Rich in sensitivity, quality, and variety, Japanese literature ranks as one of the great literatures of the world. Some of its collections of mythological history have survived for 1,300 years. Yet even the most ancient writings have a universal significance because they contain a sensory appeal that transcends the boundaries of time and cultural differences.

 

Ancient Literature

The earliest Japanese writers were greatly influenced by the Chinese. Without a writing system of their own, the Japanese adopted and adapted Chinese characters to their own needs. This is shown clearly in the most ancient complete works, the 'Koji-ki' (Records of Ancient Matters), which was completed in 712, and 'Nihon shoki' (Chronicles of Japan), completed eight years later. In both of these collections, many sections of history, myth, legend, and songs are written entirely in Chinese.

 

The greatest literary achievement of the ancient period was the 'Manyo-shu' (Collection of Myriad Leaves), a magnificent anthology of more than 4,500 poems. It was compiled after 759, though it included poetry written a century or more earlier.

 

The 'Manyo-shu' is remarkable in several ways. Its poetry is memorable for its imagery, emotional power, and evocative appeal. The compiler of the anthology was probably the poet Yakamochi Otomo (716-785), but other poets such as Hitomaro Kakinomoto (died 710) and Tabito Otomo (665-731) also contributed to making this work a literary landmark.

 

Most of the poems in the collection are tanka, or short poems, one of the uniquely Japanese forms of poetry. A tanka always consists of five lines that follow a strict pattern of syllables: five, seven, five, seven, seven. This classic Japanese verse form is still in use today.

 

The masterpieces of the 'Manyo-shu' are its 260 choka, longer poems ranging up to 150 lines. These are also written in alternating lines of five and seven syllables, with the concluding line in seven syllables.

 

Classical Literature

In the 9th century the invention of the kana system of phonetic syllables greatly increased the ease of writing in Japanese and lessened Chinese influence. In 905 the 'Kokin-shu', the first great anthology of kana literature, was compiled.

 

The 'Kokin-shu' consists of more than 1,100 poems, divided into 20 books. These books have been arranged according to topics, such as nature, the seasons, travel, love, congratulations, and mourning.

 

The chief compiler of the anthology was Tsurayuki Ki, or Ki-no (884-946), a noted poet and prose writer of the period. In the memorable preface of the 'Kokin-shu', which was perhaps the first complete prose in kana, Tsurayuki set forth the reasons that move people to write poetry. According to Tsurayuki, melancholy is the inspiration, and it is true that most of the love poems, which fill five books of the anthology, are sad.

 

Many of the tanka in the 'Kokin-shu' is beautifully lyric and perceptive. But their flawless symmetry often inhibited spontaneity. While these miniatures may lack the lively variety of the longer choka in the 'Manyo-shu', they were tremendously popular because skill in composing tanka was one way to win favour at the royal court.

 

Court opinion also affected early Japanese poetry in another way. Because they lived in a society that was strongly traditional, the court critics praised stylized perfection of language and disapproved of originality. These attitudes and restrictions made the 'Kokin-shu' the standard by which Japanese poetry was composed for centuries.

 

Tsurayuki had another lasting influence on Japanese literature. His 'Tosa nikki' (The Tosa Diary) is a vivid account of his travels from Tosa, where he had served as a governor, to his home in Kyoto. While most men at that time wrote in Chinese, he broke tradition by writing the diary in Japanese. His diary also created a tradition: It was the earliest example of the literary diary, one of the characteristic genres in Japanese literature.

 

Throughout the diary, Tsurayuki maintained the pretence that it was written by one of the women in the governor's entourage. In fact, most of the literary diaries that helped make the classical age of Japanese literature outstanding were written by women, the court ladies. The author of 'Kagero nikki' (The Gossamer Years) was the second wife of a 10th-century prime minister. Known only as "the mother of Michitsuna," she complained graphically about her unhappy life with her husband.

 

Another absorbing diary was 'Murasaki Shikibu nikki', a lively and realistic account of court life by the court lady who was later to write the immortal 'Genji monogatari' (The Tale of Genji). Critics have claimed that Lady Murasaki's 'The Tale of Genji' (about 1010) was the first major novel written in any language. It is almost universally acknowledged that this book is the finest flower of all Japanese literature, past or present.

 

Prince Genji, the hero of this sparkling chronicle of court life, is a complex personality and peerless lover. It is on the field of love, not on the fields of battle or politics, that the romantic Genji excels. With consummate sensitivity, he responds differently to meet the needs of each woman he captivates. That his character has enthralled readers ever since the tale first appeared is a tribute to its long-ago author, Shikibu Murasaki (978-1014), whose real name is unknown. But the novel is also unforgettable for its rich poetry, imagery, and imaginative wordplay.

 

An instant success, 'The Tale of Genji' exerted wide influence over Japanese literature for centuries. This influence was both good and bad. The novel set a standard for excellence, but it also spawned a multitude of imitations and derivative books based on the story. Because it was so highly esteemed and widely imitated, its immediate effect was to inhibit innovative writing by the court society.

 

Another masterpiece of this period was 'Makura-no-soshi' (The Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon), also written by a lady of the court. Witty and brilliant, it created a different mood than 'The Tale of Genji'. Unlike the romantic and sensitive Prince Genji, the 'Pillow Book' lover is fumbling and comic; the book irreverently portrays the ribald comedy that was also typical of court life.

 

By the middle of the 11th century, the court and its courtiers began to lose power as the authority of the emperors diminished. But even after political power passed to the new masters of society, the military, and court society retained its privilege of claiming to be the arbiter of all culture.

 

In the 12th century, this too began to change. A new literary tradition appeared, a tradition based not on the aristocratic life of the court but on the ordinary life of the other social classes.

 

A striking example was the 'Konjaku monogatari', a mammoth collection of religious lore and folktales. The tales were drawn from the Japanese countryside and from the folklore of India and China. One strong element bound all the stories together; they portrayed the kind of people who had never been mentioned in the literature of the court society. These tales, though often crudely written, present illuminating insights into how the common people of Japan lived and thought and survived in a time when war ravaged the land.

 

Further evidence of the rise of a literature of the people was found in a collection of folk songs, 'Ryojin hisho', compiled in 1179. The fact that these folk songs were compiled by the emperor Shirakawa II signalled clearly that the new popular culture was gaining a permanent foothold, even at court.

 

Medieval Literature

The 12th century was a period of war, and the samurai, an aristocracy of military men, were in power. Emperor Shirakawa II abdicated, and power passed to the military. Women had little authority in a society dominated by warriors, and this may explain why writing by women dwindled in importance. In fact, there were few outstanding Japanese women writers between the 13th and 19th centuries.

 

Despite the waning of the political power of the court society, however, court poets remained active and new anthologies of poetry appeared. The finest of these anthologies was the 'Shin kokin-shu', compiled in 1206 by Teika Fujiwara (1162-1241) and others. By calling this anthology the "New Kokin-shu," the compilers boldly asserted their conviction that the poets represented in it compared favourably with the contributors to the original 'Kokin-shu' of 905.

 

Many critics consider the 'Shin kokin-shu' to represent the highest point of tanka composition. The poets collected in the anthology included the famed Teika Fujiwara himself; his father, Toshinari Fujiwara; the priest Saigyo; and the former emperor Toba II. These poets searched for symbolic meanings not the appearance of the bright flower but the significance of the flower. They turned inward, trying to sense a deeper meaning that they felt but could not clearly define or express.

 

Teika Fujiwara and his poetic concepts dominated the direction of Japanese poetry. He was able to exert a strong influence through his own poems, his essays on poetry, and through the poetry of the past that he chose as most worthy of preservation.

 

In prose during this early medieval period, collections of Buddhist and popular tales flourished. One of the most enjoyable collections was the 'Ujishui monogatari', which showed considerable literary skill.

 

An even more distinctive literary genre was the war tale. The most famous was 'Heike monogatari', which was apparently begun by a nobleman at the court in about 1220. It was based upon a feud between two prominent families in the previous century. The work was expanded through the years as it was recited with improvisations by priest-entertainers and did not reach its final form until the mid-13th century. Perhaps because of its mixture of written and oral presentation, the 'Tales of the Heike' is sometimes vivid and effective, sometimes dull. But, despite its uneven style, it was highly popular, and many later writers used its characters and incidents to embellish their own novels and plays.

 

The reflective essays of Buddhist priests formed another important medieval genre. In 'Hojo-ki' (The Ten Foot Square Hut) by Chomei Kamo (1155-1216), the priest-author describes his disillusionment with the world and the contentment he finds in solitude. The beauty and profundity of this brief work made it a classic. The priest was also a noted poet and his essay 'Mumyo-sho' (1210-12) is a distinguished example of traditional Japanese poetic criticism.

 

In the 15th century a new poetic form became popular. Called renga (linked verse), it began as the composition of a single tanka by two people. For a while it was only a popular pastime, particularly among the common people in rural areas, or a competition. But as soon as renga reached the court poets, they formalized the patterns, and the poetry lost much of its freshness and vitality.

 

The greatest literary works of the 15th century were the No dramas. A traditional form of Japanese theatre, they usually deal with well-known historical themes. The acting is highly stylized, and the masks, the rich costumes, the music, and the chorus make the performances highly effective. One of the most distinguished of the creators of No plays was Motokiyo Zeami (1363-1443), who was also an actor. His plays, written in magnificent poetry, often dealt with Zen Buddhist themes.

 

In the early 17th century Japan was restored to peace and unified under the Tokugawa shogunate, a family of military rulers. This peace was to last almost 250 years. Another event influenced Japanese literature even more strongly.

 

From 1638 to 1853 Japan was closed to contact with the outside world. At first this encouraged the growth of a distinctly native literature, but later writing became provincialized and imitative.

 

Another event that influenced the country's literature was the adoption of printing. Commercial publication began in 1609, and soon presses were printing works of even slight literary value to satisfy the needs of a public eager for new books.

 

The haiku, a new form of short verse, developed. As was customary in Japanese literature, this became stylized, and even today haiku follows a formal pattern in which there are seventeen syllables in a sequence of five, seven, five. Each haiku strives to express a single and complete mood, such as sadness. Basho Matsuo (1644-94) was the writer who perfected the haiku into a form capable of expressing poetry of sensitivity and beauty.

 

The first influential novelist of this period was Saikaku Ihara (1642-93). Some Japanese critics rank him second only to Shikibu Murasaki in stature, but this probably would have surprised him since he wrote rapidly and with little regard for critical review. His first novel, 'Koshoku ichidai otoko' (The Life of an Amorous Man), opened a new dimension to Japanese writers as the erotic world of pleasure became a new field to explore. In his most famous novel, 'Koshoku gonin onna' (Five Women Who Loved Love), Saikaku Ihara broke another tradition: for the first time a writer dealt with women of the merchant class and their desires and dreams. His warm sympathy for his characters and his brilliant style raised his novels to the quality of art.

 

Monzaemon Chikamatsu (1653-1725) also wrote about unhappy women. He is often considered the greatest writer of Kabuki plays, and his historical dramas made superb acting vehicles. But he also wrote highly acclaimed plays for the puppet theatre.

 

Modern Literature

In 1853 a United States naval fleet under the command of Commodore Matthew C. Perry arrived in Japan, with instructions to open the country to the Western world. After 1868, when the emperor Meiji announced that he would seek knowledge from the entire world, a new era in Japanese literature began. Translations of European works appeared, but they were often inaccurate and Japanese writers discovered that Western literature had qualities unknown to Japanese works of the past.

 

The literary scholar Shoyo Tsubouchi (1859-1935) was a leader in influencing Japanese writers to accept change. His essay 'Shosetsu shinzui' (The Essence of the Novel) emphasized the role of realism in fiction, as well as the artistic value of novels, which had been considered mere entertainment.

 

The first modern Japanese novel was 'Ukigumo' (The Drifting Cloud) by Shimei Futabatei (1864-1909). Influenced by Russian literature, he wrote the book in the colloquial language of ordinary people because he was convinced that only in this way could a writer capture the essence of his own society. With the traditional Japanese reluctance to abandon tradition, however, most writers continued to use stylized literary language until the end of the century.

 

Another writer who was influenced strongly by the West was the poet and novelist Toson Shimazaki (1872-1943). His novel 'Hakai' (The Broken Commandment) deals with the outcast eta class (a minority at the lowest level of society) and was one of the first Japanese novels to confront social problems.

 

Because of his knowledge of English, Toson Shimazaki also helped to modernize Japanese poetry. Yet, though his "Song of the Autumn Wind" echoes Shelley in its attitude toward nature, the irregular lines of the poem fall into the traditional Japanese pattern of five and seven syllables.

 

The traditional forms of the tanka and haiku were not forgotten. Instead they were given new freshness and vitality by Shiki Masaoka (1867-1902). He was an outstanding poet of both verse forms, but was perhaps more important as a critic.

 

Akiko Yosano (1878-1942) was one of the most successful writers in the new style of tanka. Her lyrical collection 'Midaregami' (Tangled Hair) had special appeal for women because it seemed to glorify a new age of romantic love.

 

Takuboku Ishikawa (1886-1912) was one of the most popular tanka poets in the history of Japanese literature. His poetry reveals the many facets of his strongly individualistic character.

 

Sakutaro Hagiwara (1886-1942) is often considered the greatest Japanese poet of the 20th century. He created musical rhythms that brilliantly celebrated modern language patterns. In doing this, he was striking out on a new path while most of the contemporary tanka and haiku poets still clung to the literary language of the traditional past.

 

While the dominant theme in early 20th-century Japanese literature was naturalism, two prominent novelists worked outside the movement. Ogai Mori (1862-1922) was noted for his autobiographical fiction and historical novels. Soseki Natsume (1867-1916) wrote a humorous masterpiece, 'Wagahai-wa Neko-de aru' (I Am a Cat).

 

Jun-ichiro Tanizaki (1886-1905) and Ryunosuke Akutagawa (1892-1927) showed sensitive awareness to the new streams of thought that were flooding in from the West and yet were drawn also to the traditional past and the heritage that was uniquely Japanese. In novels such as 'Tade kuu mushi' (Some Prefer Nettles) Tanizaki used this conflict between the old and the new ways of life as a central theme. One of Akutagawa's short stories was made into the award-winning film 'Rashomon'.

 

In 1968 Yasunari Kawabata (1899-1972) became the first Japanese to win the Nobel Prize in literature. According to the citation, the award was bestowed "for his narrative mastery, which with great sensibility expresses the essence of the Japanese mind." It is characteristic that his first literary successes were the tiny vignettes he called "palm-of-the-hand" stories. Even one of his major novels, 'Yukiguni' (Snow Country), began as a short story that gradually evolved into a novel.

 

One of the most influential authors was Naoya Shiga (1883-1971). If not the initiator, he was one of the leading writers of the autobiographical story, known as the "I novel," and did much to make it a dominant genre in Japanese writing.

 

Even Akira Abe (born 1934), an imaginative and lyrical writer, worked mainly in the "I novel" tradition. His literary career began with a moving tale of growing up with a retarded brother. One of his major novels deals with his father's death.

 

Many of the modern Japanese novelists have been experimentalists. Kobo Abe (born 1924) set his most famous novel, 'Suna no onna' (The Woman in the Dunes), in a sand pit; it later was adapted as a highly successful film.

 

Japanese writers have traditionally been masters of brevity. In 1980 a poignant collection of short stories by Tatsuo Nagai (born 1904), entitled 'Aki: Sono ta' (Autumn and Other Pieces), appeared.

 

Theatre also remains a creative force in modern Japan. The brilliant Yukio Mishima (1925-70) created modern Kabuki and No dramas, as well as novels, and many of the younger writers have won international recognition for their screen plays.

 

Assisted by Anne Neigoff

 

BIBLIOGRAPHY FOR JAPANESE LITERATURE

 

Braisted, W.R. Meiroku Zasshi: Journal of the Japanese Enlightenment (Harvard Univ. Press, 1976).

Hibbett, Howard. Contemporary Japanese Literature: An Anthology of Fiction, Film and Other Writing Since 1945 (Knopf, 1977).

Hibbett, Howard. The Floating World in Japanese Fiction (Tuttle, 1974).

Kato, Shuichi. A History of Japanese Literature (Kodansha, 1982).

Kato, Shuichi. A History of Japanese Literature, vol. 3. The Modern Years (State Mutual, 1985).

Keene, Donald, ed. Anthology of Japanese Literature: From the Earliest Era to the Mid-Nineteenth Century (Grove, 1988).

Keene, Donald. The Pleasures of Japanese Literature (Columbia Univ. Press, 1988).

Miyamori, Asataro, ed. Masterpieces of Japanese Poetry, Ancient and Modern (Greenwood, 1970).

 

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