WORLD LITERATURE

Egyptian Literature

Ancient Egyptian literature is characterized 

by a wide diversity of types and subject matter;

 it dates from the Old Kingdom (c. 2755-2255 BC)

 into the Greco-Roman period (after 332 BC).

 Such literary devices as simile, metaphor, alliteration, 

and punning are found.

Range of Literary Forms

The religious literature of ancient Egypt includes hymns to the gods, mythological and magical texts, and an extensive collection of mortuary texts. The range of secular literature includes stories; instructive literature, known as wisdom texts; poems; biographical and historical texts; and scientific treatises, including mathematical and medical texts. Notable also are the many legal, administrative, and economic texts and private documents such as letters, although not actually literature. The individual authors of several compositions dating from the Old Kingdom and the Middle Kingdom (2134-1668 BC) were revered in later periods. They came from the educated class of upper-level government officials, and their audience was largely educated people like themselves. Indeed, many literary compositions of the Middle Kingdom were composed as political propaganda, to teach the students who learned to read and write by copying them (on tablets and ostraca) to be loyal to the ruling dynasty. Many of these same wisdom texts were still copied by New Kingdom (1570-1070 BC) schoolchildren more than 500 years later, along with more contemporary texts designed to undermine the glamour of the new military profession. Some of the stories include elements of mythology and may owe much to an oral storytelling tradition.

Old Kingdom

The oldest literature preserved, the Pyramid Texts, are mortuary texts carved inside the pyramids of kings and queens of the later part of the Old Kingdom; they were designed to ensure the dead ruler's rightful place in the afterlife. These texts incorporate mythology, hymns to the gods, and daily offering rituals. Many autobiographical inscriptions from private tombs recount the deceased's participation in historical events. Although no stories or wisdom texts are preserved from the Old Kingdom, some Middle Kingdom manuscripts may be copies of Old Kingdom originals; an example is The Instruction of the Vizier Ptahhotep, composed of maxims illustrating basic virtues (such as moderation, truthfulness, and kindness) that should govern human relations and describing the ideal person as a just administrator

.

First Intermediate Period

Following the breakdown of the Old Kingdom, the Pyramid Texts were appropriated by private individuals; supplemented with new incantations, these texts were painted on coffins, from which the name Coffin Texts is derived. Private individuals also continued to have their tombs inscribed with autobiographical texts, which often recounted their exploits during this time of political unrest. To this First Intermediate period (c. 2255-2035 BC) are attributed various laments over the chaotic state of affairs. One of these, The Dialogue of a Man with his Ba (soul), is a debate on suicide; another, the earliest example of the songs sung by harpists at funerary banquets, advises Eat, drink, and be merry, before it's too late!

Middle Kingdom

In addition to Coffin Texts, Middle Kingdom religious literature comprises numerous hymns to the king and various deities including a long hymn to the Nile and ritual texts. Private autobiographies containing historical information continued to be inscribed, and rulers began setting up stelae (stone slabs) on which their important deeds were recorded. From both the First Intermediate period and the Middle Kingdom come instructional texts, each written in the name of a reigning king, telling his son and successor how various specific historic events influenced the kingship and how the son should profit by the father's mistakes. The Satire on Trades stresses the bad aspects of all possible occupations in contrast to the easy life of the scribe. Among the stories composed during the Middle Kingdom are The Story of Sinuhe, a palace official who fled to Syria at the death of King Amenemhet I and became a rich and important man there; The Tale of the Eloquent Peasant, a man who made such eloquent pleas for the return of his stolen donkeys that he was kept in protective custody for some time so that the officials in charge could enjoy his orations; The Story of the Shipwrecked Sailor, which recounts a fabulous encounter with a giant snake on a lush island; and The Story of King Khufu and the Magicians. The earliest preserved medical and mathematical papyri also date from this period.

New Kingdom

New Kingdom mortuary texts, especially one called the Book of the Dead, were written on papyrus for inclusion in tombs. Among the most famous hymns from the period are those from the reign of Akhenaton dedicated to the sun god as sole deity. King Kamose (reigned about 1576-1570 BC), at the end of the Second Intermediate period (1720-1570 BC), recorded the early stages of driving the Hyksos out of Egypt (1600 BC). After the early New Kingdom, the number of such royal historical inscriptions increased greatly, while private autobiographical texts gave way to religious texts. Thutmose III recorded his various wars in Syria both on a freestanding stela (called the Poetical Stela) and on the walls of the temple at El-Karnak. Both records describe how the king calls in his advisers, apprises them of the difficulty of their situation, is advised to try the easy solution, and proceeds to tell them that he is not afraid and will dare the more dangerous route; the king of course succeeds. Late New Kingdom rulers, especially Ramses II and Ramses III, also left extensive records of their military exploits; both poetic accounts and chronicles of the deeds of Ramses II at the Battle of Kadesh against the Hittites have been preserved. The instructive texts, now directed at lower ranks in the bureaucracy, were no longer based on the assumption that right thinking and just action automatically lead to wordly success, but instead counsel contemplation and endurance. Among the many stories that involve mythological characters are The Contendings of Horus and Seth; The Destruction of Mankind, in which human beings are spared from annihilation by getting the goddess Hathor drunk on blood-colored beer; and The Tale of the Two Brothers, a story of a good younger brother betrayed by his suspicious elder brother. The Report of Wenamun recounts the trials and tribulations of an envoy sent to purchase wood in Byblos. Several collections of love poems exist from this period as well.

Late Period

From the subsequent centuries, into the Greco-Roman era, examples from the full range of Egyptian literary forms are known; these include new religious compositions, private and royal historical records, instructions, stories, and scientific treatises such as medical, mathematical, and astronomical papyri. The Instructions of Onchsheshongy, a collection of largely pragmatic maxims, many of which sound like proverbs, and The Instructions of Papyrus Insinger, which portrays the wise person as being moral and pious, contrast sharply with the earlier expressions of belief in rewards in this life. Stories were written in this period about the adventures of various magicians, as was a cycle recounting the exploits of a legendary king, Petubastis. One largely mythological tale consists of a series of animal fables. Contacts with contemporary Greek literature are evident both in the epic cycle and the fables, in Egyptian texts (including prophetic literature) translated into Greek, and in a range of magical texts known in both Greek and Egyptian.

Sumerian Literature

Sumerian literature is the literature written in the Sumerian language during the Middle Bronze Age. Most Sumerian literature is preserved indirectly, via Assyrian or Babylonian copies.
The Sumerians invented the first writing system, developing Sumerian cuneiform writing out of earlier proto-writing systems by about the 30th century BCE. The earliest literary texts appear from about the 27th century BCE.
The Sumerian language remained in official and literary use in the Akkadian and Babylonian empires, even after the spoken language disappeared from the population; literacy was widespread, and the Sumerian texts that students copied heavily influenced later Babylonian literature.
Sumerian literature has not been handed down to us directly, rather it has been rediscovered througharchaeology. Nevertheless, the Akkadians and Babylonians borrowed much from the Sumerian literary heritage, and spread these traditions throughout the Middle East, influencing much of the literature that followed in this region.


Poetry
An international authority on Sumerian culture, Jeremy Black here provides an introduction to the world's oldest poetry. Sumer, in southern Iraq, was the first literate culture in civilization, dating as far back as 2500 b.c. Its literature, which is made up almost entirely of poetry, was lost for nearly two millennia; rediscovery and decipherment of the ancient texts began in the nineteenth century.
Black is fully aware of the difficulties of applying modern literary methods to the study of ancient literature, emphasizing theoretical problems that arise from contemporary expectations of a unitary text. Acknowledging the fragmentary nature of Sumerian poetry, he turns what might be considered a serious obstacle to the enjoyment of the literature into an asset. The book features Black's complete English translations of Lugalbanda, a narrative poem about the eponymous hero and his encounter with a monstrous bird, and its sequel, Lugalbanda in the Mountain Cave. Looking closely at the imagery in the Lugalbanda poems, Black perceives in them a rich and sophisticated poetic imagination and technique, which, far from being in any sense "primitive," are so complex as to resist modern literary analysis.

Persian Literature

Persian literature (Persian: ادبیات فارسی‎ or ادبیات پارسی) spans two-and-a-half millennia, though much of the pre-Islamic material has been lost. Its sources have been within historical Persia including present-day Iran as well as regions of Central Asia where the Persian language has historically been the national language. For instance, Molana (Rumi), one of Persia's best-loved poets, born in Balkh (in what is now Afghanistan), wrote in Persian, and lived in Konyathen the capital of the Seljuks. The Ghaznavids conquered large territories in Central and South Asia and adopted Persian as their court language. There is thus Persian literature from Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Tajikistan and other parts of Central Asia. Not all this literature is written in Persian, as some consider works written by ethnic Persians in other languages, such as Greek and Arabic, to be included. At the same time, not all literature written in Persian is written by ethnic Persians/Iranians. Particularly Indic and Turkic poets and writers have also used the Persian language in the environment of Persianate cultures.

Described as one of the great literatures of mankind, Persian literature has its roots in surviving works of Middle Persian and Old Persian, the latter of which date back as far as 522 BCE (the date of the earliest surviving Achaemenid inscription, the Behistun Inscription). The bulk of the surviving Persian literature, however, comes from the times following the Islamic conquest of Persia circa 650 CE. After the Abbasids came to power (750 CE), the Persians became the scribes and bureaucrats of the Islamic empire and, increasingly, also its writers and poets. The New Persian literature arose and flourished inKhorasan and Transoxiana because of political reasons - the early Iranian dynasties such as Tahirids and Samanids were based in Khorasan.

Persians wrote both in Persian and Arabic; Persian predominated in later literary circles. Persian poets such as Ferdowsi, Sa'di, Hafiz, Rumi and Omar Khayyam are also known in the West and have influenced the literature of many countries.

Poetry

So strong is the Persian aptitude for versifying everyday expressions that one can encounter poetry in almost every classical work, whether from Persian literature, science, or metaphysics. In short, the ability to write in verse form was a pre-requisite for any scholar. For example, almost half of Avicenna's medical writings are in verse.

Works of the early era of Persian poetry are characterized by strong court patronage, an extravagance of panegyrics, and what is known as سبک فاخر"exalted in style". The tradition of royal patronage began perhaps under the Sassanid era and carried over through the Abbasid and Samanid courts into every major Persian dynasty. The Qasida was perhaps the most famous form of panegyric used, though quatrains such as those in Omar Khayyam'sRuba'iyyat are also widely popular.

Khorasani style, whose followers mostly were associated with Greater Khorasan, is characterized by its supercilious diction, dignified tone, and relatively literate language. The chief representatives of this lyricism are Asjadi, Farrukhi Sistani, Unsuri, and Manuchehri. Panegyric masters such asRudaki were known for their love of nature, their verse abounding with evocative descriptions.

Through these courts and system of patronage emerged the epic style of poetry, with Ferdowsi's Shahnama at the apex. By glorifying the Iranian historical past in heroic and elevated verses, he and other notables such as Daqiqi and Asadi Tusi presented the "Ajam" with a source of pride and inspiration that has helped preserve a sense of identity for the Iranian peoples over the ages. Ferdowsi set a model to be followed by a host of other poets later on.

The 13th century marks the ascendancy of lyric poetry with the consequent development of the ghazal into a major verse form, as well as the rise of mystical and Sufi poetry. This style is often called "Araqi style", (western provinces of Iran were known as Araq-e-Ajam or Persian Iraq) and is known by its emotional lyric qualities, rich meters, and the relative simplicity of its language. Emotional romantic poetry was not something new however, as works such as Vis o Ramin by Asad Gorgani, and Yusof o Zoleikha by Am'aq Bokharai exemplify. Poets such as Sana'i and Attar (who ostensibly have inspired Rumi), Khaqani Shirvani, Anvari, and Nizami, were highly respected ghazal writers. However, the elite of this school are Rumi, Sadi, and Hafiz Shirazi.

Regarding the tradition of Persian love poetry during the Safavid era, Persian historian Ehsan Yarshater notes, "As a rule, the beloved is not a woman, but a young man. In the early centuries of Islam, the raids into Central Asia produced many young slaves. Slaves were also bought or received as gifts. They were made to serve as pages at court or in the households of the affluent, or as soldiers and bodyguards. Young men, slaves or not, also, served wine at banquets and receptions, and the more gifted among them could play music and maintain a cultivated conversation. It was love toward young pages, soldiers, or novices in trades and professions which was the subject of lyrical introductions to panegyrics from the beginning of Persian poetry, and of the ghazal."

In the didactic genre one can mention Sanai's Hadiqat-ul-Haqiqah (Garden of Truth) as well as Nizami's Makhzan-ul-Asrār (Treasury of Secrets). Some of Attar's works also belong to this genre as do the major works of Rumi, although some tend to classify these in the lyrical type due to their mystical and emotional qualities. In addition, some tend to group Naser Khosrow's works in this style as well; however true gems of this genre are two books bySadi, a heavyweight of Persian literature, the Bustan and the Gulistan.

After the 15th century, the Indian style of Persian poetry (sometimes also called Isfahani or Safavi styles) took over. This style has its roots in theTimurid era and produced the likes of Amir Khosrow Dehlavi, and Bhai Nand Lal Goya.


India Literature 

Indian literature is generally believed to be the oldest in the world. With vast cultural diversities, there are around two dozen officially recognized languages in India. Over thousands of years, huge literature has been produced in various languages in India. It is to be noted that a large part of Indian literature revolves around devotion, drama, poetry and songs. Sanskrit language dominated the early Indian literary scene whereas languages like Prakrit and Pali too had fair share as they were the languages of the common people.

It is interesting to note that the Hindu literary traditions have dominated a large part of Indian culture. These traditions are well reflected in great works like Vedas and epics such as Ramayana and Mahabharata. Treatises like Vaastu Shastra (architecture), Arthashastra (political science) and Kamsutra are true reflection of the Indian literary excellence.

Early Hindi literature, in dialects like Avadhi and Brai, began around religious and philosophical poetry in medieval period. Sant Kabir and Tulsidas were the greatest exponents of the Hindi literature during this period. With the passage of time, the Khadi boli (dialect) became more prominent and saw a great upsurge, which continues to this day.

During the medieval period, Muslim literary traditions dominated a large part of Indian literature and saw flourishing of Muslim literature. Muslim rule during the medieval times saw rapid growth and development of Persian and Urdu literature in India. A huge variety of literature spanning across history, culture and politics was written in this period.

With the coming of the British in India, works started to be written in English language. As more and more Indians became well versed with the English language, the number of works in English literature began to grow. During the contemporary times, numerous Indian authors have made their mark on the world English literature scene. Some of the most noted Indian born or Indian writers are R. K. Narayan, Vikram Seth, Salman Rushdie, Arundhati Roy, Amitav Ghosh, Khushwant Singh, Anita Desai and Jhumpa Lahiri.

Poetry

Indian poetry, and Indian literature in general, has a long history dating back to Vedic times. They were written in various Indian languages such as Vedic Sanskrit, Classical Sanskrit, Oriya, Tamil, Kannada, Bengali and Urdu. Poetry in foreign languages such as Persian and English also have a strong influence on Indian poetry. The poetry reflects diverse spiritual traditions within India. In particular, many Indian poets have been inspired by mystical experiences.


Hebrew Literature 

 

Hebrew literature, literary works, from ancient to modern, written in the Hebrew language.

Early Literature

The great monuments of the earliest period of Hebrew literature are the Old Testament and the Apocrypha. Parts of the Pseudepigrapha and of the Dead Sea Scrolls were also produced before the conquest of Judaea by Titus. The literature of the Jews developed mainly in the Hebrew language, although there were also works in Greek, Aramaic, and Arabic.

In the 2d cent. A.D. began the Talmudic period, which lasted well into the 6th cent. In these centuries the great anonymous encyclopedic work of religious and civil law, the Talmud, was compiled, edited, and interpreted. The Midrash-a collection of halakah (found also in the Talmud) and haggadic material-likewise forms part of the Hebrew literature of that period. In the 4th cent. the Targum to the Pentateuch and to the Prophets was finished. The 6th and 7th cent. saw the development of the Masora in Palestine. In Babylonia meanwhile many valuable additions to Hebrew literature were made by the Gaonim after the 6th cent.

Medieval Literature

Commentaries on the Talmud and haggadic material continued to be written until the 11th cent., when the Babylonian academies were suppressed and the center of Jewish literary activity shifted to Spain. France and Germany became the main centers of Talmudic commentary. In Spain, and to some extent in Italy, Hebrew literature flourished for centuries. The finest work was accomplished in the realms of poetry-influenced by Arab and Indian literature-and philosophy. Philology, exegesis, and codification also flourished. By the 14th cent. the largely Aramaic mystical treatise, the Zohar, had appeared-the masterpiece of a flourishing literature of Jewish mysticism (see kabbalah).

Famous scholars and authors of Hebrew literature in the Middle Ages included Aha of Shabcha, Saadia ben Joseph al-Fayumi, Dunash ben Tamim, Dunash ben Labrat, Gershom ben Judah, Al-Fasi, Solomon ben Judah Ibn Gabirol, Rashi, Judah ha-Levi, Abraham ben Meir Ibn Ezra, Maimonides, Immanuel ben Solomon, Isaac Abravanel, and Joseph ben Ephraim Caro. In the persecutions following the Crusades, when the Jews were driven from country to country, they clung to their literature-which leaned increasingly to mysticism and asceticism-and especially to the Hebrew Bible.

Beginnings of Modern Hebrew Literature

On the threshold of the transition from the old isolated life to a wider one was the poet Moses Hayyim Luzzatto-a contemporary of the Gaon of Vilna, Elijah ben Solomon-but the modern period of Hebrew literature really began with Moses Mendelssohn. While Nachman Krochmal and Shloime Ansky (Solomon Seinwel Rapoport) were contributing to biblical criticism and historical scholarship, writers such as Peretz (Peter) Smolenskin were devoting themselves to Haskalah, or literature of enlightenment, intended to shake the Jews of Central Europe from their medieval attitudes. Other important figures of the period are the scholar Joseph Halévy, the poet Jehuda (Leon) Gordon, and the novelist Solomon Yakob Abramovich, whose pseudonym was Mendele mocher sforim.

Zionism and Literature in Israel

The rise of Zionism, particularly reflected in the writings of Ahad Ha-am (Asher Ginzberg), gave Hebrew literature fresh impetus, and Palestine became again the center of publication in Hebrew. Hebrew was proclaimed the national language of the Jews even before the establishment (1948) of the state of Israel. The two great poets of modern Hebrew literature are Hayyim Nahman Bialik and Saul Tchernihovsky, who was strongly influenced by ancient Greek literature. The poetry of Abraham Shlonsky, Lea Goldberg, and Nathan Alterman deals with social and political themes.

Among the many writers of prose are Joseph H. Brenner, who described Jewish life in Eastern Europe and pioneer life in Palestine, and Salman Shneur, who wrote of the simple and uneducated Jews. The Nobel laureate S. Y. Agnon portrayed the Eastern European milieu and pioneer life in Palestine; his works have become classics in modern Hebrew epic literature. Hebrew writers who are native to Israel seek inspiration in the classical Hebrew past or in the new life of Israel. The most outstanding writer of this group is Moshe Shamir, who in his two novels-one depicting a Hasmonean king and the other dealing with the Arab-Israeli War of 1948-gave new dimensions to Hebrew fiction.

Aron David Gordon (1856-1922) was one of the greatest social and political essayists of Hebrew literature; significant Hebrew language literary critics include David Frishman (1861-1922) and Yosef Klausner (1874-1958). In recent years the Israeli novelists Amos Oz, Abraham B. Yehoshua, and Aharon Appelfeld, and the poet Yehuda Amichai have been widely translated and have achieved international distinction. Outside Israel, the writing of the Jews is ordinarily in the language of the countries in which they live or in Yiddish, whose literary use developed rapidly after the middle of the 19th cent.

Arabic Literature 

Pre-Islamic literature

The structure of the Arabic language is well-suited to harmonious word-patterns, with elaborate rhymes and rhythms. The earliest known literature emerged in northern Arabia around 500 AD and took the form of poetry which was recited aloud, memorised and handed down from one generation to another. It began to be written down towards the end of the seventh century. The most celebrated poems of the pre-Islamic period were known as the mu'allaqat ("the suspended"), reputedly because they were considered sufficiently outstanding to be hung on the walls of the ka'ba in Makkah. 

The typical poem of this period is the qasidah (ode), which normally consists of 70-80 pairs of half-lines. Traditionally, they describe the nomadic life, opening with a lament at an abandoned camp for a lost love. The second part praises the poet's horse or camel and describes a journey, with the hardships it entails. The third section contains the main theme of the poem, often extolling the poet's tribe and villifying its enemies.

Classical Arabic prose

The birth of Arabic prose as a literary form is attributed to the Persian secretarial class who served under the Abbasid caliphs (750-1256) in Baghdad. Ibn al-Muqaffa' (died 757) was a convert to Islam who translated classical Persian works into Arabic. He became famous as the author of Kalila and Dimna, a series of didactic fables in which two jackals offer moral and practical advice.

al-JAHIZ (776-869) developed Arabic prose into a literary vehicle of precision and elegance. Born in Basrah, he was noted for his wit and became one of Baghdad's leading intellectuals during the early Abbasid period. The most famous of his 200 works were:

• Kitab al-Hayawan ("The Book of Animals"), an anthology of animal anecdotes.
• Kitab al-Bayan wa al-Tabyin ("The Book of Elucidation and Exposition"), ostensibly about rhetoric but also covering history and science.
• Kitab al-Bukhala’ ("The Book of Misers"), amusing but perceptive observations on psychology.

ABU AL-FARAJ al-Isfahani (c 897-967), from Aleppo, wrote Kitab al-Aghani ("The Book of Songs"), in 24 volumes. A model of simplicity and clarity in its writing, the book gives a comprehensive picture of Arab culture and society, including songs and poems which were popular in Baghdad under the Caliph Harun al-Rashid. A vizir (government minister) of the time is said to have taken 30 camel-loads of books whenever he travelled - until he received a copy of the Book of Songs. He then felt able to dispense with all the other books.

al-HAMADHANI (died 1008) is credited with inventing the genre known as maqamat ("assemblies") - dramatic anecdotes narrated by a witty but unscrupulous rogue which poke fun at all levels of society. Elaborately written in rhyming prose, they exploit the unique capabilities of the Arabic language to the full. Out of 400 original maqamat, 52 survive.

The trend towards linguistic virtuosity led, ultimately, to a triumph of form over content. al-HARIRI (c 1054-1122) took the maqamah to new heights (or extremes) in order to demonstrate his prowess with word-play and his seemingly inexhaustible vocabulary. In one work, he used only those letters of the alphabet which have no dots or do not join to the following letter in a word. Even so, for more than seven centuries, al-Hariri's maqamat were regarded as the greatest literary treasure of Arabic, after the Qur'an. According to some readers, wholesome moral values and subtle criticisms of the existing social order underlie al-Hariri's decorative language. 

Poetry

Arabic poetry is based largely on harmonies of sound and striking turns of phrasing. Hence most of the poems are brief; and a poet's fame depended upon a few brilliant couplets rather than on any sustained melody or long-continued flight of noble thought. One distinguished philosophical poem of some length is the well-known "Lament of the Vizier Abu Ismael." This we give in full at the conclusion of this section; but mainly we must illustrate the finest flowering of Arabic verse by selecting specimens of characteristic brevity. Many of the Arab caliphs inclined to the gaieties of life rather than to their religious duties, and kept many poets around them. Indeed some of the caliphs themselves were poets: The Caliph Walid composed music as well as verse; and was hailed by his immediate companions as a great artist. His neglect of religion, however, was so reckless as to rouse the resentment of his people, and he lost his throne and life. 

Most noted of all the Arab poets was Mutanabbi (905-965). His fantastic imagery and extravagant refinements of language were held by his admirers to be the very perfection of literature. More than forty commentaries were written to explain the subtleties of his verse. Such, indeed, was the intensity of Mutanabbi's poetic ecstasy that he fancied himself a prophet and began to preach a new religion, until a term in prison persuaded him to cling to the accepted form of Mohammedanism. In one well-known passage ridiculed by the great French critic, Huart, Mutanabbi says of an advancing army that it was so vast "The warriors marched hidden in their dust, They saw only with their ears." 

The commentators explain, perhaps unnecessarily, that this means that the warriors' senses were confused by all the tumult, so that while they thought they saw, in reality they only heard the clamor of the marchers around them. In translation, Mutanabbi's verses lose all value. Deprived of their Arabic melody they seem mere bombast and absurdity. This, in fact, is the general charge which must be made against the later Arabic poetry. It too often degenerated into empty sound.  

Japan Literature 

 

Japanese literature spans a period of almost two millennia of writing. Early work was heavily influenced by Chinese literature, but Japan quickly developed a style and quality of its own. When Japan reopened its ports to Western trading and diplomacy in the 19th century, Western Literature had a strong effect on Japanese writers, and this influence is still seen today.

As with all literature, Japanese literature is best read in the original. Due to deep linguistic and cultural differences, many Japanese words and phrases are not easily translated. Although Japanese literature and Japanese authors are perhaps not as well known in the west as those in the European and American canons, Japan possesses an ancient and rich literary tradition that draws upon a millennium and a half of written records.

Japanese Literature - History

There is debate regarding the classification of periods in Japanese literature. The following is a general guide based on important political and cultural events. Given the immense span of years covered in this article, it is not comprehensive, but rather highlights prominent works and authors of the various periods. All names are in the Japanese order of surname first, given name second.

Japanese Ancient Literature (pre-8th Century)

With the introduction of kanji (漢字, lit. "Chinese characters") from the Asian mainland, writing became possible, as there was no native writing system. Consequently, the only literary language was classical Chinese to begin with; later, the characters were adapted to write Japanese, creating what is known as the man'yōgana, the earliest form of kana, or syllabic writing. Works created in the Nara Period include Kojiki (712: a partly mythological, partly accurate history of Japan), Nihonshoki (720: a chronicle with a slightly more solid foundation in historical records than the Kojiki), and Man'yōshū (759: a poetry anthology). The language used in the works of this period differs significantly from later periods in both its grammar and phonology. Even in this early era, significant dialectal differences within Japanese are apparent.

Japanese Classical Literature (8th Century - 12th Century)

Classical Japanese literature generally refers to literature produced during the Heian Period, what some would consider a golden era of art and literature. The Tale of Genji (early 11th century) by Murasaki Shikibu is considered the pre-eminent masterpiece of Heian fiction and an early example of a work of fiction in the form of a novel. Other important works of this period include the Kokin Wakashu (905, waka anthology) and The Pillow Book (990s), the latter written by Murasaki Shikibu's contemporary and rival, Sei Shonagon, about the life, loves, and pastimes of nobles in the Emperor's court. The iroha poem was also written during the early this period, becoming the standard order for the Japanese syllabary until 19th century Meiji era reforms.

In this time the imperial court and highest ranked kuge patronized the poets. There was no professional poets but most of them were courtiers or ladies-in-waiting. Editing anthologies of poetry was one of national enterprises. Reflecting the aristocratic atmosphere, the poetry in that time was elegant and sophiscated and expressed their emotions in rhetorical style.

Japanese Medieval Literature (13th Century - 16th Century)

A period of civil war and strife in Japan, this era is represented by The Tale of the Heike (1371). This story is an epic account of the struggle between the Minamoto and Taira clans for control of Japan at the end of the 12th century. Other important tales of the period include Kamo no Chōmei's Hōjōki (1212) and Yoshida Kenko's Tsurezuregusa (1331). Writing Japanese using a mixture of kanji and kana the way it is done today started with these works in the medieval period. Literature of this period evinces the influences that Buddhism and Zen ethics had on the emerging samurai class. Work from this period is noted for insights into life and death, simple lifestyles, and redemption of killing.

Other remarkable genres in this period were renga, collective poetry and Noh theatre. Both were rapidly developed in the middle of the 14th century, that is, early Muromachi period.

Japanese Early-Modern Literature (17th Century - mid-19th Century)

Literature during this time was written during the largely peaceful Tokugawa Period (commonly referred to as the Edo Period). Due in large part to the rise of the working and middle classes in the new capital of Edo (modern Tokyo), forms of popular drama developed which would later evolve into kabuki. The joruri and kabuki dramatist Chikamatsu Monzaemon became popular starting at the end of the 17th century. Matsuo Bashō, best known for Oku no Hosomichi (奥の細道, 1702: a travel diary variously rendered 'Narrow Road to the Far North', 'Narrow Road to Oku', and so on into English), is considered to be one of the first and greatest masters of haiku poetry. Hokusai, perhaps Japan's most famous wood block print artist, illustrated fiction aside from his famous 36 Views of Mount Fuji.

Many genres of literature made their debut during the Edo Period, helped by a rising literacy rate that reached well over 90% (according to some sources), as well as the development of a library(-like) system. Ihara Saikaku might be said to have given birth to the modern consciousness of the novel in Japan. Jippensha Ikku (十返舎一九) wrote Tokaido chuhizakurige (東海道中膝栗毛), a mix of travelogue and comedy. Ueda Akinari initiated the modern tradition of weird fiction in Japan with his Ugetsu Monogatari, while Kyokutei Bakin wrote the extremely popular fantasy/historical romance Nanso Satomi Hakkenden (南総里見八犬伝). Santō Kyōden wrote tales of the gay quarters until the Kansei edicts banned such works. Genres included horror, crime stories, morality stories, comedy, and pornography�often accompanied by colorful woodcut prints. Formats included yomihon, various zōshi, and chapbooks.

Japanese Meiji and Taisho Literature (late 19th Century - WW II)

The Meiji era marks the re-opening of Japan to the West, and a period of rapid industrialization. The introduction of European literature brought free verse into the poetic repertoire; it became widely used for longer works embodying new intellectual themes. Young Japanese prose writers and dramatists have struggled with a whole galaxy of new ideas and artistic schools, but novelists were the first to successfully assimilate some of these concepts. A new colloquial literature developed centering on the "I novel," with some unusual protagonists as in Natsume Soseki's Wagahai wa neko de aru (I Am a Cat). Other famous novels written by him include Botchan and Kokoro (1914). Shiga Naoya, the so called "god of the novel," and Mori Ogai were instrumental in adopting and adapting Western literary conventions and techniques. Akutagawa Ryunosuke is known especially for his historical short stories. Ozaki Koyo, Izumi Kyoka, and Higuchi Ichiyo represent a strain of writers whose style hearkens back to early-Modern Japanese literature.

War-time Japan saw the debut of several authors best known for the beauty of their language and their tales of love and sensuality, notably Tanizaki Junichiro and Japan's first winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, Kawabata Yasunari, a master of psychological fiction.

Japanese Post-war literature

World War II, and Japan's defeat, influenced Japanese literature. Many authors wrote stories of disaffection, loss of purpose, and the coping with defeat. Dazai Osamu's novel The Setting Sun tells of a returning soldier from Manchukuo. Mishima Yukio, well-known for both his nihilistic writing and his controversial suicide by seppuku, began writing in the post-war period.

Prominent writers of the 1970s and 1980s, were identified with intellectual and moral issues in their attempts to raise social and political consciousness. One of them, Oe Kenzaburo wrote his most well-known work, A Personal Matter in 1964 and became Japan's second winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Inoue Mitsuaki had long been concerned with the atomic bomb and continued in the 1980s to write on problems of the nuclear age, while Endo Shusaku depicted the religious dilemma of the Kakure Kirishitan, Roman Catholics in feudal Japan, as a springboard to address spiritual problems. Inoue Yasushi also turned to the past in masterful historical novels of Inner Asia and ancient Japan, in order to portray present human fate.

Avant-garde writers, such as Abe Kobo, who wrote fantastic novels such as Woman in the Dunes (1960), wanted to express the Japanese experience in modern terms without using either international styles or traditional conventions, developed new inner visions. Furui Yoshikichi tellingly related the lives of alienated urban dwellers coping with the minutiae of daily life, while the psychodramas within such daily life crises have been explored by a rising number of important women novelists. The 1988 Naoki Prize went to Todo Shizuko for Ripening Summer, a story capturing the complex psychology of modern women. Other award-winning stories at the end of the decade dealt with current issues of the elderly in hospitals, the recent past (Pure- Hearted Shopping District in Koenji, Tokyo), and the life of a Meiji period ukiyo-e artist. In international literature, Ishiguro Kazuo, a native of Japan, had taken up residence in Britain and won Britain's prestigious Booker Prize.

Murakami Haruki is one of the most popular and controversial of today's Japanese authors. His genre-defying, humorous and fantastic works have sparked fierce debates in Japan over whether they are true "literature" or simple pop-fiction: Oe Kenzaburo has been one of his harshest critics. However, Western critics are nearly unanimous in assessing Murakami's works as having serious literary value. Some of his most well-known works include Norwegian Wood (1987) and The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle (1994-1995). Another best-selling contemporary author is Banana Yoshimoto.

Although modern Japanese writers covered a wide variety of subjects, one particularly Japanese approach stressed their subjects' inner lives, widening the earlier novel's preoccupation with the narrator's consciousness. In Japanese fiction, plot development and action have often been of secondary interest to emotional issues. In keeping with the general trend toward reaffirming national characteristics, many old themes reemerged, and some authors turned consciously to the past. Strikingly, Buddhist attitudes about the importance of knowing oneself and the poignant impermanence of things formed an undercurrent to sharp social criticism of this material age. There was a growing emphasis on women's roles, the Japanese persona in the modern world, and the malaise of common people lost in the complexities of urban culture.

Popular fiction, non-fiction, and children's literature all flourished in urban Japan in the 1980s. Many popular works fell between "pure literature" and pulp novels, including all sorts of historical serials, information-packed docudramas, science fiction, mysteries, business stories, war journals, and animal stories. Non-fiction covered everything from crime to politics. Although factual journalism predominated, many of these works were interpretive, reflecting a high degree of individualism. Children's works remerged in the 1950s, and the newer entrants into this field, many of them younger women, brought new vitality to it in the 1980s.

Manga (comic books) have penetrated almost every sector of the popular market. They include virtually any field of human interest, such as a multivolume high-school history of Japan and, for the adult market, a manga introduction to economics, and pornography. Manga represented between 20 and 30 percent of annual publications at the end of the 1980s, in sales of some ￥400 billion per year.

The Future of Japanese Literature

Entering the 21st century, there is controversy whether the rise in popular forms of entertainment such as manga and anime has caused a decline in the quality of literature in Japan. The counter-argument is that manga positively affect modern literature by encouraging younger people to read more.

Significant Japanese authors and works

Famous authors and literary works of significant stature are listed in chronological order below. For an exhaustive list of authors see List of Japanese authors:

Classical Literature
Sei Shonagon (c.~966 - c.10??): The Pillow Book
Murasaki Shikibu (c.973 - c.1025): The Tale of Genji

Medieval Literature
The Tale of the Heike (1371)

Early-Modern Literature
Ihara Saikaku (1642 � 1693)
Matsuo Basho (1644 - 1694)
Ueda Akinari (1734 - 1809)
Santo Kyoden (1761 - 1816)
Juppensha Ikku (1765 - 1831)
Kyokutei Bakin (1767 - 1858)

Late-Modern Literature
Mori Ogai (1862 - 1922)
Ozaki Koyo (1867 - 1903)
Natsume Soseki (1867 - 1916)
Izumi Kyoka (1873 - 1939)
Shiga Naoya (1883 - 1971)
Tanizaki Junichiro (1886 - 1965)
Akutagawa Ryunosuke (1892 - 1927)
Eiji Yoshikawa (1892-1962)
Kawabata Yasunari (1899 - 1972)
Dazai Osamu (1909 - 1948)
Endo Shusaku (1923 - 1996)
Abe Kobo (1924 - 1993)
Mishima Yukio (1925 - 1970)
Oe Kenzaburo (1935)
Murakami Haruki (1949)
Murakami Ryu (1952) 

American Literature 

 

 American literature has a relatively short but colorful history. The first widely read American author was Benjamin Franklin, whose witty aphorisms and sound advice written in the yearly journal Poor Richard’s Almanack helped shape ideas of what it means to be an American. Washington Irving (The Legend of Sleepy Hollow) was the first American to gain an international literary reputation. James Fenimore Cooper’s verbal landscapes in his Leatherstocking Tales captured the nation’s vast beauty. Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson broke from poetic tradition and brought a sense of individuality to the nation’s literature. Mark Twain still captivates readers with his unique—and uniquely American—humor and insight. The modernists of the 1920s and 1930s produced such talents as F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway. Today, writers like Toni Morrison and Cormac McCarthy continue to make American literature relevant and exciting.

In the postwar period, the art of the short story again flourished. Among its most respected practitioners was Flannery O'Connor (b. March 25, 1925 in Georgia – d. August 3, 1964 in Georgia), who renewed the fascination of such giants as Faulkner and Twain with the American south, developing a distinctive Southern gothic esthetic wherein characters acted at one level as people and at another as symbols. A devout Catholic, O'Connor often imbued her stories, among them the widely studied "A Good Man is Hard to Find" and "Everything That Rises Must Converge", and two novels, Wise Blood (1952); The Violent Bear It Away (1960), with deeply religious themes, focusing particularly on the search for truth and religious skepticism against the backdrop of the nuclear age. Other important practitioners of the form include Katherine Anne Porter, Eudora Welty, John Cheever, Raymond Carver, Tobias Wolff, and the more experimental Donald Barthelme.

Among the most respected of the postwar American poets are John Ashbery, the key figure of the surrealistic New York School of poetry, and his celebrated Self-portrait in a Convex Mirror (Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, 1976); Elizabeth Bishop and her North & South (Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, 1956) and "Geography III" (National Book Award, 1970); Richard Wilbur and his Things of This World, winner of both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award for Poetry in 1957; John Berryman and his The Dream Songs, (Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, 1964, National Book Award, 1968); A.R. Ammons, whose Collected Poems 1951-1971 won a National Book Award in 1973 and whose long poem Garbage earned him another in 1993; Theodore Roethke and his The Waking (Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, 1954); James Merrill and his epic poem of communication with the dead, The Changing Light at Sandover (Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, 1977); Louise Glück for her The Wild Iris (Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, 1993); W.S. Merwin for his The Carrier of Ladders (Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, 1971) and The Shadow of Sirius (Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, 2009); Mark Strand for Blizzard of One (Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, 1999); Robert Hass for his Time and Materials, which won both the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award for Poetry in 2008 and 2007 respectively; and Rita Dove for her Thomas and Beulah (Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, 1987).

In addition, in this same period the confessional, whose origin is often traced to the publication in 1959 of Robert Lowell's Life Studies,^[13] and beat schools of poetry enjoyed popular and academic success, producing such widely anthologized voices as Allen Ginsberg, Charles Bukowski, Gary Snyder, Anne Sexton, and Sylvia Plath, among many others.