Low Down

  The Japanese culture was always very much  influenced  by China and western particles, the art, the religion, all social life was determined by new trends. These trends were mostly of religious background. Confucianism and Buddhism. The feudal system in Japan and its hierarchical structure prevailed for many centuries. The attempts to introduce and granted new believes faced persecutions and prejudice. Japan was not ready and not willing to accept newcomers, any change was welcomed with hostility. The folklore of Japan is very picturesque, the origins of Japan and its inhabitants were mentioned in numerous tales, oracle songs. The most well-known tales tell that the Japanese people had their  descendants  in the Sun Goddess. A divine symbol will always be a Fuji mountain as an ecclesiastical ancestry of Japanese people. It is proved that most of the literature, especially the old texts had its background dated back to early migrations that took plac...

The history of Japan is thriving and full of depressing chapters,  respectively . The historical periods and its diversification made Japan so complex in notions, colorful, a folklore country. Mustn’t it be forgotten that behind this glistening façade – there are also atrocities of war, genocide and crimes against humanity. Despite the tremendous bombardment and war  destruction  – Japanese economy is booming, no one would have ever expected it will rise from the ashes of atomic bombs so quickly and so effectively.   Japan has changed since 1945 – Tokyo nowadays seems to be not in XXI but in XXII century. The US atomic bombardment will always be remembered, however, Japanese people would like to leave it behind. Despite the growth, Japan has also got debts, the debts has to be paid off – some of them, as it is believed caused unemployment and uncertainty. The feeling of sadness is overwhelming. The transformation it is what interested people, the transfo...

The story is a pure fiction, the perspective of perception of inner notions of a spiritual journey of Rohan, the journey is made to reach the final destination Tokyo, along the way, the protagonist enters smaller and bigger towns, in one of such towns he is advised to go through the range of mountains, he does it and encounters adventures, almost frozen to death he got help from a young woman, who nursed him till he recovered. She is a hermit, she tells him the story of her life, shortly after she finished, the house he was in disappeared; Rohan is left alone, again on the frozen land.  The symbol of the woman is a skull that is left next to him. The novel is packed with symbolism and images, metaphorical notions. The life of Koda Rohan is very interesting, he always wanted to have a good educational background, the works he wrote are beautiful, the language and rhyme combined altogether are unique and exceptional. His works reflect poetry, prose, not a regular novel the reader mig...

The Tale of Genji ( 源氏物語 ) by Murasaki Shikibu ( 紫   式 部 ) It represents the classical literature, the literature of the [1] Heian period, a very distinctive and productive in didactic. The book is unique – it was pronounced a first modern, psychological novel, it describes the daily life of the Emperor and the court’s vassals, live hood of everyday people. The book has got a shape of clusters of chapters and chapters, it was everyday writing to amuse, to entertain, to acknowledge the aristocracy, women mostly. The shape of the novel is very much alike as in modern evaluated narrative; there is one main hero, villain and sideways characters that fill the plot, make it vivid and dynamic. There is not a firm plot as the reader used to know in modern XX and XXI century novels, however, there is a chain of events that describes the life of the characters, it changes as their life goes on; gradually getting older and older. The system – Imperial Japan, feudal shape o...

Kokin Wakashu is the earliest set of Japanese poems, it is an anthology of Japanese  poetry , oracle history of the early Imperial nation. The anthology’s origins describes the reign of Emperor Uda and Daigo.  The onset of the book is marked by introduction which is an early Japanese language, the archaic language, twenty-two books are aloof and beautiful, exceptional and unique by presence of crafted drawings. The genres of the poems are ‘tanaka’, ‘waka’and ‘uta’. The poems were requested to be written and gathered by Emperor. It was a enterprise, it was to show how sophisticated Japan became.  All of the poems represent ‘haiku tradition’. The anthology is complex, embraces three periods; the first part portrays sophisticated works of anonymous writers, the oral history of Japan; it is dated before to mid IX century, the collection was entitled “Six Poetic Geniuses”. The poems of medieval Japan , folk stories, it describes social life, social injustice, the Emperor...

The Japanese early modern period is very rich in pictures, notions, sounds, writings in particularly, it is important to underline that the early writings and cartography in Japan was booming, the language was constantly changing, lots  of borrowings came from China, Korea. The language was not simple, lots of districts and dialects made its own literary genre that determined Asia as a whole, new nations, distant ones, but with a very peculiar culture and identity. The early history is not only written by wars and skirmishes – but also by literature, white pages are filled with beautiful poems, rhymes, “oracle history” of Japan . Imperial Japan alike Imperial Britain had its tales on court, from where it all  traveled  miscellaneously changed by troubadours. Generations shaped history. The versification and stress, the intonation pattern changed alongside with the region it was told, sang, created.  Different district meant different dialect and so it went. Jap...

Tsubouchi Shoyo is one of the founders of the modern novel in Japan , the genre that revolutionized the way Western and Eastern patterns were perceived. “The Essence of the Novel” is a masterpiece, an introduction to modernism and modern literary genre in Japan . The “The Essence of the Novel” describes everything that stands for  modern  notion, it does have a background, its focal point from which everything has its onset, the history, its moment in the past,  the reader notices a boom of something new and profound. The age of modernization and age of changes Japanese people were so afraid of marked Japan forever. Western literature seemed to push back the original Japanese genre of ‘gesaku’ one, which, symbolized frivolous, cherry and merry fiction so typical for Meji era. “The Essence of the Novel” focuses on the language, on the pattern, on the protagonist’s character, symbols and meaning. The feelings and emotions are the core of the plot, the descriptions are...