A Kamigata Anthology: Literature from Japan’s Metropolitan Centers, 1600–1750
About this ebook
The tendency to imagine Japan’s modernity as a creation of Western influence since the mid-nineteenth century is still strong, particularly outside Japan studies. A Kamigata Anthology challenges such assumptions by illustrating the flourishing phenomenon of Japan’s movement into its own modernity through a selection of the best examples from the period, including popular genres such as haikai poetry, handmade picture scrolls, travel guidebooks, kabuki and joruri plays, prose narratives of contemporary life, and jokes told by professional entertainers. Well illustrated with prints from popular books of the time and hand scrolls and standing screens containing poems and commentaries, the entertaining and vibrant translations put a spotlight on texts currently unavailable in English.
Ratings and reviews
About the author
Sumie Jones (Editor)
Sumie Jones, a specialist in eighteenth-century comparative literature and Edo arts, is professor emerita of East Asian languages and cultures and comparative literature and a residential fellow of the Institute for Advanced Study, Indiana University, Bloomington. She is the recipient of the 2018–19 Lindsley and Masao Miyoshi Translation Prize for lifetime achievement as a translator, presented by the Donald Keene Center of Japanese Culture, Columbia University.
Adam L. Kern (Editor)
Adam L. Kern is professor of Japanese literature and visual culture at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.
Kenji Watanabe (Editor)
Kenji Watanabe, an expert in Edo-period literature and society, is professor emeritus of Rikkyo University and academic dean of the Jiyugakuen College, Tokyo.
