JAPANESE LITERATURE. From the neighbouring con tinent the Japanese derived the art of writing, probably about the middle of the 3rd century, but the earliest book now extant dates from 712. This is the Kojiki (Record of Ancient Matters), translated into English by Chamberlain, as vol. x. of the Trans actions of the Asiatic Society of Japan. The Kojiki is written in the archaic form ; that is to say, the language is that of old Japan, the script, although ideographic, being used phonetically only. It is a species of saga, setting forth not only the heavenly beginnings of the Japanese race but also the story of creation, the succession of the various sovereigns and the salient events of their reigns, the whole interspersed with songs, most of which may be attributed to the 6th century. The next authentic work, Nihongi (Chronicles of Japan), composed only eight years later, was com pletely Chinese in style and embodied Chinese traditions and Chinese philosophical doctrines. The poetry of Japan is distinc tive. Its form has remained unchanged till modern times. The tanka is a five line verse of 5, 7, 5, 7, 7 syllables, and the hokku of three lines (5, 7, 5). The content of Japanese poetry began to change with the importation of Chinese metaphors and actual Chinese words. The two masters of pure Japanese verse were Hitomaro and Akahito (8th century), followed by Tsurayuki (early loth century). In 756 was published the Manyoshfi (Col lection of a Myriad Leaves), a work containing the best verses of Hitomaro, Akahito and a host of minor poets. In 905 Tsurayuki and three other poets compiled the Kokinshit (collection of Odes, Ancient and Modern), and this was the first of the Ni-jfi-lchi Dai Shit (Anthologies of the Twenty-One Reigns), a series finally completed in the 15th century. With the mention of the Hyaku Nin-Isshu (Hundred Verses by a Hundred Poets), assembled by Teika Kyo in the i3th century, the tale of Japanese poetry is told. From the end of the 9th century the making of poetry declined and although, in their passion for everything Chinese, the leaders of the literary world imitated the Chinese style of verse, none of their efforts ever attracted the attention of Chinese poets. Since Chinese poetry, like that of the West, has rhymes and a great variety of metres, as well as a complicated system of "par allelism" between the characters of the different lines, and the Japanese disregarded all these points, their non-success is not surprising.
The so-called dark age of Japanese literature (c. A.D. 1425 1625) was not entirely unproductive; besides the Tsurezure gusa (Idle Thoughts), by KenkO-boshi, it gave the drama (No) to Japan. Tradition ascribes the origin of the drama to a religious dance of a pantomimic character, called Kagura and associated with Shinto ceremonials. The NO, however, owed its development mainly to Buddhist influence. Very soon the No came to occupy in the estimation of the military class a position similar to that held by the tanka as a literary pursuit, and the gagaku as a musi cal, in the imperial court. For a moment, when the tide of West ern civilization swept over Japan, the NO seemed likely to be permanently submerged. But, in recent years, the popular mind
has definitely been drawn from its favourite, rather coarse, variety stage to an appreciation of the classical drama. There are five schools of NO presentation and a healthy competition stimulates public interest.
There was an attempt, in the period immediately following the dark age, to popularize the purely Japanese art of versification and the Tokugawa era (1603-1867) opened even more splendidly than it closed. BashO and a collection of his "disciples" made the earlier years of this period lustrous with the myriad hokku or haikai (verses of three lines, 5, 7 and 5 syllables), produced on all subjects from the minutest natural object to personal re proaches, and thumb-nail sketches of new ideas, as when "the writing of Dutchmen" was said to "straggle like geese across the sky!" Soon after the end of the Tokugawa period some imaginative Japanese saw an opportunity to pull their ancient poetry out of its rut. Foreign models of odes, sonnets, ballads, quatrains and long poems were slavishly copied; even vers Libre was forced into a Japanese dress. The genius of the language, however, was all against such an innovation and the party led by Prof. Tozama watched its efforts fade into nothingness without even stirring the surface calm of the national taste Influence of Women.—A close view of the history of Japan will demonstrate the tremendous activity of men in the numerous battles and feudal squabbles which began soon after A.D. 1000.
In these circumstances it is far from surprising that women domi nate the literary history of Japan. Not only did women begin it (the empress Gemmyo ordered the transcription of the Kojiki, and again to an empress we owe the Nihongi), but they perpet uated it, and there are few, if any, works of outstanding merit in the pure Japanese tongue written by men. The latter, for the most part, slavishly copied the Chinese style until it became recognized as the one vehicle for men, and women were left to guard the pure tongue. This distinction still prevails not only in writing but in speech, so that a Japanese woman's conversation is not only softer but more diffuse (Japanese being an inexact language), while the men interlard their speech with the direct, vigorous Chinese vocables. Early in the I 1 th century two notable works appeared from the pens (or rather, brushes), of two court ladies. The Genji Monogatari (Story of Genji) by Murasaki no Shikibu is a lengthy novel, tedious in itself, but valuable as a mirror of the real life of that time. The Makura no Soshi (Pillow-sketches) by Sei Shonagon is an amazingly unaffected record of the writer's impressions of life and its problems in daily practice ("Things I dislike heartily," "Things I am fond of" are two perfectly delight ful sections of these fugitive papers). Through the naïveté of the writer's confessions appears a marvellously clear picture of life in aristocratic and Court circles in the irth century.