Primary Sources: Japan >> Literature

Classical Literature
For Students Primary Sources • The Manyôshû and Kokinshû Poetry Collections [Reading]
Excerpts from Japan's oldest collections of poems. Followed by discussion questions.

For Students Primary Sources • The Pillow Book [Reading]
Short excerpts from The Pillow Book, an 11th-century prose text, followed by discussion questions.

Medieval Literature
For Students Primary Sources • The Tale of the Heike [Reading]
Introduction to and excerpts from The Tale of the Heike, a war tale from the twelfth century. Discussion questions are included.

For Students Primary Sources • An Account of My Hut [Reading]
Excerpts from this famous essay written in 1212, in which the author, Kamo no Chômei describes his own road to becoming a Buddhist monk. Discussion questions follow.

For Students Primary Sources • Essays in Idleness [Reading]
Short excerpts from Essays in Idleness. With discussion questions.

Tokugawa Literature
For Students Primary Sources • Saikaku: The Comic Novelist [Reading]
Excerpt from a story by the seventeenth-century writer Ihara Saikaku (1642-93). Discussion questions follow.

For Students Primary Sources • Haikai: Comic Linked Verse [Reading]
Two examples of the haikai form of verse. Followed by discussion questions.

For Students Primary Sources • The Poetry of Bashô [Reading]
Six examples of haiku by Matsuo Bashô. Followed by discussion questions.

Modern Literature
For Students Primary Sources • A Short Story by Kawabata Yasunari (1889-1972) [Reading]
The full text of "The Pomegranate," a short story by Kawabata Yasunari (1889-1972), the first Japanese writer to win the Nobel Prize in literature. Includes discussion questions.

 
for students includes teacher's note multimedia unit
primary source reading general reading includes art
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