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6 Cards in this Set
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Murasaki Shikibu
(978? - 1015?) Novelist, diarist, and courtesan. |
She was the author of the Tale of Genji (Genji monogatari), the first known novel; the diary, Murasaki Shikibu nikki; and a collection of tanka poems. The daughter of the court official Fujiwara Tametoki, she sat in on the classical Chinese literature lessons that her brother received, in spite of the Heian traditions against higher education for women.
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Sei Shonagan
(966/7 - 1013?) |
Like Lady Murasaki, Sei Shonagan was a lady-in-waiting of the Empress. Since Lady Murasaki and Sei Shonagan were contemporaries and known for their wit, they were often rivals*. Sei Shonagan's only work is the Pillow Book (Makura no soshi), which is considered the best source of information about life at the Japanese court during the Heian period (784-1185).
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Matsuo Basho
(1644-1694) (pseudonym of Matsuo Munefusa) |
Generally acknowledged as the master of the haiku form, the most notable influences on his work were Zen Buddhism and his travels throughout Japan. He is noted for works like The Narrow Road to the Deep North (Oku no hosomichi), which includes descriptions of local sights in both prose and haiku. He took his pseudonym from the name of the simple hut where he retired: Basho-an, which means "Cottage of the Plaintain Tree."
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Kawabata Yasunari
(1899 - 1972) |
Recipient of the 1968 Nobel Prize for Literature, he was the first Japanese author to be so honored. His works combine classic Japanese values with modern trends and often center on the role of sex in people's lives. His works are often only a few pages long, a form given the name "palm-of-the-hand." He is best known for three novels: Thousand Cranes, based on the tea ceremony and inspired by The Tale of Genji; The Sound of the Mountain, about the relationship of an old man and his daughter-in-law; and Snow Country, about an aging geisha. A friend of Mishima Yukio, he was also associated with right-wing causes and openly protested the Cultural Revolution in China. He committed suicide two years after Mishima.
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Mishima Yukio
(1925 - 1970) (pseudonym of Hiraoka Kimitake) |
He was a novelist whose central theme was the disparity between traditional Japanese values and the spiritual emptiness of modern life. He failed to qualify for military service during World War II, so worked in an aircraft factory instead. Mishima's first novel, Confessions of a Mask (Kamen no kokuhaku), was successful enough to allow him to write full time. His four-volume epic, The Sea of Fertility (Hojo no umi, consisting of Spring Snow, Runaway Horses, The Temple of Dawn, and The Decay of the Angel), is about self-destructive personalities and the transformation of Japan into a modern, but sterile, society. Mishima, who organized the Tate no kai, a right-wing society stressing physical fitness and the martial arts, committed ritual suicide after a public speech failed to galvanize the armed forces into overthrowing the government.
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Oe Kenzaburo
(1935 - present) |
Novelist and recipient of the 1994 Nobel Prize for Literature. His first work, Shiiku (The Catch in the Shadow of the Sunrise), describes a friendship between a Japanese boy and a black American POW, and won him the Akutagawa award while he was still a student. His early works are filled with insanity, abuse, perverse sex, and violence, but his later works (including A Personal Matter (Kojinteki-na taiken) and The Silent Cry (Man'en gannen no futtoboru)) reflect the experience of being the father of a brain-damaged child. His fiction centers on the alienation following Japan's surrender and his political writings focus on the search for cultural and ideological roots.
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