JPN 305: Introduction to Japanese Literature, I, 700-1600
Survey of Japanese Literature to 1600

This course introduces writing composed in the Japanese archipelago between the seventh and seventeenth centuries. We will examine together a sampling of the major works associated with Japan’s “premodern literary tradition”: essays, diaries, satire, fantasies, war stories, song-stories, Buddhist parables, poems of love and loss, and more. Each of the texts  deserves careful scrutiny unto itself; at the same time, they all must be appreciated within the specific cultural and historical contexts that enabled their production. The primary focus of this course is on written materials, but from time to time visual materials will be introduced in order to deepen understanding of the themes, images, and philosophies that animate individual works.