors wrote stories of disaffection, loss of purpose, and the coping with defeat.Haruo Umezaki's short storySakurajima shows a disillusioned and skeptical Navy officer stationed in a base located on theSakurajima volcanic island, close toKagoshima, on the southern tip ofKyushu.Osamu Dazai's novelThe Setting Sun tells of a soldier returning fromManchukuo.Shōhei Ōoka won theYomiuri Prize for his novelFires on the Plain about a Japanese deserter going mad in the Philippine jungle.Yukio Mishima, well known for both hisnihilistic writing and his controversial suicide byseppuku, began writing in the post-war period.Nobuo Kojima's short story "The American School" portrays a group of Japanese teachers of English who, in the immediate aftermath of the war, deal with the American occupation in varying ways.
Prominent writers of the 1970s and 1980s were identified with intellectual and moral issues in their attempts to raise social and political consciousness. One of them,Kenzaburō Ōe, who published one of his best-known works,A Personal Matter in 1964, becameJapan's second winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature.
Mitsuharu Inoue had long been concerned with the atomic bomb and continued in the 1980s to write on problems of the nuclear age, whileShūsaku Endō depicted the religious dilemma of theKakure Kirishitan, Roman Catholics in feudal Japan, as a springboard to address spiritual problems.Yasushi Inoue also turned to the past in masterful historical novels of Inner Asia and ancient Japan, in order to portray present human fate.
Avant-garde writers, such asKōbō Abe, who wrote novels such asThe Woman in the Dunes (1960), wanted to express the Japanese experience in modern terms without using either international styles or traditional conventions, developed new inner visions.Yoshikichi Furui related the lives of alienated urban dwellers coping with the minutiae of daily life, while the psychodramas within such daily life crises have been explored by a rising number of important women novelists. The 1988Naoki Prize went toShizuko Todo [ja] forRipening Summer, a story capturing the complex psychology of modern women. Other award-winning stories at the end of the decade dealt with current issues of the elderly in hospitals, the recent past (Pure-Hearted Shopping District inKōenji, Tokyo), and the life of aMeiji periodukiyo-e artist.
Haruki Murakami is one of the most popular and controversial of today's Japanese authors.[22] His genre-defying, humorous and surreal works have sparked fierce debates in Japan over whether they are true "literature" or simple pop-fiction: Kenzaburō Ōe has been one of his harshest critics. Some of Murakami's best-known works includeNorwegian Wood (1987) andThe Wind-Up Bird Chronicle (1994–1995).
Banana Yoshimoto, a best-selling contemporary author whose "manga-esque" style of writing sparked much controversy when she debuted in the late 1980s, has come to be recognized as a unique and talented author over the intervening years. Her writing style stresses dialogue over description, resembling the script of amanga, and her works focus on love, friendship, and loss. Her breakout work was 1988'sKitchen.
Although modern Japanese writers covered a wide variety of subjects, one particularly Japanese approach stressed their subjects' inner lives, widening the earlier novel's preoccupation with the narrator's consciousness. In Japanese fiction, plot development and action have often been of secondary interest to emotional issues. In keeping with the general trend toward reaffirming national characteristics, many old themes re-emerged, and some authors turned consciously to the past. Strikingly,Buddhist attitudes about the importance of knowing oneself and the poignant impermanence of things formed an undercurrent to sharp social criticism of this material age. There was a growing emphasis on women's roles, the Japanese persona in the modern world, and the malaise of common people lost in the complexities of urban culture.
Popular fiction, non-fiction, and children's literature all flourished in urban Japan in the 1980s. Many popular works fell between "pure literature" and pulp novels, including all sorts of historical serials, information-packed docudramas, science fiction, mysteries,detective fiction, business stories, war journals, and animal stories. Non-fiction covered everything from crime to politics. Although factual journalism predominated, many of these works were interpretive, reflecting a high degree of individualism. Children's works re-emerged in the 1950s, and the newer entrants into this field, many of the younger women, brought new vitality to it in the 1980s.
Manga — Japanesecomics — have penetrated almost every sector of the popular market. They include virtually every field of human interest, such as multivolume high-school histories of Japan and, additionally for the adult market, a manga introduction to economics, and pornography (hentai). Manga represented between 20 and 30 percent of annual publications at the end of the 1980s, in sales of some ¥400 billion per year.Light novels, a Japanese type ofyoung adult novel, often feature plots and illustrations similar to those seen in manga. Many manga are fan-made (dōjinshi).
Literature utilizingnew media began to appear at the end of the 20th century.Visual novels, a type ofinteractive fiction, were produced forpersonal computers beginning in the 1980s.Cell phone novels appeared in the early 21st century. Written by and forcell phone users, the novels — typically romances read by young women — have become very popular both online and in print. Some, such asLove Sky, have sold millions of print copies, and at the end of 2007 cell phone novels comprised four of the top five fiction best sellers.[23]
Female writers in Japan enjoyed a brief period of success during theHeian period, but were undermined following the decline in power of theImperial Court in the 14th century. Later, in theMeiji era, earlier works written by women such as Murasaki Shikibu and Sei Shonagon were championed amongst the earliest examples of the Japanese literary language, even at a time when the authors themselves experienced challenges due to their gender. One Meiji-period writer,Shimizu Shikin, sought to encourage positive comparisons between her contemporaries and their female forebears in the hopes that female authors would be viewed with respect by society, despite assuming a public role outside the traditional confines of a woman's role in her home (seeGood Wife, Wise Mother). Other notable authors of the Meiji period includedHiratsuka Raicho,Higuchi Ichiyo,Tamura Toshiko,Nogami Yaeko andYosano Akiko.[24]
Japan has some literary contests and awards in which authors can participate and be awarded.
TheAkutagawa Prize is one of the most prestigious literary awards, and receives wide attention from media.
