Samenvatting van Primitieve en middeleeuwse Japanse teksten

The 10 key ideas

1. Key idea 1 · free to read

   Four texts show Japan finding its voice

   This volume gathers four works that mark stages in the growth of Japanese writing. The Manyoshu comes first, an anthology compiled around 760. Its long lays are often followed by short envoys that add a closing thought or a change of mood.

   The second work is the Taketori Monogatari, the story of the old bamboo cutter. The third is the preface Ki no Tsurayuki wrote around 922 for the Kokinwakashu, a collection of Japanese verse old and new. The fourth is Takasago, perhaps the earliest of the medieval miracle plays known as Noh.

   Yet they share a question: how do people put feeling into words?

   This volume is a walk through the first rooms of a very large house, where song gives way to story and story to the stage.

2. 2

   Old Japanese is built from simple open syllables

   The editor begins with a short grammar.

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3. 3

   Chinese characters carried the poems before kana existed

   The Manyoshu is written wholly in Chinese characters, yet the result would puzzle a Chinese reader.

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4. 4

   Palaces and mountains are praised as living things

   Many long lays in the Manyoshu honor the sovereign through the land.

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5. 5

   Partings and lost wives give the book its warmth

   The loveliest lays are private.

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6. 6

   Hardship and loyalty sit beside court splendor

   The Manyoshu does not speak only for emperors.

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7. 7

   Legends and travelers fill the roads of the anthology

   Several lays retell old stories at the places where they happened.

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8. 8

   A sick governor and a lost hawk bring the later books alive

   The later books follow Ohotomo no Yakamochi, who serves as governor in Koshi, far from the capital.

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9. 9

   The bamboo cutter's daughter tests five suitors

   The Taketori Monogatari begins with an old man who cuts bamboo and finds a tiny girl inside a glowing stalk.

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10. 10

    A poet's manifesto and a play about paired pines

    The preface to the Kokinwakashu opens with a bold claim.

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