JA 216 Traditional Japanese Literature in Translation

Fall 2000 Professor: William Gardner

Class time: MW 8:40 — 9:55 Office: Hillcrest annex 51

Office hours: Tues 1-3 or by appointment Phone: Ext. 3251

E-mail: wgardner@middlebury.edu

Course description, objectives, and approach

In this survey course we will read and discuss some of the most outstanding works of traditional Japanese literature, from the sixth to eighteenth centuries. The primary goals of this course are 1) to gain a greater knowledge of traditional Japanese literature and aesthetics through a careful reading and analysis of key literary and dramatic works 2) to gain insight on the ways of perceiving, experiencing, and creating (through literature) the world as experienced and recorded by people remote in place and time from ourselves. Because the ideas which controlled Japanese literature were quite different from Western ones, we will seek greater insight into this literature by learning, and learning to use, a significant number of Japanese literary terms.

Some of the main themes we will explore in the course are:

Poetry and poetics:

One point of entry into Japanese literature will be found in tracing the origins and development of Japanese waka poetry, its rhetorical structure, and its ritual, social, and performative uses. We can then follow how waka techniques and themes are co-opted by other genres, such as fictional narrative and nô drama.

Ethos:

We will also explore the expression in Japanese literature of distinctive religious, philosophical, and aesthetic ideas (many of these are related to Shintô and Buddhist beliefs).

Gender, sexuality, and subjectivity:

Finally, gender, sexuality, and subjectivity will form some of the key parameters in our reading of Japanese literature, and some of the important ways in which premodern Japanese society and its literary expressions differ from our own. By gender I mean the ideas of femininity and masculinity in a given society, and the various roles women and men perform differentially according to these ideas. By sexuality I mean the conventions which formulate the "erotic," and the ways in which these are enacted or expressed socially. By subjectivity I mean both ideas of selfhood and the ways in which selfhood is articulated in language.

Course requirements

1. regular class attendance and active class participation
2. complete and careful reading of the works by the day they are assigned in class. Discussion questions will be distributed for reference at the end of each class as a guide to readings for the next class; these may include a brief homework assignment, such as choosing a poem or passage for close reading at the next class session.
3. five short written responses will be due at regular periods throughout the term. These will typically present your immediate reactions to that day’s reading material, and should be one page in length, either double or single-spaced. Although brief, these should be both thoughtful and well written.
4. one 6-8 page analytical paper on The Tale of Genji on a topic chosen by the student in consultation with the Professor. Some secondary works should be consulted and cited in this paper.
5. mid-term and final examinations. These will consist of Japanese terms, identification of passages, and analysis.

Grading

Class participation 15%

5 short papers 15%

mid-term 20%

final paper 30%

final exam 20%