Questions tagged [japanese-language]
Questions about works of literature that were originally written in the Japanese language, regardless of whether they were written or published in Japan or elsewhere.
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Full English translation of Eiji Yoshikawa's novel Musashi
Is there a full English translation of the novel Musashi (『宮本武蔵』) by Eiji Yoshikawa? The one usually available from Charles Terry is abridged.
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How did Indian literature influence Japanese literature?
The Wikipedia article on Japanese literature opens with the following sentences about the influence of other cultures and bodies of literature on the (nascent?) Japanese literature:
Early works of ...
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Did Sara and Tsukuru finally get together?
Haruki Murakami's novel "Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage" follows the life of Tsukuru Tazaki and his relationships and bonds with people he meets in his life - the group ...
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Life of Clara A. Walsh
I am looking for any biographical information concerning Clara A. Walsh. She wrote "The Master-Singers of Japan," a selection of classical Japanese poetry translated into English. It was ...
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Who translated the Baccano! series into English?
I am researching the light novel series Baccano! authored by 成田良悟 (Narita Ryōgo). I haven't been able to find out who the translator(s) is/are. Especially for Vol. 5 (light novel): 2001 The Children ...
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What is the meaning of Akutagawa's reference to a centaur?
The following is an excerpt of Ryūnosuke Akutagawa's novel The life of a fool:
He read a book by Anatole France, his head propped up by a pillow of skepticism exuding a rosy fragrance; the presence ...
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I'm looking for a certain haiku about kusarigama in Japanese
The haiku I'm looking for is probably of an anonymous author. I got a hint on a Japanese message board that it's maybe Musashi's one and I should find it in Eiji Yoshikawa's famous novel, but it's not ...
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Source of the Japanese story Joseph Campbell tells of a samurai spat upon in The Power of Myth
I'm searching for the source of the Japanese story of a samurai spat upon which Joseph Campbell relates in The Power of Myth. (Oddly, the book has no citation on this).
. . . there is a story . . . ...
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How do the lyrics of "上を向いて歩こう" relate to its English title "Sukiyaki"?
The English title of the Japanese song 上を向いて歩こう is a head scratcher.
The lyrics:
上を向いて歩こう
涙がこぼれないように
思い出す 春の日
一人ぽっちの夜
上を向いて歩こう
にじんだ星をかぞえて
思い出す 夏の日
一人ぽっちの夜
幸せは 雲の上に
幸せは 空の上に
上を向いて歩こう
涙がこぼれないように
泣きながら ...
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Need help in appreciating the significance of The Tale of Genji
While spending one complete year each on the study of Japanese and Chinese literature (in translation), it was a pleasure to experience the cultural differences among the Western body of writings and ...
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Freudian/psychoanalytical interpretation of the triangular relationship in Toradora!
The central theme in the Japanese light novel/manga Toradora! (とらドラ!) around which the entire story unfolds is the love triangle between the male protagonist Takasu Ryuji and his two girl friends, ...
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Where did the idea of mono no aware come from?
Piggybacking on this question, I am still curious about the mono no aware (物の哀れ) reading of The Tale of Genji. According to Wikipedia:
Norinaga's most important works include the Kojiki-den (...
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What is the nature of the differences between the Kawachi-bon and the Aobyoshi-bon lines of the Tale of Genji manuscripts?
The original manuscripts of The Tale of Genji no longer exist. Royall Tyler writes in the introduction to his translation (Penguin 2003, page xviiii) that by the 13th century, the manuscripts of the ...
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Buddhist interpretation of The Tale of Genji
The search for literary sources has been inspired largely by the
difficulty scholars have experienced in imagining that a work of the
magnitude of The Tale of Genji could have been created without ...
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What exactly does Murasaki Shikibu say about The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter?
Donald Keene comments:
[Murasaki Shikibu] dismissed as old-fashioned the kind of unreality present in The Tale of the
Bamboo Cutter—the birth of a little girl inside a stalk of bamboo, or Kaguyahime’...
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Why did Waley choose to transcribe the titles of some chapters as opposed to translating them in The Tale of Genji?
Arthur Waley seems to be a champion, practitioner, and repeat offender of domesticating translation. This Q&A tells us his translation of Journey to the West significantly abridges the original ...
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Where in the Tale of Genji does it say Genji's affair offends Amaterasu?
From Doris Bargen, The Search for Things Past in the Genji monogatari:
The beginning of the Genji, as established by literary tradition, is
indeed deceptively matter-of-fact about events of grave ...
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What manuscript or manuscripts was the first printed edition of the Tale of Genji based on?
The original manuscript of the 11th-century Japanese novel The Tale of Genji has been lost. According to the Wikipedia article Textual tradition of The Tale of Genji, "the number of manuscript ...
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Which English translation of The Tale of Genji is the most accurate yet readable?
The Tale of Genji was originally written in an archaic form of Japanese, and has been translated both into modern Japanese and into English multiple times. Wikipedia says "The first English ...
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"That’s because you’ve already made your wish." What does it mean?
Haruki Murakami's short story "Birthday Girl", available to read online, is about a girl working part-time as a waiter who gets to make a special wish on her twentieth birthday. In the frame story, ...
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How many "Little People" are in the story-in-the-story in 1Q84?
In Haruki Murakami's novel 1Q84, there is a novella, Air Chrysalis, that plays an important role. It describes some apparently supernatural beings called "the Little People". When the "Little People"...
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Who is the second narrator character in Haruki Murakami's "Birthday Girl"?
Haruki Murakami's short story "Birthday Girl", available to read online, is about a girl working part-time as a waiter who gets to make a special wish on her twentieth birthday. Much of it is written ...
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What was her wish in Haruki Murakami's "Birthday Girl"?
Haruki Murakami's short story "Birthday Girl", available to read online, is about a girl working part-time as a waiter who gets to make a special wish on her twentieth birthday. The first-person ...
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Trying to locate source of a story about Japanese storyteller's apprentice who is mistaken for a master
I'm trying to locate the source of a story I remember, for an essay I'm writing. Not sure if the story is fact, fiction, or legend. It concerns an apprentice to a master storyteller in Japan (Rakugo I ...
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Does 'In a Grove' assume that dead people don't lie?
'In a Grove' is one of Ryūnosuke Akutagawa's best-known short stories, partly due to Kurosawa's film Rashomon.
In this short story, we get several accounts of the death of samurai Kanazawa no Takehiro....
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Which book is the maxim 大道無門 from?
From which book is the maxim
大道無門
Zen kōan だいどうむもん "Daidō mumon"
"to achieve great understanding there is no single but thousands of ways".
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Where can I find details on the original manuscripts for the Miyamoto Musashi texts?
I'm doing a "reliability of the text" study and want to review the reliability of the texts that have been used to substantiate the Miyamoto Musashi texts The Book of the Five Rings and The Path of ...
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What Kanji startles Otoko so much?
As I was fighting through the first page of Chapter 7 of Beauty and Sadness (see Dramatis Personae of Beauty and Sadness), I stumbled upon a sentence that is hard to understand. Since I read it in ...
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Dramatis Personae of Beauty and Sadness
Beauty and Sadness (美しさと哀しみと Utsukushisa to kanashimi to) clearly isn't an easy read. I had started it some 5 years ago, read till the middle and abandoned it. Now, I picked it up again and found a ...
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Is there a translation of the 雑兵物語 (zohyo monogatari)?
When I was taking a few notes about Ashigaru, Japanese foot soldiers of the jigoku-era, I found that most contemporary illustrations on this page stem from one and the same book by Utagawa Kuniyoshi.
...
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pre-Meji Japanese book/essay about Strategy
Years ago I had a book in my fingers that was somewhat similar to the Art of War by Sun Tsu, but it was from Japan, and focussed in part on specific combat situations and what to do then. So maybe it ...
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At the start of 6th Spice and Wolf light novel, what's up with the discrepancy between "like" and "love"?
Note: I'd like to request no spoilers beyond the start of the 6th novel.
At the very end of the 4th S&W novel, Lawrence says "I like you".
And yet Lawrence embraced Holo. And then—
&...
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A break in the 5-7-5-7-7 meter?
So I was reading about Waka poetry and then about the tanka meter, when I came across several poems by Ono no Komachi and Narihira. The ついにゆく poem from Narihira has 8 syllables rather than 7 in the ...
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What is the meaning of O-san having a blank face?
When the cat gets his teeth stuck in a rice cake, we see that eventually O-san has to help him:
O-san looks at the mistress as if to say, “Why not make him go on dancing?” The mistress would gladly ...
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How did the cat become well known?
In the second chapter of I Am a Cat, we see this:
SINCE New Year’s Day I have acquired a certain modest celebrity: so that, though only a cat, I am feeling quietly proud of myself. Which is not ...
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What is happening in the scene with Coldmoon and the geisha?
In chapter two of I Am a Cat, we see this scene:
As we turned at Hotan’s corner another geisha appeared. She was slim, well-shaped and her shoulders were most beautifully sloped. The way she wore ...
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What does the teacher's clothing choice say about him?
In chapter 2 of I Am a Cat we see this chunk of text:
He continues to wear his black cotton crested surcoat and, thereunder, a quilted kimono of hand-woven silk which, supposedly a keep-sake of his ...
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Why does the cat call the children 'dear little things' if they treat the cat badly?
The cat in I Am a Cat calls the children 'dear little things':
The children, dear little things, now trot off, day after day, to kindergarten: but on their return, they sing songs, bounce balls and ...
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Does this passage in "I Am a Cat" reference a real Western novel?
In Chapter 2 of the 1906 story, I Am a Cat, (full text of this and preceding chapters available here), the cat makes reference to a particular "western novel" in order to draw an analogy ...
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Why should a teacher's cat care less about human robbery?
I started reading Natsume Sōseki's I Am a Cat a week or two ago in preparation for this month's topic challenge, and I came across the following paragraph towards the end of the first chapter (whose ...
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Do traditional Japanese haikus always describe a moment?
I am currently reading The Heart of Haiku by Jane Hirshfield. In it, there are many examples of haikus by Bashō. In them, they always appear to give reference to a time, either explicitly or through ...
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Does Nausicaä not develop as a character at all?
There will be spoilers regarding characters from the end of the manga here.
In Hayao Miyazaki's Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (Kaze no Tani no Naushika) manga, the characters are usually ...
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What is the meaning of this tanka by Saigo Hoshi?
What is the meaning of the following tanka by Saigo Hoshi which I came to read today?
Now indeed I know
That when we said "remember"
and we swore it so,
it was in "we will forget"
...
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"The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle": English vs. Russian translation?
I recently started reading "The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle" by Haruki Murakami in English and I'm quite enjoying it.
However, I learned that the English version — although well-translated — omits ...
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Why are manga panels read differently than Japanese text?
Japanese is traditionally read in an up-to-down column, then jumps right-to-left to the next column. But all the manga I've ever seen reverse that order for panel flow, so we go from panel to panel ...
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