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The Land We Saw, the Times We Knew : An Anthology of Zuihitsu Writing from Early Modern Japan / Gerald Groemer.

By: Material type: TextTextPublisher: Honolulu : University of Hawaii Press, [2018]Copyright date: ©2018Description: 1 online resource (376 p.) : 51 b&w illustrationsContent type:
Media type:
Carrier type:
ISBN:
  • 9780824874445
  • 9780824877170
Subject(s): DDC classification:
  • 895.64/3 23
LOC classification:
  • PL772.35 .L36 2019eb
Other classification:
  • online - DeGruyter
Online resources: Available additional physical forms:
  • Issued also in print.
Contents:
Frontmatter -- Contents -- Preface -- Introduction: The Edo-Period Zuihitsu -- Chapter 1. Tales That Come to Mind (Sozoro monogatari) -- Chapter 2. A Record of Seven Offered Treasures (Nanakusa hōnō-ki) -- Chapter 3. Monologue (Dokugo) -- Chapter 4. Idle Talk of Nagasaki (Nagasaki kanwa) -- Chapter 5. Kyoto Observed (Mita kyō monogatari) -- Chapter 6. A Dustheap of Discourses (Chirizuka-dan) -- Chapter 7. The Breezes of Osaka (Naniwa no kaze) -- Bibliography -- Glossary-Index
Summary: Japanese zuihitsu (essays) offer a treasure trove of information and insights rarely found in any other genre of Japanese writing. Especially during their golden age, the Edo period (1600-1868), zuihitsu treated a great variety of subjects. In the pages of a typical zuihitsu the reader encountered facts and opinions on everything from martial arts to music, food to fashions, dragons to drama-much of it written casually and seemingly without concern for form or order. The seven zuihitsu translated and annotated in this volume date from the early seventeenth to the late nineteenth centuries. Some of the essays are famous while others are less well known, but none have been published in their entirety in any Western language. Following a substantial introduction outlining the development of the genre, "Tales That Come to Mind" is an early seventeenth-century account of Edo kabuki theater and the Yoshiwara "pleasure quarters" penned by a Buddhist monk. "A Record of Seven Offered Treasures," composed by a retired samurai-monk near the end of the seventeenth century, starts as a treatise on the proper education of youth but ends as a critique of the author's own life and moral failings. Perhaps the most famous piece in the volume, "Monologue," was drafted by the renowned Confucianist Dazai Shundai, a keen and insightful observer of life during the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. Dazai treats, in turn, poetry, the tea ceremony, comic verse, music, theater, and fashion. "Nagasaki Prattle" is an entertaining record of a journey to Nagasaki by a group of Confucianists in the early eighteenth century. In "Kyoto Observed," a mid-eighteenth-century Edo resident compares the shogun's and the emperor's capital in a series of brief vignettes. An 1814 zuihitsu classic written by a physician, "A Dustheap of Discourses" presents another colorful mosaic of topics related to life in Edo. The book closes with "The Breezes of Osaka," a lively essay by a highly cultured Edo administrator contrasting the food, life, and culture of his hometown with that of Osaka, where he briefly served as mayor in the 1850s.
Holdings
Item type Current library Call number URL Status Notes Barcode
eBook eBook Biblioteca "Angelicum" Pont. Univ. S.Tommaso d'Aquino Nuvola online online - DeGruyter (Browse shelf(Opens below)) Online access Not for loan (Accesso limitato) Accesso per gli utenti autorizzati / Access for authorized users (dgr)9780824877170

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Preface -- Introduction: The Edo-Period Zuihitsu -- Chapter 1. Tales That Come to Mind (Sozoro monogatari) -- Chapter 2. A Record of Seven Offered Treasures (Nanakusa hōnō-ki) -- Chapter 3. Monologue (Dokugo) -- Chapter 4. Idle Talk of Nagasaki (Nagasaki kanwa) -- Chapter 5. Kyoto Observed (Mita kyō monogatari) -- Chapter 6. A Dustheap of Discourses (Chirizuka-dan) -- Chapter 7. The Breezes of Osaka (Naniwa no kaze) -- Bibliography -- Glossary-Index

restricted access online access with authorization star

http://purl.org/coar/access_right/c_16ec

Japanese zuihitsu (essays) offer a treasure trove of information and insights rarely found in any other genre of Japanese writing. Especially during their golden age, the Edo period (1600-1868), zuihitsu treated a great variety of subjects. In the pages of a typical zuihitsu the reader encountered facts and opinions on everything from martial arts to music, food to fashions, dragons to drama-much of it written casually and seemingly without concern for form or order. The seven zuihitsu translated and annotated in this volume date from the early seventeenth to the late nineteenth centuries. Some of the essays are famous while others are less well known, but none have been published in their entirety in any Western language. Following a substantial introduction outlining the development of the genre, "Tales That Come to Mind" is an early seventeenth-century account of Edo kabuki theater and the Yoshiwara "pleasure quarters" penned by a Buddhist monk. "A Record of Seven Offered Treasures," composed by a retired samurai-monk near the end of the seventeenth century, starts as a treatise on the proper education of youth but ends as a critique of the author's own life and moral failings. Perhaps the most famous piece in the volume, "Monologue," was drafted by the renowned Confucianist Dazai Shundai, a keen and insightful observer of life during the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. Dazai treats, in turn, poetry, the tea ceremony, comic verse, music, theater, and fashion. "Nagasaki Prattle" is an entertaining record of a journey to Nagasaki by a group of Confucianists in the early eighteenth century. In "Kyoto Observed," a mid-eighteenth-century Edo resident compares the shogun's and the emperor's capital in a series of brief vignettes. An 1814 zuihitsu classic written by a physician, "A Dustheap of Discourses" presents another colorful mosaic of topics related to life in Edo. The book closes with "The Breezes of Osaka," a lively essay by a highly cultured Edo administrator contrasting the food, life, and culture of his hometown with that of Osaka, where he briefly served as mayor in the 1850s.

Issued also in print.

Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.

In English.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 02. Mrz 2022)