Table of Contents

Historical Periods, Measurements, and Other Matters 1. Early Modern Japan 2. Kana Booklets and the Emergence of a Print Culture 3. Ihara Saikaku and the Books of the Floating World 4. Early Haikai Poetry and Poetics 5. The Poetry and Prose of Matsuo Bash_ 6. Chikamatsu Monzaemon and the Puppet Theater 7. Confucian Studies and Literary Perspectives 8. Confucianism in Action: An Autobiography of a Bakufu Official 9. Chinese Poetry and the Literatus Ideal 10. The Golden Age of Puppet Theater 11. Dangibon and the Birth of Edo Popular Literature 12. Comic and Satiric Poetry 13. Literati Meditations 14. Early Yomihon: History, Romance, and the Supernatural 15. Eighteenth-Century Waka and Nativist Study 16. Sharebon: Books of Wit and Fashion 17. Kiby_shi: Satiric and Didactic Picture Books 18. Kokkeibon: Comic Fiction for Commoners 19. Ninj_bon: Sentimental Fiction 20. G_kan: Extended Picture Books 21. Ghosts and Nineteenth-Century Kabuki 22. Late Yomihon: History and the Supernatural Revisited 23. Nativizing Poetry and Prose in Chinese 24. The Miscellany 25. Early-Nineteenth-Century Haiku 26. Waka in the Late Edo Period 27. Rakugo English-Language Bibliography Index

Promotional Information

This unique anthology is the first representative collection of Japanese literature from one of the most creative periods in Japanese culture, known variously as the Edo or the Tokugawa. It includes a wide range of fiction, poetry, and drama, and also essays, literary criticism, folk stories, and other noncanonical works with a number of new translations.

About the Author

Haruo Shirane is Shincho Professor of Japanese Literature and Culture at Columbia University. His publications include The Bridge of Dreams: Poetics of the Tale of Genji and Traces of Dreams: Landscape, Cultural Memory, and the Poetry of Bash'o.

Reviews

"This anthology stands alone. It is the first comprehensive anthology of early modern literature. The richness of content allows it to fulfill many different purposes...This volume provides a wealth of material." -- Robert N. Huey, Monumenta Nipponica "This book will become an indispensable reference, not only for students of Edo literature but also for those who have an interest in Japanese culture in general." -- Hiroko Kobayashi, Asian Studies Review "Shirane has given us so many angles from which to view this unique society that before long we almost feel we have joined it." -- Asahi.com "This single volume from Columbia University Press has the bulk and the breadth to introduce to the full scope of Edo literature to the English-speaking world." -- Haruko G. Iwasaki, The Journal of Asian Studies "Haruo Shirane's Early Modern Japanese Literature will serve as the standard anthology for some time to come." -- Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies "This volume has much to offer both students and scholars of Japanese theatre." -- Julie Iezzi, Asian Theatre Journal