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1. JAPANESE LITERATURE
Classical period
Classical literature (koten bungaku), meaning literature from the earliest times up to the
Meiji Restoration of 1868, is customarily divided by literary scholars into four major
periods: jōdai (antiquity), chūko (middle antiquity), chūsei(the middle ages),
and kinsei (the recent past). This method of periodization largely reflects the
traditional terminology employed by Japanese historians. Jōdai covers Japanese literary
history through the Nara period (710-794);chūko is used more or less synonymously
with the literature of the Heian period (794-1180); chūsei takes in the Kamakura (1180-
1333), Muromachi (1333-1573), and Azuchi-Momoyama (1573-1600) periods;
and kinsei is most often used to refer to the Edo period (1600-1867). Two caveats are in
order. One is that several of these boundaries are "fuzzy": different events are taken by
different scholars to mark the end of one period and the beginning of the next. The
second is that in practice it is quite acceptable to speak of "Heian literature" or "Edo
literature," for instance, instead of using the terms given here.
The literature of antiquity (to 794)
Written literature in Japan dates from the Nara period, although an oral tradition existed
well before that time. The work that is usually taken to reveal the process of change
from an oral to a written tradition and from communal to personal concerns is the
collection of poems known as the Man'yōshū (The Collection of Ten Thousand Leaves).
The literature of middle antiquity (794-1180)
Literature in the early Heian period flourished under Chinese (Tang) influence, but
became more expressive of native sentiments as Japan withdrew into itself and political
institutions based on Chinese models either collapsed or were molded into more
congenial forms. Chinese poetry was supplanted by the waka (literally, "Japanese song")
as the preeminent literary form. Imperial collections of poetry were compiled, and prose
works, most by women, were written in the newly developed phonetic kana script. The
decline of the aristocracy toward the end of the period was paralleled by a loss of
creative energy and a growing sense of pessimism, although collections of folktales and
popular songs signaled the involvement of a new social class in the production of works
of recognized literary value.
The literature of the middle ages (1180-1600)
The political turbulence associated with the Gempei Wars of 1180 to 1185 and the
establishment of the Kamakurabakufu (1192) gave rise to a literature that both centered

2. on military exploits and often expressed disillusion with such
exploits. Mujō (impermanence, transience) became a key concept underlying the
literature of this period, although at the same time groups devoted to the composition
of renga (linked verse) were turning to literature for the purpose of seeking pleasure
there.
The literature of the recent past (1600-1867)
The Edo period was characterized by the growing cultural influence exercised by
samurai and townspeople. The commercial class in particular benefited from various
economic and technological developments, the result of which was a great flowering of
culture in the Genroku period (1688-1704). The haikai master Matsuo Bashō, the
novelist Ihara Saikaku, and the dramatist Chikamatsu Monzaemon are all associated with
this enormous outburst of creative activity. The nation's cultural center shifted from the
Kyoto-Osaka region to Edo in the second half of the eighteenth century, leading to the
production of large quantities of gesaku (frivolous works) by the writers who constituted
the last literary generation before the advent of Western influence.
Modern period
The basis for the periodization of modern literature (kindai bungaku) is gradually
becoming problematic as the "modern" period grows ever longer. The most common
division is the one based on the reigns of the emperors who have ruled since
1868: Meiji (1868-1912), Taishō (1912-1926), Shōwa (1926-1989), and Heisei (from
1989). The usefulness of these divisions is mitigated, however, both by the basic
political continuity of the past 130 years and by the failure to take into account the
single most traumatic disruption of that unity, World War II. Literary histories therefore
tend to subdivide the modern era by choosing various historical or cultural events to
mark the boundaries of important literary developments, perhaps attaching an
explanatory note to identify the reason for the division, resulting in a descriptive
heading like "The early-to-middle Meiji period (the creation and development of a
modern literature)." The situation is further complicated by the recent questioning of
"modernization" as a paradigm for constructing Japan's post-Meiji literary history. The
effect all this will eventually have on literature as it is taught in the schools is by no
means clear at this point.
Meiji literature (1868-1912)
The Meiji period was when Japan, under Western influence, took the first steps toward
developing a modern literature. The major hallmarks up to the time of the Russo-
Japanese War are considered to be Tsubouchi Shōyō's theoretical study The Essence of

3. the Novel (Shōsetsu shinzui, 1885) because of its advocacy of psychological realism, and
Futabatei Shimei's Drifting Cloud (Ukigumo, 1887), both for its realistic character
portrayal and because the narrative medium is an approximation of everyday speech.
Counterpoints are offered by the highly stylized prose of the Ken'yūsha (Friends of the
Inkstone) group centering on Ozaki Kōyō, and the kind of romanticism evident in the
early stories of Mori Ōgai and, especially, the poetry of Kitamura Tōkoku, Shimazaki
Tōson, and Yosano Tekkan. The movement known as Japanese Naturalism gained
prominence with the publication of Shimazaki Tōson's novel The Broken Commandment,
(Hakai, 1906) and Tayama Katai's short story "The Quilt" (Futon, 1907). Naturalism
predominated on the literary scene until around 1910, although such authors as
Natsume Sōseki, Mori Ōgai, and Nagai Kafū were not associated with it and might even
be considered antagonistic. The humanistic idealism of the Shirakaba (White Birch)
writers is taken to mark a turn away from Naturalism and toward a broader definition of
literature.
Taishō literature (1912-1926)
The intellectual aestheticism of Akutagawa Ryūnosuke and decadence of Tanizaki
Jun'ichirō characterize this short period, as do (toward its end) the introduction of
elements of Western literary modernism in the early work of Yokomizo Riichi and
Kawabata Yasunari and the first stirrings of proletarian literature. The Great Kanto
Earthquake of 1923 is sometimes taken as a major cultural divide in this process.
Shōwa (1926-1989) and Heisei (from 1989) literature
Proletarian literature was the chief literary movement of the 1920s, supplemented by the
uniquely Japanese genre of autobiographical fiction known as the "I novel"
(shishōsetsu or watakushi shōsetsu). Government suppression of proletarian literature in
the 1930s was attended by the publication of "conversion" (tenkō) novels by writers
compelled to renounce their communist ideals. The subsequent patriotic writings of the
war years have largely been forgotten. The end of the war witnessed a resurgent
cosmopolitanism that has resulted in a striking literary diversity and has led to a
reassessment of the way in which tradition and modernity can be said to contribute to
the Japanese sense of identity. This process of reevaluation can be seen in the choice of
the two postwar Japanese winners of the Nobel Prize for Literature: Kawabata Yasunari
(1968), who titled his acceptance speech "Japan the Beautiful and Myself," and Ōe
Kenzaburō (1994), who in deliberate contrast chose the title "Japan the Ambiguous and
Myself."