It is about the history of Japanese Literature. Literature made and its author, the books evolution, the kinds of books made long ago, and the trends before can be added towards your knowledge and learning.

1. A Brief History of Japanese
Literature
By:
Dalman, Denver A.
Members:
Escultura, Kristian Elicieo
Tigley, Joseph Arle
Preston, Clement

2. History of Japanese Literature
• Japanese Literature can be divided into four
main periods.
*Ancient (until 794)
*Classical (794-1185)
*Medieval (1185-1603)
*Modern (1603-1945)
-Early-modern Literature
(1603-1868)
-Modern Literature (1868-1945)

3. Ancient Literature
(until 794)

4. Ancient Literature (until 794)
• They don’t have their own writing system.
• Chinese characters were further adopted.
• The earliest works were created
in the Nara period.
– Kojiki
– Nihon Shoki
– Man'yōshū
• Urashima Taro
– has been identified as the earliest
example of a story involving time
travel.

5. Classical Literature
(794-1185)

6. Classical Literature (794-1185)
• Generally refers to literature produced
during the Heian period (the golden era of
art and literature).
• Important Writings of the Period
– Genji Monogatari (early 11th century)
By: Murasaki Shikibu .
– Kokin Wakashū (905)
– Makura no Sōshi (990s)
By: Sei Shōnagon

7. Classical Literature (794-1185)
• Iroha poem
– one of two standard orderings for the
Japanese syllabary.
• Taketori Monogatari (The
10th-century Japanese narrative)
• Konjaku Monogatarishū
– a collection of over a thousand
stories in 31 volumes.

8. Medieval Literature
(1185-1603)

9. Medieval Literature (1185-1603)
• Work from this period is notable for its
insights into life and death, simple
lifestyles, and redemption through killing.
• The Tale of the Heike (1371)
• Other Important Tales
– Kamo no Chōmei's Hōjōki (1212)
– Yoshida Kenkō's Tsurezuregusa (1331).
• Other Notable Genres
– Renga(linked verse)
– Noh (theater)

10. Early-modern Literature
(1603–1868)

11. Early-modern Literature (1603–
1868)
• Tokugawa Period (commonly referred to as
the Edo Period)
• In the New Capital of Edo (modern
Tokyo)
– forms of popular drama developed which
later evolve into kabuki.
• Chikamatsu Monzaemon (jōruri and
kabuki dramatist)
– became popular at the end of the
17th century, and he is also known
as the Japan's Shakespeare.

12. Early-modern Literature (1603–
1868)
• Matsuo Bashō
– Wrote Oku no Hosomichi (1702), a travel diary.
• Hokusai
– illustrated fiction as well as his famous
36 Views of Mount Fuji.
• Jippensha Ikku
– known as Japan's Mark Twain.
– wrote Tōkaidōchū Hizakurige, a mix
of travelogue and comedy.

13. Early-modern Literature (1603–
1868)
• Many genres of literature made their début
during the Edo Period.
• There are outside influences
trickled during the period.
– Minor Western Influences from the
Dutch settlement at Nagasaki
– Chinese vernacular fiction
• Greatest outside influence on the
development of Early Modern Japanese
fiction.

14. Early-modern Literature (1603–
1868)
• Ikara Saikaku
– Said to have given birth to the modern consciousness of
the novel in Japan.
– Mixed vernacular dialogue into his
humorous and cautionary tales of
the pleasure quarters.
• Tsuga Teisho, Takebe Ayatari, and
Okajima Kanzan
– Instrumental in developing the
yomihon (historical romances almost
entirely in prose)
• Influenced by Chinese ndVernacular Novels:
– Three Kingdoms and Shui hu zhuan

15. Early-modern Literature (1603–
1868) • Ueda Akinari:
– Wrote two yomihon masterpieces.
• Ugetsu monogatari and Harusame
monogatari
– wrote the extremely popular
fantasy/historical romance (yomihon)
• Nansō Satomi Hakkenden
• Santō Kyōden
– Wrote yomihon mostly set in the gay
quarters until the Kansei edicts
(Confucian philosophy) banned such work.
– He then turned to comedic kibyōshia (genre of
Japanese picture book kusazōshi)

16. Early-modern Literature (1603–
1868)
• Genres included horror, crime stories,
morality stories, comedy, and
pornography—often
accompanied by colorful
woodcut prints.
• In the Tokugawa (in earlier
periods) scholarly work
continued to be published in
Chinese, which was the
language of the learned.

17. Modern Literature
(1868–1945)

18. Modern Literature (1868–1945)
• The Meiji period
– Marks the re-opening of Japan to the West.
– A period of rapid industrialization.
• The Introduction of European literature
– brought free verse into the poetic repertoire.
– It became widely used for longer works embodying
new intellectual themes.
• Young Japanese prose writers and
dramatists
– struggled with a whole galaxy of new ideas and
artistic schools.
• Novelists
– the first to assimilate some of the new concepts successfully.

19. Modern Literature (1868–1945)
• A new colloquial literature developed
centering on the "I novel", with
some unusual protagonists.
– An exampe is Wagahai wa neko
de aru (I Am a Cat).
By: Natsume Sōseki

20. Modern Literature (1868–1945)
• Shiga Naoya (god of the novel), and Mori Ōgai
– were instrumental in adopting and
adapting Western literary
conventions and techniques.
• Ryūnosuke Akutagawa
– known especially for his historical
short stories.
• Ozaki Kōyō, Kyōka Izumi, and
Ichiyo Higuchi
– a strain of writers whose style hearkens
back to early-Modern Japanese literature.

21. Modern Literature (1868–1945)
• In the early Meiji period (1868–1880s),
– Fukuzawa Yukichi
• authored Enlightenment literature
– Pre-modern popular books depicted
the quickly changing country.
• In the mid-Meiji (late 1880s–early
1890s)
– Realism was brought in by
Tsubouchi Shōyō and
Futabatei Shimei
– Classicism of Ozaki Kōyō, Yamada
Bimyo and Kōda Rohan gained popularity.

22. Modern Literature (1868–1945)
• Ichiyō Higuchi
– a rare female writer in this era
– wrote short stories on powerless
women of this age in a simple style in
between literary and colloquial.
• Kyōka Izumi
– pursued a flowing and elegant style
– wrote early novels such as The
Operating Room (1895) in literary
style and later ones including The
Holy Man of Mount Koya (1900) in colloquial.

23. Modern Literature (1868–1945)
• Romanticism
– brought in by Mori Ōgai with his anthology of
translated poems (1889)
– Tōson Shimazaki and the
magazines, Myōjō and Bungaku-kai
in early 1900s carried it to it’s height.
• Mori Ōgai
– Wrote some modern novels, including:
• The Dancing Girl (1890)
• Wild Geese (1911)
– Later wrote historical novels.

24. Modern Literature (1868–1945)
• Natsume Sōseki
– often compared with Mori Ōgai,
– wrote I Am a Cat (1905) with humor
and satire,
– depicted fresh and pure youth in
Botchan (1906) and Sanshirô (1908).
– eventually pursued transcendence of
human emotions and egoism in his
later works including:
• Kokoro (1914)
• Light and darkness (1916)
– his last and unfinished novel.

25. Modern Literature (1868–1945)
• Shimazaki
– shifted from Romanticism to Naturalism.
– established with his:
• The Broken Commandment(1906)
• Katai Tayama's Futon (1907).
• Naturalism
– hatched "I Novel“
(Watakushi-shôsetu) that describes
about the authors themselves and
depicts their own mental states.

26. Modern Literature (1868–1945)
• Neo-romanticism
– came out of anti-naturalism
– led by Kafū Nagai, Jun'ichirō Tanizaki,
Kōtarō Takamura, Hakushū Kitahara,
and so on in the early 1910s.
• Saneatsu Mushanokōji,
Naoya Shiga and others.
– founded a magazine Shirakaba
in 1910.
– They shared a common characteristic,
Humanism.

27. Modern Literature (1868–1945)
• Shiga's style
– Autobiographical
– depicted states of his mind
– classified as "I Novel"
• Ryūnosuke Akutagawa
– highly praised by Soseki.
– wrote short stories including
Rashōmon (1915) with an
intellectual and analytic attitude
– represented Neo-realism in the mid-1910s.

28. Modern Literature (1868–1945)
• During the 1920s and early 1930s
– the proletarian literary movement,
comprising such writers as
Takiji Kobayashi, Denji
Kuroshima, Yuriko Miyamoto,
and Ineko Sata
• produced a politically radical
literature depicting the harsh lives
of people in the society.

29. Modern Literature (1868–1945)
• War-time Japan
– saw the début of several authors
– best known for the beauty of their language and
their tales of love and sensuality.
• Notably:
– Jun'ichirō Tanizaki
– Japan's first winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, Yasunari
Kawabata, a master of psychological fiction.
– Ashihei Hino
• wrote lyrical bestsellers glorifying the war.
– Tatsuzō Ishikawa
• attempted to publish a disturbingly realistic account
of the advance on Nanjing.
– Writers who opposed the war include Denji
Kuroshima,Mitsuharu Kaneko, Hideo Oguma, and Jun
Ishikawa.

30. Post-war
Literature

31. Post-war Literature
• World War II, and Japan's defeat
– It deeply influenced Japanese
literature.
– Many authors wrote stories of
disaffection, loss of purpose,
and the coping with defeat.

32. END
• Source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_literature
• Thank You!
• Hope you learned a lot!