Modern Japanese Literature

by Donald Keene

  3 As a priest it would be his business to recite prayers for the dead.

  4 The portable shrine around which most Japanese festivals center. Yatchoi, yatchoi is a childish variant of the chant with which mikoshi-bearers mark time. Mikoshi were, until very recently, carried only by men and boys; hence the resentment of the girl who speaks next.

  5 For the traditional New Year game of battledore and shuttlecock.

  6 The Yoshiwara, the quarter of the story. The expression “Five Streets” also refers to the Yoshiwara.

  7 In its simpler forms, used for the New Year game of battledore and shuttlecock, but often, as here, a heavily decorated display piece.

  8 The father seems to have been adopted into his wife’s family. Upon her death he returned to his own, but Shota, heir to the pawnshop, had to stay behind.

  9A priest’s wife is called Daikoku, “god of the kitchen.” Hence Midori of the Daikokuya should be ideal for Nobu of the Ryugeji Temple.

  10 Often called “the Wall Street of Tokyo.”

  11 Yang Kuei-fei, loved by the Tang Emperor Hsūan Tsung. A poem by Po Chū-i describes the Emperor’s grief after her death.

  12 A popular song describing the tangerine boats from Kinokuni in southern Japan. Midori was born in Kinokuni, the present Wakayama Prefecture.

  13 Buddhist priests were once, but for the most part are no longer, forbidden to marry and eat fish or meat.

  14 Tamagiku was an eighteenth-century courtesan famous for her kind heart. Each July the Yoshiwara was decorated with lanterns in her honor.

  15 A very famous house in the Yoshiwara. It is still in business, almost the only house that makes any attempt to preserve Yoshiwara traditions.

  16 There was a crematorium at Nippori, just north of Ueno Park.

  17 Murasaki was the great love of Prince Genji in the Tale of Genji. The widow of the Azechi no Dainason was her grandmother.

  18 The Otori fair is held on those days in November that fall under the zodiacal sign of the bird. Some years there are two, some years three.

  1 Then as now Japanese schoolboys were fond of using foreign words; sänger is used to mean “geisha.”

  2 A raised passageway which goes from the back of the theatre through the audience to the stage.

  3 A style of dramatic singing somewhat similar to the tokiwazu which Otoyo teaches.

  4 A romance written in 1832-1833 by Tamenaga Shunsui. The hero Tanjiro was for many years considered to be the great prototype of a passionate lover.

  1 Character in a Gorki story, “The Three of Them.”

  2 Yosano Tekkan (1873-1935), a leading poet of the day. For poetry by his wife Akiko, see pp. 202-3, 206.

  3 An artistic and literary club—1908-1912—led by the poets Kitahara Hakushū and Yoshii lsamu. The club stood for both European literature and the art of the Tokugawa period.

  4 The letter is written in a combination of common, dialectal speech and old-fashioned phrases redolent of epistolary manuals.

  5 Takuboku’s wife.

  6 Kindaichi Kyosuke, the distinguished philologist and student of the Ainu, was a close friend of Takuboku’s, and lived in the next room during this period.

  7 A small copper coin, half a sen.

  1 The “New School,” a late nineteenth-century development in Kabuki, founded by Kawakami Otojirō.

  2 In Japanese slang a boisterous drunken man is called a “tiger.”

  1 The third of the Five Great Kings, guarding the center. In his right hand he holds a sword to strike the demons, in his left, a cord to bind them.

  2 Judges of the underworld.

  3 The Five Virtues of Confucius: Humanity, Justice, Propriety, Wisdom and Fidelity.

  1 The “thousand-stitches belt” is a talisman, with red threads sewn by well-wishers for a Japanese soldier when he leaves for the front. It is supposed to protect him from wounds.

  1 At the Shin Yakushi-ji, a temple in Nara of the eighth century. The contrast is drawn between the sunshine outside and the silent darkness inside the building, where the once resplendent statue stands.

  1 Maka Shikan, a major text of the Tendai sect of Buddhism.

  Table of Contents

  Cover Page

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Contents

  Preface

  Introduction

  KANAGAKI ROBUN: The Beefeater

  HATTORI BUSHŌ: The Western Peep Show

  KAWATAKE MOKUAMI: The Thieves

  Modern Poetry in Chinese

  TSUBOUCHI SHŌYŌ: The Essence of the Novel

  FUTABATEI SHIMEI: The Drifting Cloud

  HIGUCHI ICHIYŌ: Growing Up

  KUNIKIDA DOPPO: Old Gen

  Modern Haiku: I

  NATSUME SŌSEKI: Botchan

  SHIMAZAKI TŌSON: The Broken Commandment

  TAYAMA KATAI: One Soldier

  NAGAI KAFŪ: The River Sumida

  Modern Poetry: I

  Modern Waka

  ISHIKAWA TAKUBOKU: The Romaji Diary

  MORI ŌGAI: The Wild Goose

  IZUMI KYŌKA: A Tale of Three Who Were Blind

  NAKA KANSUKE: Sanctuary

  SHIGA NAOYA: Han’s Crime

  SHIGA NAOYA: At Kinosaki

  KIKUCHI KAN: The Madman on the Roof

  KUME MASAO: The Tiger

  AKUTAGAWA RYŪNOSUKE: Kesa and Moritō

  AKUTAGAWA RYŪNOSUKE: Hell Screen

  KOBAYASHI TAKIJI: The Cannery Boat

  YOKOMITSU RIICHI: Time

  HINO ASHIHEI: Earth and Soldiers

  KAWABATA YASUNARI: The Mole

  Modern Poetry: II

  Modern Haiku: II

  TANIZAKI JUNICHIRŌ: The Firefly Hunt

  TANIZAKI JUNICHIRŌ: The Mother of Captain Shigemoto

  DAZAI OSAMU: Villon’s Wife

  HAYASHI FUMIKO: Tokyo

  MISHIMA YUKIO: Omi

  Short Bibliograph

  Footnotes

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