JAPANESE LITERATURE

BY CLAY MACCAULEY

IVILIZATION in Japan bears date from a time much more recent than that generally ascribed to it. The uncritical writers who first made Japan known to Western peoples accepted the historical traditions treasured by the Japanese as a record of fact. In the popular imaginings of the West, consequently, Japan is a land in which for at least twenty-five centuries an organized society, under a monarchy of unbroken descent, possessed of a relatively high though. unique culture in the sciences and arts, has had place and development. But during the last twenty years, competent students have discovered that Japanese civilization is comparatively modern. They cannot carry its authentic history much farther back than about halfway over the course that has been usually allowed for it. No reliance can be placed upon any date or report in Japanese tradition prior to near the opening of the fifth Christian century. Undoubtedly there was, as in all other lands, some basis for long-established tradition; but the glimpses of Japan and its people obtained through the Chinese and Korean annals of the early Christian centuries disclose the inhabitants of these islands, not with an organized State and society, peaceful, prosperous, and learned, but as segregated into clans or tribes practically barbarous and wholly illiterate; the clan occupying the peninsula east of the present cities of Kyōto and Ōsaka having then become leader and prospective sovereign. Certainly before the third Christian century was well advanced there was no knowledge whatever of letters in Japan; and certainly too, for a long time after the art of writing had been brought into the country there was no popular use or knowledge of the art.

I. HISTORICAL SKETCH

The knowledge of letters was in all probability introduced into Japan by Korean immigrants. Their language and writing were Chinese. In the fourth century there may have been among the Japanese some learners of this new knowledge. The Japanese claim positively that in the fifth century their national traditions, hitherto transmitted orally, were written down by adepts in the new art. But whatever may be true of the earlier centuries, it is perfectly XIV-510

clear that in the first half of the sixth century many scholars came to these islands from the continent, and were given positions of trust in the administration of the dominant government in Yamato; and that from the year 552 A. D., with the acceptance of Buddhism by those highest in authority, and the full inflow of Chinese influence upon society, literature in Japan began to have permanent place and power.

But literature in Japan and Japanese literature are two quite different things. They are as unlike as the Latin writings of mediæval Germany and the German writings of later times. Japanese literature does not date from the notable acquisition by the Japanese of a knowledge of letters. Not with that, nor for a long time afterwards, was any serious attempt made among them to express in writing the language of the people. In all probability this was not done until towards the end of the seventh century. The higher officials of State and of the Church-the new Buddhism- had a monopoly of learning; and their writings prior to the eighth century were, so far as is known, wholly Chinese in word and in form. But as the eighth century opened, a medium for the production of a Japanese literature was receiving shape. A kind of script devised from Chinese ideographs for the purpose of expressing Japanese speech was coming into use: that is, Chinese characters were being written for the sake of their phonetic values; their sounds, not their meanings, reprodu cing Japanese words and sentences. In this so-called manyokana the first material embodied was in all probability that for which verbatim transliteration was necessary, such as ancient prayers and songs. With this phonetic writing a literature distinctively Japanese was made possible, and had its beginnings.

The earliest Japanese literary product now existing is a marvelous summary of treasured tradition, called the 'Kojiki' or 'Record of Old Things' (see page 8155), written by imperial command in the year 712. The 'Kojiki is a professed history of creation, of the Divine genesis of the imperial family of Japan, and of the career of this "people of the gods" down into the early part of the century preceding its composition. To the student of Japanese literature the 'Kojiki' is especially valuable, because in it are preserved the oldest known products of the purely literary impulses of the Japanese. Long before the Japanese could write, they could sing; and there is good reason to accept the songs given in the 'Kojiki' as heritages from the much farther past.

Within nine years after the appearance of the 'Kojiki,' another compilation of national tradition was made, bringing the story of the nation down to the close of the seventh century. This work (year 720) is called 'Nihongi' or 'Japanese Records' (see page 8156). But it

is almost wholly Chinese in language and in construction. Its special value, considered as part of Japanese literature, lies in its preservation of some old Japanese verse.

The chief depository, however, of Japanese literature in its beginnings is the treasury of poems (completed about 760) gathered during the Nara Era,- the 'Manyōshu' or 'Collection of Myriad Leaves' (see pages 8157 to 8161). In these books the choicest utterances in Japanese verse then existing were garnered. They remain now an invaluable memorial of the intellectual awakening that followed Japan's first historic intercourse with Korea and China.

But the manyokana, as a means for Japanese literary expression, was altogether too cumbersome and difficult for continued and enlarged use. Consequently, as writing in the language of the people increased, the ideographs that had been utilized for phonetic purposes became simpler and more conventional. At about the time the 'Manyōshu' was finished, from among these ideographs two syllabaries, the katakana (757), and the hiragana (834), were formed, and a free writing of the Japanese language at last became possible. These syllabaries were gradually extended in use, and at the close of the ninth century gained honored recognition as the medium for embodying Japanese speech by their adoption in the writing of the preface to, and in the transcription of, a new collection of poems made under imperial order, - the 'Kokinshu' or 'Ancient and Modern Songs' (905: see pages 8161, 8162). These poems show at its full fruition whatever poetic excellence the Japanese people have gained. They are to-day the most studied and most quoted of all the many gatherings from Japanese song.

Japanese literature, having received a vehicle adequate to its expression, and indorsement by the highest authority, with the opening of the ninth century entered upon an era lasting for nearly four hundred years; an era in which, with the co-operation of the general maturing culture of the empire, it passed through what is now known as its Classic Age. During these four centuries the capital of the empire lost the nomadic character it had had from time immemorial. With the removal of the imperial family from Nara in 794, the capital became fixed in Kyōto, to stay there for the next eleven hundred years. Through these four centuries the national development was for the most part serene. The ruling classes entered upon a career of high culture, refinement, and elegance of life, that passed however in the end into an excess of luxury, debilitating effeminacy, and dissipation. During the best part of these memorable centuries Japanese literature as belles-lettres culminated; leaving to after times, even to the present day, models for pure Japanese diction. The court nobles of the eleventh and twelfth centuries had abundant leisure for the

culture of letters, and they devoted their time to that, and to the pursuit of whatever other refined or luxurious pleasures imagination could devise. For instance, among the many notable intellectual dissipations of the age were reunions at daybreak among the spring flowers, and boat rides during autumnal moonlighted nights, by aristocratic devotees of music and verse who vied with one another in exhibits of their skill with these arts. The culture of literature in the Chinese language never wholly ceased; but from the ninth to the thirteenth centuries the creation of a literature in the language of the people was the chief pastime of the official and aristocratic Japanese. Before the rise of the Shōgunate at the close of the twelfth century, no less than seven great compilations of the poetry of the times were made.

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Especially notable among the works of this classic age are the prose writings. Critics call attention first to the diary of a famous poet, Tsurayuki: notes of a journey he made in 935, from Tosa where he was governor, to Kyōto the capital. This diary, the 'Tosa Nikki' (see page 8164) is said to be not only a simple and charming story of travel, but to be the best extant embodiment of uncontaminated Japanese speech. Then there remain from the same epoch many romances" or "tales," monogatari, now much studied and valued for their linguistic excellences. Probably the earliest among them, the Taketori Monogatari' or 'Story of a Bamboo Cutter' (850950: see pages 8165, 8166), which tells of the fortunes of a Moon maiden exiled for a while in this world, is said to have, for purity of thought and language, no rival in Japanese or Chinese fiction. The 'Ise Monogatari' or 'Story of Ise' (850-950) has also admiring critics. Its prose and poetry are both studied as models to-day, its poetry being ranked next to that of the 'Kokinshu.' The 'Sumiyoshi' and the 'Yamato Monogatari,' too (900-1000: see pages 8162 to 8164) must be named as choice tenth-century classics. The culmination of Japanese classic prose, however, as nearly all critics agree, was reached with the writing of the 'Romance of Prince Genji' and the Book of the Pillow': the 'Genji Monogatari (1003-4), and the Makura no Sōshi (1000-1050), both appearing early in the eleventh century (see pages 8166 to 8170). They are the work of two ladies of the court, Murasaki Shikibu and Sei Shōnagon. The 'Genji' romance leads all works in Japanese literature in the fluency and grace of its diction; but the Pillow Book' is said to be matchless in the ease and lightness and general artistic excellence of its literary touch. These works stand as the consummate achievements of the classic age in prose. They mark also the end of this memorable literary epoch. At the close of the twelfth century Japan became a battle-field for civil wars. War and the interests of war became supreme. Learning

and letters were gradually relegated to priests, and literature soon ceased to exist. The Chinese language again became the chief vehicle of whatever literary work was done.

From the twelfth century to the rise of the Tokugawa Shōgunate in the seventeenth century, the empire passed through its Middle or "Dark" Age. During these five centuries, although numerous writings for political and religious (see page 8178) purposes appeared, but little work of importance for the history of Japanese literature was produced. Some collections of verse may be excepted from this judgment. Two bits of prose writing, the Hōjōki' (1212?) of Chomei (see pages 8170, 8171), and the Tsure-zure gusa' (1345?) of Yoshida Kenkō' (see pages 8171, 8172), have qualities that make them especially noteworthy. The Hōjōki,'— the meditations of a hermit priest in a mountain hut, written near the beginning of the thirteenth century, simple, fluent, vivacious, and yet forcible in style,—are esteemed as preserving for the language an excellence like that of the 'Makura no Sōshi.' And the Tsure zure gusa' or 'Weeds of Idleness,' short essays composed in the fourteenth century, is the last notable example of the form and speech that gave to the classic age its commanding position in the development of pure Japanese literature. The Weeds of Idleness,' moreover, has the distinction of opening the way for the literary speech that came into full development in the seventeenth century, and has since been the language of the literature of Japan. In these essays, Chinese words were set into Japanese forms of speech without doing violence to Japanese modes of expression. The Tsure-zure gusa' has thereby the double merit of embodying the highest literary excellence of a past age, and the beginnings of a new linguistic development.

Further, the medieval centuries are of importance to the literature of Japan from the development in them of a form of musical drama called the No no Utai (see pages 8173, 8174); originating in the ancient sacred dances and temple amusements cared for by the priests,

the only men of letters of the time. These lyric plays are dateless and anonymous, but they have considerable literary worth. Accompanying the severer sacred drama and serving as interludes for them, many comedies, kyōgen, written in the ordinary colloquial of the day, were produced. These comic writings possess small literary but much. linguistic value.

The next noteworthy event in Japan's literary history was the revival, under the early Tokugawa Shōguns, of the study of the ancient imperial records, and of the writings of the classic age. The great first Tokugawa Shōgun, Ieyasu, at the beginning of the seventeenth century subjected and quieted the warring clans of the country. An age of peace, to last for the next two hundred and fifty years, was