Strange Tales from Edo

Strange Tales from Edo
Author: William D. Fleming
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 312
Release: 2024-09-09
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1684176875

In Strange Tales from Edo, William Fleming paints a sweeping picture of Japan’s engagement with Chinese fiction in the early modern period (1600–1868). Large-scale analyses of the full historical and bibliographical record—the first of their kind—document in detail the wholesale importation of Chinese fiction, the market for imported books and domestic reprint editions, and the critical role of manuscript practices—the ascendance of print culture notwithstanding—in the circulation of Chinese texts among Japanese readers and writers. Bringing this big picture to life, Fleming also traces the journey of a text rarely mentioned in studies of early modern Japanese literature: Pu Songling’s Liaozhai zhiyi (Strange Tales from Liaozhai Studio). An immediate favorite of readers on the continent, Liaozhai was long thought to have been virtually unknown in Japan until the modern period. Copies were imported in vanishingly small numbers, and the collection was never reprinted domestically. Yet beneath this surface of apparent neglect lies a rich hidden history of engagement and rewriting—hand-copying, annotation, criticism, translation, and adaptation—that opens up new perspectives on both the Chinese strange tale and its Japanese counterparts.

Yoshitoshi's Strange Tales

Yoshitoshi's Strange Tales
Author: John Stevenson
Publisher: Brill Hotei
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2016
Genre: Ghosts in art
ISBN: 9789004337374

Taisō Yoshitoshi (1839-1892) was fascinated by the supernatural, and some of his best work concerns ghosts, monsters, and charming animal transmutations. Yoshitoshi's strange tales presents two series (with full page illustrations) that focus on his depictions of the weird and magical world of the transformed. The first series is One Hundred Tales of Japan and China (Wakan hyaku monogatari, 1865) and it is based on a game in which people told short scary ghost tales in a darkened room, extinguishing a candle as each tale ended. New Forms of Thirty-six Strange Things (Shinken sanjūrokkaisen) of 1889-92 illustrates stories from Japan's rich heritage of legends in more serene and objective ways.

Tales of Old Edo - Kaiki

Tales of Old Edo - Kaiki
Author: Robert Weinberg
Publisher:
Total Pages: 288
Release: 2009
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 9784902075083

Japan has a long history of weird and supernatural literature, but it has been introduced into English only haphazardly until now. The first volume of a 3-volume anthology covering over two centuries of kaiki literature, including both short stories and manga, from Ueda Akinari's Ugetsu Monogatari of 1776 to Kyogoku Natsuhiko's modern interpretations of popular tales. Selected and with commentary by Higashi Masao, a recognized researcher and author in the field, the series systemizes and introduces the scope of the field and helps establish it as a genre of its own. This first volume presents a variety of work focusing on pre-modern Japan, and includes one manga.

Empire of Texts in Motion

Empire of Texts in Motion
Author: Karen Laura Thornber
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Total Pages: 616
Release: 2009
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 9780674036253

During the first half of the 20th century, Japan was the dominant military & political force in East Asia. This study explores the transculturations of Japanese literature amongst the Chinese, Koreans, Taiwanese & Manchurians whose lives had come within the sphere of the Japanese Empire.

Strange Tales from Japan

Strange Tales from Japan
Author:
Publisher: Tuttle Publishing
Total Pages: 415
Release: 2021-08-10
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 146292252X

Prepare to be spooked by these chilling Japanese short stories! Strange Tales from Japan presents 99 spine-tingling tales of ghosts, yokai, demons, shapeshifters and trickster animals who inhabit remote reaches of the Japanese countryside. 32 pages of traditional full-color images of these creatures, who have inhabited the Japanese imagination for centuries, bring the stories to life. The captivating tales in this volume include: The Vengeance of Oiwa--The terrifying spirit of a woman murdered by her husband who seeks retribution from beyond the grave The Curse of Okiku--A servant girl is murdered by her master and curses his family, with gruesome results The Snow Woman--A man is saved by a mysterious woman who swears him to secrecy Tales of the Kappa--Strange human-like sprites with green, scaly skin who live in water and are known to pull children and animals to their deaths And many, many more! Renowned translator William Scott Wilson explains the role these stories play in local Japanese culture and folklore, and their importance to understanding the Japanese psyche. Readers will learn which particular region, city, mountain or temple the stories originate from--in case you're brave enough to visit these haunts yourself!

Knowing the Amorous Man

Knowing the Amorous Man
Author: Jamie L. Newhard
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Total Pages: 338
Release: 2013
Genre: Education
ISBN:

One of the central literary texts of the Heian period (794-1185), Tales of Ise has inspired extensive commentary. Offering a comprehensive history of the work's reception, Jamie Newhard reveals the ideological and aesthetic issues shaping criticism over the centuries as the audience for classical Japanese literature expanded beyond the aristocracy.

Detective Fiction and the Rise of the Japanese Novel, 1880-1930

Detective Fiction and the Rise of the Japanese Novel, 1880-1930
Author: Satoru Saito
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2012
Genre: Detective and mystery stories, Japanese
ISBN: 9780674065864

Satoru Saito examines the similarities between detective fiction and the novel in prewar Japan. Arguing that interactions between the genres were critical moments of literary engagement, Saito demonstrates how detective fiction provided a framework through which to examine and critique Japan's literary formations and its modernizing society.

Struggling Upward

Struggling Upward
Author: Timothy J. Van Compernolle
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 264
Release: 2020-05-11
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1684175682

Struggling Upward reconsiders the rise and maturation of the modern novel in Japan by connecting the genre to new discourses on ambition and social mobility. Collectively called risshin shusse, these discourses accompanied the spread of industrial capitalism and the emergence of a new nation-state in the archipelago. Drawing primarily on historicist strategies of literary criticism, the book situates the Meiji novel in relation to a range of texts from different culturally demarcated zones: the visual arts, scandal journalism, self-help books, and materials on immigration to the colonies, among others. Timothy J. Van Compernolle connects these Japanese materials to topics of broad theoretical interest within literary and cultural studies, including imperialism, gender, modernity, novel studies, print media, and the public sphere. As the first monograph to link the novel to risshin shusse, Struggling Upward argues that social mobility is the privileged lens through which Meiji novelists explored abstract concepts of national belonging, social hierarchy, and the new space of an industrializing nation.

Recontextualizing Texts

Recontextualizing Texts
Author: Atsuko Sakaki
Publisher: Harvard Univ Asia Center
Total Pages: 308
Release: 1999
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9780674750944

Offering the first systematic examination of five modern Japanese fictional narratives, all of them available in English translations, Atsuko Sakaki explores Natsume Sōseki's Kokoro and The Three-Cornered World; Ibuse Masuji's Black Rain; Mori Ōgai's Wild Geese; and Tanizaki Jun'ichirō's Quicksand.

Confluence and Conflict

Confluence and Conflict
Author: Brian Hurley
Publisher: Harvard East Asian Monographs
Total Pages: 350
Release: 2022-06-14
Genre:
ISBN: 9780674267909

Writers and intellectuals in modern Japan have long forged dialogues across the boundaries separating the spheres of literature and thought. This book explores some of their most provocative connections in the volatile years of the 1920s to 1950s, revealing unexpected intersections of literature, ideas, and politics in a global transwar context.