Classical Japanese Prose: An Anthology

Book Overview

This volume brings together in convenient form a rich selection of Japanese prose dating from the ninth to the seventeenth centuries, a period during which the preeminent cultural and aesthetic values were those of the Heian court. It contains 22 works representing all the major indigenous literary forms, either complete or in generous excerpts, and is particularly rich in writing by women and in autobiographical writings.

This anthology contains longer selections than the only other available anthology, which was published in the 1950s, and each selection is preceded by an introduction reflecting the most recent scholarship. With three exceptions, all the translations are by the compilers, and almost all of them are published here for the first time.

Because of space limitations, the compiler has omitted the two long masterpieces of the age, The Tale of Genji and The Tale of Heike, which deserve to be read in their entirety, and which are available in paperback English translations. The book contains an extensive general introduction, thirteen illustrations, five maps, a glossary, and a selected bibliography of works in English translation.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0804719608
• ISBN13: 9780804719605
• Release Date: October 1991
• Publisher: Stanford University Press
• Length: 596 Pages
• Weight: 1.85 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.4" x 6.0" x 9.1"

Customer Reviews

beautiful anthology

McCullough's Classical Japanese Prose is an excellent anthology beginning with Tale of the Bamboo Cutter, a folk story from the early 900s, through to two travel accounts by Matsuo Basho from the late 1600s. It covers memoirs, folk tales, journals, a good deal of poetry (embedded in prose pieces), travel accounts, vernacular histories, short stories, and military stories. Many works are here in complete translations, some of the longer ones as excerpts. McCullough's translations are concise yet flowing, her translations of poetry are great, and she writes introductions to all the pieces, as well as a general introduction; and Stephen D. Carter translates some of the work, including Basho and the Essays in Ideleness. There are well known pieces like the two just mentioned alongside quite obscure pieces such as Journal of the Sixteenth-Night Moon, a travel journal by the nun Abutsu (which is great), and a 50-page selection from A Tale of Flowering Fortunes, a vernacular history by Akazome Emon, which is the primary reason I got the anthology (the complete translation by McCullough, running hundreds of pages in two volumes, goes for $200-$500). If you're interested in classical Japanese prose and poetry, or just early prose in general, this is a great place to get a wide range of work. Highly recommended.