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This course introduces
students from the West to the classical Japanese poetic tradition, which is
an essential component of traditional Japanese literature, and the art of
kana calligraphy that evolved from the early use of Chinese characters to
transcribe the sounds of Japanese.
The course begins with
a brief prehistory of the Japanese people before the official adoption of Chinese
as the court language, and Buddhism as the court religion, by the dominant
Yamato clan in the mid-sixth century. Selections from the earliest extant
work of Japanese historiography, the Kojiki, are presented with an emphasis
on the use made of local folk heroes throughout Japan to lay the foundation
for a national folklore, and the appearance of the earliest example of
Japanese poetry in a song supposedly intoned by the mythological hero
Susanoo. The course continues through the Nara period (710-794), with its
representative poetic collection, the Man'yoshu (759); and the Heian period
(794-1185), with emphasis on the Kokinshu (905), the first of many poetic
anthologies compiled by imperial command. Attention is also given to the
stylistically influential Shinkokinshu of 1205, an imperial anthology
compiled against a background of decline in the economic and political
power of the court elite that had ruled Japan unopposed for some centuries.
The latter half of the
course stresses the dual themes of the breakdown of central authority and
fragmentation of political power during the long medieval period
(1185-1600) in Japan, alongside the diffusion and reworking of courtly
aesthetic and literary principles among the common folk. Significant in
this scheme is the development of renga, Japanese linked verse composed
along the stylistic lines set forth in the Shinkokinshu, into a wildly
popular poetic form among the people from the fifteenth century onward.
Similarly, attention is given to the poetic form known today as haiku,
which began as a series of sometimes awkward experiments with the initial
two lines of a 100-verse renga and was developed into the dominant poetic
form during the Edo period (1500-1868) by Matsuo Basho and Taniguchi Buson,
and revived in the early twentieth century by Masaoka Shiki.
In addition to series
of lectures tracing the development of the Japanese poetic tradition in
historical context, FLJ 250 also provides instruction in the analysis of
classical Japanese poetry in translation, with reference to the original
poems. Students in FLJ 250, like students in any beginning Japanese course,
are taught the forty-eight characters of the hiragana syllabary that has
been used to write Japanese since about the mid-Heian period. As distinct from
the typical language course, students in FLJ 250 learn to write the same
kana in classic calligraphic form, on the model of writings by famed
Japanese calligraphers over the last thousand years and to learn variant
forms of specific kana that were commonly used prior to the Meiji
Restoration.
The course concludes
with a class project in which each student writes calligraphic versions of
several poems from the Kkikinshu, as well as a conventional final
examination that allows each student the opportunity to display his/her
knowledge of the Japanese poetic tradition from the mid-eighth through the
early twentieth centuries.
To the best of our
knowledge, FLJ 250 is unique among the Japanese cultural offerings at
American universities, and certainly among schools in the Midwest. The
subject matter should be of interest to a variety of students, and
especially to those seeking to further develop their artistic ability and
powers of poetic analysis. At the same time, young men who are commonly
drawn to the world of sports or martial arts may well find themselves
intrigued by a culture in which high poetic aspirations are considered
perfectly appropriate even to a warrior or other man of action.
Certainly FLJ 250 will
be of particular value to any young American who seeks a knowledge of
Japanese language and culture as an aid to rapid progress in the world of
international business. The rare foreigner who can demonstrate a solid
grounding in this unique and vital poetic tradition will be known to his
Japanese acquaintances as one who has taken the trouble to absorb the
kokoro --the spirit-- of traditional Japanese culture, and is likely to be
accorded special respect as a result. Yet, even this reward must be
considered secondary to the rare experience, offered by FLJ 250, of gaining
a direct insight into the heart of one of the world's most complex and
fascinating cultures.
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