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Harusame Monogatari
The ''Harusame Monogatari'' (kanji: 春雨 物語, hiragana: はるさめ ものがたり, translated as ''"The Tales of Spring Rain"'' (less commonly "Tales of the Spring Rain") is the second famous collection of Japanese stories by Ueda Akinari after the '' Ugetsu Monogatari'' ("Tales of Moonlight and Rain"). The collection of ten stories is part of the yomihon genre of Japanese literature, which is a notable representative of Japan's contribution to the world's Early Modern literature, though this second collection of Ueda's was not printed until a century after his death in 1907. The 1907 printing was based on an incomplete manuscript, and the full edition was not published till 1950. Contents The semi-historical stories reflect Akinari's kokugaku interests in historical fiction. * Chikatabira (血かたびら, The Bloody Robe) - historical * Amatsu otome (天津処女, The Amatsu Maid) - historical * Kaizoku (海賊, The Pirate) - historical * Nise no en (二世の縁, The ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kanji
are logographic Chinese characters, adapted from Chinese family of scripts, Chinese script, used in the writing of Japanese language, Japanese. They were made a major part of the Japanese writing system during the time of Old Japanese and are still used, along with the subsequently-derived Syllabary, syllabic scripts of and . The characters have Japanese pronunciations; most have two, with one based on the Chinese sound. A few characters were invented in Japan by constructing character components derived from other Chinese characters. After the Meiji Restoration, Japan made its own efforts to simplify the characters, now known as , by a process similar to China's simplified Chinese characters, simplification efforts, with the intention to increase literacy among the general public. Since the 1920s, the Japanese government has published character lists periodically to help direct the education of its citizenry through the myriad Chinese characters that exist. There are nearly 3 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hiragana
is a Japanese language, Japanese syllabary, part of the Japanese writing system, along with ''katakana'' as well as ''kanji''. It is a phonetic lettering system. The word ''hiragana'' means "common" or "plain" kana (originally also "easy", as contrasted with kanji). Hiragana and katakana are both kana systems. With few exceptions, each mora (linguistics), mora in the Japanese language is represented by one character (or one digraph) in each system. This may be a vowel such as /a/ (hiragana wikt:あ, あ); a consonant followed by a vowel such as /ka/ (wikt:か, か); or /N/ (wikt:ん, ん), a nasal stop, nasal sonorant which, depending on the context and dialect, sounds either like English ''m'', ''n'' or ''ng'' () when syllable-final or like the nasal vowels of French language, French, Portuguese language, Portuguese or Polish language, Polish. Because the characters of the kana do not represent single consonants (except in the case of the aforementioned ん), the kana are r ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Japan
Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea in the south. The Japanese archipelago consists of four major islands—Hokkaido, Honshu, Shikoku, and Kyushu—and List of islands of Japan, thousands of smaller islands, covering . Japan has a population of over 123 million as of 2025, making it the List of countries and dependencies by population, eleventh-most populous country. The capital of Japan and List of cities in Japan, its largest city is Tokyo; the Greater Tokyo Area is the List of largest cities, largest metropolitan area in the world, with more than 37 million inhabitants as of 2024. Japan is divided into 47 Prefectures of Japan, administrative prefectures and List of regions of Japan, eight traditional regions. About three-quarters of Geography of Japan, the countr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ueda Akinari
was a Japanese author, scholar and '' waka'' poet, and a prominent literary figure in 18th-century Japan. He was an early writer in the '' yomihon'' genre and his two masterpieces, '' Ugetsu Monogatari'' ("Tales of Rain and the Moon") and '' Harusame Monogatari'' ("Tales of Spring Rain"), are central to the canon of Japanese literature. Biography Born to an Osaka prostitute and an unknown father, Ueda was adopted in his fourth year by a wealthy merchant who reared him in comfort and provided him with a good education. As a child he became gravely ill with smallpox, and although he survived, he was left with deformed fingers on both hands. During his illness, his parents prayed to the god of the Kashima Inari Shrine, and Ueda felt that this deity had intervened and saved his life. Throughout his life he remained a strong believer in the supernatural, and this belief seems to inform important elements of his literature and scholarship such as his most famous work, a collection o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ugetsu Monogatari
is a collection of nine supernatural tales first published in 1776. It is the best known work of Japanese author Ueda Akinari. Largely adapted from traditional Japanese and Chinese ghost stories, the collection is among the most important works of Edo period (1603–1867) and literature, and is considered a predecessor of the genre. Kenji Mizoguchi's award-winning film (1953), credited with helping popularize Japanese cinema in the West, was adapted from two of the collection's stories. Title The word is a compound word; means "rain", while translates to "moon". It derives from a passage in the book's preface describing "a night with a misty moon after the rains", and references a Noh play, also called , which also employs the common contemporary symbols of rain and moon. These images evoked the supernatural and mysterious in East Asian literature; Qu You's (; a story from , one of Ueda's major sources), indicates that a rainy night or a morning moon may presage the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Yomihon
is a type of Japanese book from the Edo period (1603–1867). Unlike other Japanese books of the periods, such as kusazōshi, they had few illustrations, and the emphasis was on the text. In storylines, Buddhist ethics such as karma are often preached, and characters with supernatural powers and imaginary creatures are often depicted.Kotobank, Yomihon. From the end of the 16th century to the 18th century, Chinese novels such as '''' were translated and published in Japan. The mutual influence of Chi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Japanese Literature
Japanese literature throughout most of its history has been influenced by cultural contact with neighboring Asian literatures, most notably China and its literature. Early texts were often written in pure Classical Chinese or , a Chinese-Japanese creole language. Indian literature also had an influence through the spread of Buddhism in Japan. During the Heian period, Japan's original culture () developed and literature also established its own style, with the significant usage and development of to write Japanese literature. Following the end of the policy and especially during the increasing westernization of the Meiji 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 two Japanese Nobel laureates in literature, namely Yasunari Kawabata and Kenzaburō Ōe. History Nara-period literature (before 794) Before the introduction of kanji ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Early Modern Literature
The history of literature of the early modern period ( 16th, 17th and partly 18th century literature), or early modern literature, succeeds Medieval literature, and in Europe in particular Renaissance literature. In Europe, the Early Modern period lasts roughly from 1550 to 1750, spanning the Baroque period and ending with the Age of Enlightenment and the wars of the French Revolution. The Early Modern period in Persia corresponds to the rule of the Safavid dynasty. In Japan, the "Early Modern period" (Edo period) is taken to last down to 1868 (the beginning of Industrialization during the Meiji period). In India, the Mughal era lasts until the establishment of the British Raj in 1857. The Ottoman Empire underwent various attempts of modernization from 1828 ( Tanzimat). Chinese literature of the Qing dynasty remains mostly unaffected by European influence, and effects of modernization that would lead up to the New Culture Movement became apparent only from the Late Qing pe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kokugaku
was an academic movement, a school of Japanese philology and philosophy originating during the Edo period. scholars worked to refocus Japanese scholarship away from the then-dominant study of Chinese, Confucian, and Buddhist texts in favor of research into the early Japanese classics. History What later became known as the tradition began in the 17th and 18th centuries as ''kogaku'' ("ancient studies"), ''wagaku'' ("Japanese studies") or ''inishie manabi'' ("antiquity studies"), a term favored by Motoori Norinaga and his school. Drawing heavily from Shinto and Japan's ancient literature, the school looked back to a golden age of culture and society. They drew upon ancient Japanese poetry, predating the rise of medieval Japan's feudal orders in the mid-twelfth century, and other cultural achievements to show the emotion of Japan. One famous emotion appealed to by the ''kokugakusha'' is ' mono no aware'. The word , coined to distinguish this school from ''kangaku'' ("Chin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
