Afro-Asian Literature

MAJORSHIP Area:           ENGLISH Focus: Afro-Asian Literature           Competencies: 1.     be familiar with the literary history,  philosophy, religious beliefs, and culture of the Afro-Asian nations 2.     point out  the universal themes, issues, and subject matter that dominate Afro-Asian literature 3.     interpret the significance and meaning of selected literary pieces 4.     identify outstanding writers and their major works

INDIA

 

1.      Literary Periods.  The Indus Valley civilization flourished in northern India between 2500 and 1500 B.C.  The Aryans, a group of nomadic warriors and herders, were the earliest known migrants into India.  They brought with them a well-developed language and literature and a set of religious beliefs.

a)      Vedic Period (1500 B.C. –500 B.C.).  This period is named for the Vedas, a set of hymns that formed the cornerstone of Aryan culture.  Hindus consider the Vedas, which were transmitted orally by priests, to be the most sacred of all literature for they believe these to have been revealed to humans directly by the gods.

·         The Rigveda which has come to mean “hymns of supreme sacred knowledge,” is the foremost collection or Samhita made up of 1,028 hymns.  The oldest of the Vedas, it contains strong, energetic, non-speculative hymns, often comparable to the psalms in the Old Testament.  The Hindus regard these hymns as divinely inspired or ‘heard’ directly from the gods. 

      The Song of Creation

Then was not non-existent nor existent: there was no realm of air, no sky beyond

       it.

What covered it and where?  And what gave shelter?  Was water there,

unfathomedmdepth of water?

Death was not then nor was there aught immortal: no sign was there, the day’s

      and night’s divider.

That one thing, breathless, breathed by its own nature: apart from it was nothing  

      whatsoever.

Darkness there was: at first concealed in darkness, this All was indiscriminated  

      chaos.

All that existed then was void and formless: by the great power of warmth was

      born that unit.

b)      Epic and Buddhist Age (500 B.C. – A.D.).  The period of composition of the two great epics, Mahabharata and the Ramayana.  This time was also the growth of later Vedic literature, new Sanskrit literature, and Buddhist literature in Pali.  The Dhammapada was also probably composed during this period.  The Maurya Empire (322-230 B.C.) ruled by Ashoka promoted Buddhism and preached goodness, nonviolence, and ‘righteousness’ although this period was known for warfare and iron-fisted rule.  The Gupta Dynasty (320-467 B.C.) was the next great political power.  During this time, Hinduism reached a full flowering and was evident in culture and the arts.

·         The Mahabharata, traditionally ascribed to the sage Vyasa, consists of a mass of legendary and didactic material that tells of the struggle for supremacy between two groups of cousins, the Kauravas and the Pandavas set sometime 3102 BC.  The poem is made up of almost 100,000 couplets divided into 18 parvans or sections.  It is an exposition on dharma (codes of conduct), including the proper conduct of a king, of a warrior, of a man living in times of calamity, and of a person seeking to attain emancipation from rebirth.

·         The Bhagavad Gita (The Blessed Lord’s Song) is one of the greatest and most beautiful of the Hindu scriptures.  It is regarded by the Hindus in somewhat the same way as the Gospels are by Christians.  It forms part of Book IV and is written in the form of a dialogue between the warrior Prince Arjuna and his friend and charioteer, Krishna, who is also an earthly incarnation of the god Vishnu. 

From the Bhagavad-Gita

Arjuna:  Krishna, what defines a man/ deep in contemplation whose insight/ and thought are sure?  How would he speak?/  How would he sit?  How would he move?

Lord Krishna:  When he gives up desires in his mind,/ is content with the self within himself,/ then he is said to be a man/ whose insight is sure, Arjuna.  When suffering does not disturb his mind,/ when his craving for pleasures has vanished,/ when attraction, fear, and anger are gone,/ he is called a sage whose thought is sure.

·         The Ramayana was composed in Sanskrit, probably not before 300 BC, by the poet Valmiki and consists of some 24,000 couplets divided into seven books.  It reflects the Hindu values and forms of social organization, the theory of karma, the ideals of wifehood, and feelings about caste, honor and promises.

The poem describes the royal birth of Rama, his tutelage under the sage Visvamitra, and his success in bending Siva’s mighty bow, thus winning Sita, the daughter of King Janaka, for his wife.  After Rama is banished from his position as heir by an intrigue, he retreats to the forest with his wife and his half brother, Laksmana.  There Ravana, the demon-king of Lanka, carries off Sita, who resolutely rejects his attentions.  After numerous adventures Rama slays Ravana and rescues Sita.  When they return to his kingdom, however, Rama learns that the people question the queen’s chastity, and he banishes her to the forest where she gives birth to Rama’s two sons.  The family is reunited when the sons come of age, but Sita, after again protesting her innocence, asks to be received by the earth, which swallows her up.

From the Ramayana:  “Brother’s Faithfulness”

If my elder and his lady to the pathless forests wend,

Armed with bow and ample quiver Lakshman will on them attend,

Where the wild deer range the forest and the lordly tuskers roam,

And the bird of gorgeous plumage nestles in its jungle home,

Dearer far to me those woodlands where perennial bliss prevails!

Grant me then thy sweet permission, - faithful to thy glorious star,

Lakshman, shall not wait and tarry when his Rama wanders far,

Grant me then thy loving mandate, - Lakshman hath no wish to stay,

None shall bar the faithful younger when the elder leads the way!

c)      Classical Period (A.D. – 1000 A.D.).  The main literary language of northern India during this period was Sanskrit, in contrast with the Dravidian languages of southern India.  Sanskrit, which means ‘perfect speech’ is considered a sacred language, the language spoken by the gods and goddesses.  As such, Sanskrit was seen as the only appropriate language for the noblest literary works.  Poetry and drama peaked during this period.  Beast fables such as the Panchatantra were popular and often used by religious teachers to illustrate moral points.

·         The Panchatantra is a collection of Indian beast fables originally written in Sanskrit.  In Europe, the work was known under the title The Fables of Bidpai after the narrator, and Indian sage named Bidpai, (called Vidyapati in Sanskrit).  It is intended as a textbook of artha (worldly wisdom); the aphorisms tend to glorify shrewdness and cleverness more than helping of others.  The original text is a mixture of Sanskrit prose and stanzas of verse, with the stories contained within one of five frame stories.  The introduction, which acts as an enclosing frame for the entire work, attributes the stories to a learned Brahman named Vishnusarman, who used the form of animal fables to instruct the three dull-witted sons of a king.

From the Panchatantra: “Right-Mind and Wrong-Mind”                                                                                                   The good and bad of given schemes/ wise thought must first reveal: the stupid heron saw his chicks/ provide a mongoose meal.

·         Sakuntala, a Sanskrit drama by Kalidasa,  tells of the love between Sakuntala and King Dushyanta.  What begins as a physical attraction for both of them becomes spiritual in the end as their love endures and surpasses all difficulties.  King Dushyanta is a noble and pious king who upholds his duties above personal desire.  Sakuntala, on the other hand, is a young girl who matures beautifully because of her kindness, courage, and strength of will.  After a period of suffering, the two are eventually reunited.  Emotion or rasa dominates every scene in Sanskrit drama.  These emotions vary from love to anger, heroism to cowardice, joy to terror and allows the audience to take part in the play and be one with the characters. 

       

Excerpt from Sakuntala:

King.  You are too modest.  I feel honoured by the mere sight of you.

Shakuntala.  Anusuya, my foot is cut on a sharp blade of grass, and my dress is caught on an amaranth twig.  Wait for me while I loosen it.  (She casts a lingering glance at the king, and goes out with her two friends.)

King. (sighing).  They are gone.  And I must go.  The sight of Shakuntala has made me dread the return to the city.  I will make my men camp at a distance from the pious grove.  But I cannot turn my own thoughts from Shakuntala.

                It is my body leaves my love, not I;/ My body moves away, but not my mind;

   For back to her struggling fancies fly/ Like silken banners borne against the  

   wind. (Exit.)

·         The Little Clay Cart (Mrcchakatika) is attributed to Shudraka, a king.  The characters in this play include a Brahman merchant who has lost his money through liberality, a rich courtesan in love with a poor young man, much description of resplendent palaces, and both comic and tragic or near-tragic emotional situations.

PROLOGUE (Benediction upon the audience)

May His, may Shiva's meditation be

Your strong defense; on the Great Self thinks he,

Knowing full well the world's vacuity.                       

And again:

May Shiva's neck shield you from every harm,

That seems a threatening thunder-cloud, whereon,

Bright as the lightning-flash, lies Gauri's arm.

d)     Medieval and Modern Age (A.D. 1000 – present).  Persian influence on literature was considerable during this period.  Persian was the court language of the Moslem rulers.  In the 18^th century India was directly under the British Crown and remained so until its Independence in 1947.  British influence was strong and modern-day Indians are primarily educated in English.  Many have been brought into the world of Western learning at the expense of learning about their own culture. 

·         Gitanjali: Song Offerings was originally published in India in 1910 and it s translation followed in 1912.  In these prose translations, Rabindranath Tagore uses imagery from nature to express the themes of love and the internal conflict between spiritual longings and earthly desires.

Moment’s Indulgence

I ask for a moment's indulgence to sit by thy side.

The works that I have in hand I will finish afterwards.

Away from the sight of thy face my heart knows no rest nor respite,

and my work becomes an endless toil in a shoreless sea of toil.

·         The Taj Mahal,  a poem by Sahir Ludhianvi, is about the mausoleum in North India built by the Mogul emperor Shah Jahan for his wife Mumtaz-i-Mahal.  The façade of this grandiose structure is made of white marble and is surrounded by water gardens, gateways, and walks.  The tomb at the center of the dome stands on a square block with towers at each corner.  The construction of the building took twenty years to complete involving some 20, 000 workers.

Excerpt from the Taj Mahal

Do dead king’s tombs delight you?

If so, look into your own dark home.

In this world, countless people have loved.

Who says their passions weren’t true?

They just couldn’t afford a public display like this.

·         On Learning to be an Indian an essay by Santha Rama Rau illustrates the telling effects of colonization on the lives of the people particularly the younger generation.  The writer humorously narrates the conflicts that arise between her grandmother's traditional Indian values and the author’s own British upbringing.

Because Mother had to fight against the old standards, and because she was brought up to believe in them, she has an emotional understanding of them which my sister I will never have.  Brought up in Europe and educated in preparatory and public schools in England, we felt that the conventions were not only retrogressive and socially crippling to the country but also a little ridiculous.

2.      Religions.  Indian creativity is evident in religion as the country is the birthplace of two important faiths: Hinduism, the dominant religion, and Buddhism, which ironically became extinct in India but spread throughout Asia.

a)      Hinduism, literally “the belief of the people of India,” is the predominant faith of India and of no other nation.  The Hindus are deeply absorbed with God and the creation of the universe. 

The Purusarthas are the three ends of man: dharma – virtue, duty, righteousness, moral law; artha – wealth; and kama – love or pleasure.  A fourth end is moksha – the renunciation of duty, wealth and love in order to seek spiritual perfection.  It is achieved after the release from samsara, the cycle of births and deaths.   The Hindus believe that all reality is one and spiritual, and that each individual soul is identical with this reality and shares its characteristics: pure being, intelligence, and bliss.  Everything that seems to divide the soul from this reality is maya or illusion.

Life is viewed as an upward development through four stages of effort called the four asramas: a) the student stage – applies to the rite of initiation into the study of the Vedas; b) the householder stage – marries and fulfills the duties as head of the family where he begets sons and earns a living; c) the stage of the forest dweller – departs from home and renounces the social world; and d) ascetic – stops performing any of the rituals or social duties of life in the world and devotes time for reflection and meditation.

Kama refers to one of the proper pursuits of man in his role as householder, that of pleasure and love.  The Kama-sutra is a classic textbook on erotics and other forms of pleasure and love, which is attributed to the sage Vatsyayana.

The Hindus regard Purusha, the Universal Spirit, as the soul and original source of the universe.  As the universal soul, Purusha is the life-giving principle in all animated beings.  As a personified human being, Purusha's body is the source of all creation.  The four Varnas serve as the theoretical basis for the organization of the Hindu society.  These were thought to have been created from Purusha’s body:

-    The Brahman (priest) was Purusha’s mouth.  Their duty is to perform sacrifices, to study and to teach the Vedas, and to guard the rules of dharma.  Because of their sacred work, they are supreme in purity and rank.

-    The Ksatriyas (warriors) are the arms.  From this class arose the kings who are the protectors of society.

-    The Vaisyas (peasants) are the thighs.  They live by trading, herding, and farming.

-    The Sudras (serfs) are the feet.  They engage in handicrafts and manual occupation and they are to serve meekly the three classes above them.  They are strictly forbidden to mate with persons of a higher varna.

·      The Upanishads form a highly sophisticated commentary on the religious thought suggested by the poetic hymns of the Rigveda.  The name implies, according to some traditions, ‘sitting at the feet of the teacher.’  The most important philosophical doctrine is the concept of a single supreme being, the Brahman, and knowledge is directed toward reunion with it by the human soul, the Atman or Self.  The nature of eternal life is discussed and such themes as the transmigration of souls and causality in creation.

b)      Buddhism originated in India in the 6^th century B.C.   This religion is based on the teachings of Siddhartha Gautama, called Buddha, or   the ‘Enlightened One.’  Much of Buddha’s teaching is focused on self-awareness and self-development in order to attain nirvana or enlightenment.

According to Buddhist beliefs, human beings are bound to the wheel of life which is a continual cycle of birth, death, and suffering.  This cycle is an effect of karma in which a person’s present life and experiences are the result of past thoughts and actions, and these present thoughts and actions likewise create those of the future.  The Buddhist scriptures uphold the Four Noble Truths and the Noble Eightfold Path.  The Four Noble Truths are: 1) life is suffering; 2) the cause of suffering is desire; 3) the removal of desire is the removal of suffering; and 4) the Noble Eightfold Path leads to the end of suffering.  The Noble Eightfold Path consists of: 1) right understanding; 2) right thought; 3) right speech; 4) right action; 5) right means of livelihood; 6) right effort; 7) right concentration; and 8) right meditation.  The Buddhist truth states that bad actions and bad feelings such as selfishness, greed, hostility, hate are evil not because they harm others but because of their negative influence on the mental state of the doer.  It is in this sense that evil returns to punish the doer

·      The Dhammapada (Way of Truth) is an anthology of basic Buddhist teaching in a simple aphoristic style.  One of the best known books of the Pali Buddhist canon, it contains 423 stanzas arranged in 26 chapters.  These verses are compared with the Letters of St. Paul in the Bible or that of Christ’s Sermon on the Mount. 

.

Thought

As a fletcher makes straight his arrow, a wise man makes straight his trembling and unsteady thought which is difficult to guard, difficult to hold back.

As a fish taken from his watery home and thrown on the dry ground, our thought trembles all over in order to escape the dominion of Mara, the tempter.

It is good to tame the mind, which is difficult to hold in and flighty, rushing wherever it listeth; a tamed mind brings happiness.

Let the wise man guard his thoughts, for they are difficult to perceive, very artful, and they rush wherever they list: thoughts well guarded bring happiness.

Those who bridle their mind which travels far, moves about alone, is without a body, and hides in the chamber of the heart, will be free from the bonds of Mara, the tempter

3.      Major Writers.

a)          Kalidasa a Sanskrit poet and dramatist is probably the greatest Indian writer of all time.  As with most classical Indian authors, little is known about Kalidasa’s person or his historical relationships.  His poems suggest that he was a Brahman (priest).  Many works are traditionally ascribed to the poet, but scholars have identified only six as genuine.

b)        Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941).  The son of a Great Sage, Tagore is a Bengali poet and mystic who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913.  Tagore managed his father's estates and lived in close contact with the villagers.  His sympathy for their poverty and backwardness was later reflected in his works.  The death of his wife and two children brought him years of sadness but this also inspired some of his best poety.  Tagore is also a gifted composer and a painter.

c)         Prem Chand pseudonym of  Dhanpat Rai Srivastava (1880-1936).  Indian author of numerous  novels and short stories in Hindi and Urdu who pioneered in adapting Indian themes to Western literary styles.  He worked as a teacher before joining Mahatma Gandhi’s anticolonial Noncooperation Movement.

·      Sevasadana (House of Service).  His first major novel deals with the problems of prostitution and moral corruption among the Indian middle class.

·      Manasarovar (The Holy Lake).  A collection of 250 or so short stories which contains most of Prem Chand’s best works.

·      Godan (The Gift of a Cow).  This last novel was Prem Chand’s masterpiece and it deals with his favorite theme – the hard and unrewarding life of the village peasant.

d)        Kamala Markandaya (1924).  Her works concern the struggles of contemporary Indians with conflicting Eastern and Western values.  A Brahman, she studied at Madras University then settled in England and married an Englishman.  In her fiction, Western values typically are viewed as modern and materialistic, and Indian values as spiritual and traditional.

·      Nectar in a Sieve.  Her first novel and most popular work is about an Indian peasant’s narrative of her difficult life.

e)         R. K. Narayan (1906).  One of the finest Indian authors of his generation writing in English.  He briefly worked as a teacher before deciding to devote himself full-time to writing.  All of Narayan’s works are set in the fictitious South Indian town of Malgudi.  They typically portray the peculiarities of human relationships and the ironies of Indian daily life, in which modern urban existence clashes with ancient tradition.  His style is graceful, marked by genial humor, elegance, and simplicity.

·      Swami and Friends.  His first novel is an episodic narrative recounting the adventures of a group of schoolboys.

·      Novels: The English Teacher (1945), Waiting for the Mahatma (1955), The Guide (1958), The Man-Eater of Malgudi (1961), The Vendor of Sweets (1967), A Tiger for Malgudi (1983), and The World of Nagaraj (1990).

·      Collection of Short Stories: Lawley Road (1956), A Horse and Two Goats and Other Stories (1970), Under the Banyan Tree and Other Stories (1985), and  Grandmother’s Tale (1992).

f)         Anita Desai (1937).  An English-language Indian novelist and author of children’s books, she is considered India’s premier imagist writer.  She excelled in evoking character and mood through visual images.  Most of her works reflect Desei’s tragic view of life.

·      Cry, the Peacock.  Her first novel addresses the theme of the suppression and oppression of Indian women.

·      Clear Light of Day.  Considered the author’s most successful work, this is a highly evocative portrait of two sisters caught in the lassitude of Indian life.  This was shortlisted for the 1980 Booker Prize.

·      Fire on the Mountain. This work was criticized as relying too heavily on imagery at the expense of plot and characterization, but it was praised for its poetic symbolism and use of sounds.  This won for her the Royal Society of Literature’s Winifred Holtby Memorial Prize.

g)        Vir Singh (1872-1957).  A Sikh writer and theologian, he wrote at a time when Sikh religion and politics and the Punjabi language were under heavy attack by the English and Hindus.  He extolled Sikh courage, philosophy, and ideals, earning respect for the Punjabi language as a literary vehicle.

·      Kalghi Dhar Chamatkar.  This novel is about the life of the 17^th century guru Gobind Singh.

·      Other novels on Sikh philosophy and martial excellence include Sundri (1898) and  Bijai Singh (1899).

h)        Arundhati Roy.  A young female writer whose first book The God of Small Things won for her a Booker Prize.

A.    CHINA

1.         Historical Background.  Chinese literature reflects the political and social history of China and the impact of powerful religions that came from within and outside the country.  Its tradition goes back thousand of years and has often been inspired by philosophical questions about the meaning of life, how to live ethically in society, and how to live in spiritual harmony with the natural order of the universe.

a)      Shang Dynasty (1600 B.C.).  During this time, the people practiced a religion based on the belief that nature was inhabited by many powerful gods and spirits.  Among the significant advances of this period were bronze working, decimal system, a twelve-month calendar and a system of writing consisting of 3,000 characters.

b)      Chou Dynasty (1100 B.C. – 221 B.C.).  This was the longest of all the dynasties and throughout most of this period China suffered from severe political disunity and upheaval.  This era was also known as the Hundred Schools period because of the many competing philosophers and teachers who emerged the most influential among them being Lao Tzu, the proponent of Taoism, and Confucius, the founder of Confucianism.  Lao Tzu stressed freedom, simplicity, and the mystical contemplation of nature whereas Confucius emphasized a code of social conduct and stressed the importance of discipline, morality, and knowledge.

The Book of Songs, (Shih Ching) first compiled in the 6^th century B.C., is the oldest collection of Chinese poetry and is considered a model of poetic expression and moral insight.  The poems include court songs that entertained the aristocracy, story songs that recounted Chou dynasty legends, hymns that were sung in the temples accompanied by dance and brief folk songs and ballads.  Although these poems were originally meant to be sung, their melodies have long been lost.

O Oriole, Yellow Bird

O oriole, yellow bird,/ Do not settle on the corn,                              

Do not peck at my millet./ The people of this land                

Are not minded to nurture me./ I must go back, go home                             

To my own land and kin.

The Parables of the Ancient Philosophers illustrate the Taoist belief and the humanism of the Chinese thought.  In them can be seen the relativity of all things as they pass through man’s judgment, the virtues of flexibility, and the drawbacks of material progress.

The Missing Axe by Lieh Tzu

A man whose axe was missing suspected his neighbor’s son.  The boy walked like a thief, looked like a thief, and spoke like a thief.  But the man found his axe while he was digging in the valley, and the next time he saw his neighbor’s son, the boy walked, looked, and spoke like any other child.    

c)      Ch’in Dynasty (221 B.C. – 207 B.C.). This period saw the unification of China and the strengthening of central government.  Roads connecting all parts of the empire were built and the existing walls on the northern borders were connected to form the Great Wall of China.

d)     Han Dynasty (207 B.C. – A.D. 220).   This period was one of the most glorious eras of Chinese history and was marked by the introduction of Buddhism from India.

e)      T’ang Dynasty (A.D. 618-960).  Fine arts and literature flourished during this era which is viewed as the Golden Age of Chinese civilization.  Among the technological advances of this time were the invention of gunpowder and the block printing.

The T’ang Poets.   Chinese lyrical poetry reached its height during the T’ang Dynasty.  Inspired by scenes of natural beauty, T’ang poets wrote about the fragile blossoms in spring, the falling of leaves in autumn, or the changing shape of the moon.

Conversation in the Mountains by Li Po

If you were to ask me why I dwell among green mountains,

I should laugh silently; my soul is serene.

  The peach blossom follows the moving water;

            There is another heaven and earth beyond the world of men.

           

            A Meeting by Tu Fu

            We were often separated                                 How long does youth last?

            Like the Dipper and the morning star.            Now we are all gray-haired.

            What night is tonight?                                     Half of our friends are dead,

            We are together in the candlelight.                  And both of us were surprised when we met.

f)       Sung Dynasty (A.D. 960 – 1279).  This period was characterized by delicacy and refinement although inferior in terms of literary arts but great in learning.  Professional poets were replaced by amateur writers.  The practice of Neo-Confucianism grew

g)      Later Dynasties (A.D. 1260-1912).  During the late 12^th and early 13^th centuries, northern China was overrun by Mongol invaders led by Genghis Khan whose grandson Kublai Khan completed the Mongol conquest of China and established the Yuan dynasty, the first foreign dynasty in China’s history.  It was during this time that Marco Polo visited China.  Chinese rule was reestablished after the Mongols were driven out of China and the Ming dynasty was established.  There was a growth of drama in colloquial language and a decline of the language of learning.  A second foreign dynasty, the Ch’ing was established and China prospered as its population rapidly increased causing major problems for its government.

h)      Traditional Chinese Government.  The imperial rule lasted in China for over 2,000 years leading to a pyramid-shaped hierarchy in the government.  The emperor, known as the Son of Heaven, was a hereditary ruler and beneath him were bureaucratic officials.  An official government career was considered prestigious and the selection was by means of government examinations.  The civil service examinations tested on the major Chinese works of philosophy and poetry requiring the composition for verse.  Most government officials were well-versed in literature and philosophy and many famous Chinese poets also served in the government.

2.         Philosophy and Religion.  Chinese literature and all of Chinese culture has been profoundly influenced by three great schools of thought: Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism.  Unlike Western religions, Chinese religions are based on the perception of life as a process of continual change in which opposing forces, such as heaven and earth or light and dark, balance one another.  These opposites are symbolized by the Yin and Yang.  Yin, the passive and feminine force, counterbalances yang, the active and masculine force, each contains a ‘seed’ of the other, as represented in the traditional yin-yang symbol.

a)   Confucianism provides the Chinese with both a moral order and an order for the universe.  It is not a religion but it makes individuals aware of their place in the world and the behavior appropriate to it.  It also provides a political and social philosophy.

Confucius was China’s most famous teacher, philosopher, and political theorist, whose ideas have influenced all civilizations of East Asia.  According to tradition, Confucius came from an impoverished family of the lower nobility.  He became a minor government bureaucrat but was never give a position of high office.  He criticized government policies and spent the greater part of his life educating a group of disciples.  Confucius was not a religious leader in the ordinary sense, for his teaching was essentially a social ethic.  Confucian politics is hierarchical but not absolute and the political system is described by analogy with the family.  There are five key Confucian relationships: emperor and subject, father and son, husband and wife, older brother and younger brother, friend and friend.

Confucian ethics is humanist.  The following are Confucian tenets: a) jen or human heartedness are qualities or forms of behavior that set men above the rest of the life on earth.  It is the unique goodness of man which animals cannot aspire to.  Also known as ren, it is the measure of individual character and such, is the goal of self-cultivation.  The ideal individual results from acting according to li, b) li refers to ritual, custom, propriety, and manner.  Li is thought to be the means by which life should be regulated.  A person of li is a good person and a state ordered by li is a harmonious and peaceful state.  Li or de as a virtue is best understood as a sacred power inherent in the very presence of the sage.  The sage was the inspiration for proper conduct and the model of behavior.

      The Analects (Lun Yu) is one of the four Confucian texts.  The sayings range from brief statements to more extended dialogues between Confucius and his students.  Confucius believes that people should cultivate the inherent goodness within themselves –unselfishness, courage, and honor – as an ideal of universal moral and social harmony.  The Analects instructs on moderation in all things through moral education, the building of a harmonious family life, and the development of virtues such as loyalty, obedience, and a sense of justice.  It also emphasizes filial piety and concern with social and religious rituals.  To Confucius, a person’s inner virtues can be fully realized only through concrete acts of ‘ritual propriety’ or proper behavior toward other human beings.

From The Analects (II.1)

The Master said, “He who exercises government by means of his virtue may be compared to the north polar star, which keeps its place and all the stars turn towards it.”

The Book of Changes (I Ching) is one of the Five Classics of Confucian philosophy and has been primarily used for divination.  This book is based on the concept of change – the one constant of the universe.  Although change is never-ending, it too proceeds according to certain universal and observable patterns.

b)   Taoism, was expounded by Lao Tzu during the Chou Dynasty.  Taoist beliefs and influences are an important part of classical Chinese culture.  “The Tao” or “The Way” means the natural course that the world follows.  To follow the tao of to “go with the flow” is both wisdom and happiness.  For the Taoist, unhappiness comes from parting from the tao or from trying to flout it.

The Taoist political ideas are very passive: the good king does nothing, and by this everything is done naturally.  This idea presents an interesting foil to Confucian theories of state, although the Taoists never represented any political threat to the Confucianists.  Whereas Confucianism stressed conformity and reason in solving human problems, Taoism stressed the individual and the need for human beings to conform to nature rather than to society.

Lao-tzu.  Known as the “old philosopher”, Lao-zi is credited as the founder of Taoism and an elder contemporary of Confucius who once consulted with him.  He was more pessimistic than Confucius was about what can be accomplished in the world by human action.  He counseled a far more passive approach to the world and one’s fellows: one must be cautious and let things speak for themselves.  He favored a more direct relationship between the individual self and the dao.

      The Tao-Te Ching (Classic of the Way of Power) is believed to have been written between the 8^th and 3^rd centuries B.C.  The basic concept of the dao is wu-wei or “non-action” which means no unnatural action, rather than complete passivity.  It implies spontaneity, non-interference, letting things take their natural course i.e., “Do nothing and everything else is done.”  Chaos ceases, quarrels end, and self-righteous feuding disappears because the dao is allowed to flow unchallenged.

            Realize the Simple Self

Banish wisdom, discard knowledge,      And the people shall profit a hundredfold; Banish love, discard justice,      And the people shall recover the love of their kin; Banish cunning discard utility,     And the thieves and brigands shall disappear. As these three touch the externals and are inadequate;

The people have need of what they can depend upon:        Reveal thy Simple Self,       Embrace the Original Nature,       Check thy selfishness,       Curtail thy desires.

c)   Buddhism was imported from India during the Han dynasty.  Buddhist thought stresses the importance of ridding oneself of earthly desires and of seeking ultimate peace and enlightenment through detachment.  With its stress on living ethically and its de-emphasis on material concerns, Buddhism appealed to both Confucians and Taoists.

3.   Genres in Chinese Poetry has always been highly valued in Chinese culture and was considered superior to prose.  Chief among its characteristics are lucidity, brevity, subtlety, suggestiveness or understatement, and its three-fold appeal to intellect, emotion, and calligraphy.  There are five principle genres in Chinese poetry:

b)   shih was the dominant Chinese poetic form from the 2^nd through the 12^th century characterized by: i) an even number of lines; ii) the same number of words in each line, in most cases five or seven; and iii) the occurrence of rhymes at the end s of the even-numbered lines.  Shih poems often involve the use of parallelism, or couplets that are similar in structure or meaning.

c)   sao was inspired by li sao or ‘encountering sorrow’, a poem of lamentation and protest authored by China’s first known great poet, Chu Yuan (332-295 B.C.).  It was an unusually long poem consisting of two parts: i) an autobiographical account that is Confucian in overtones; and ii) a narration of an imaginary journey undertaken by the persona.  The sao enables the poets to display their creativity of describing China’s flora and fauna, both real and imaginary.  It is also filled with melancholia for unrewarded virtue

d)  fu was a poem partially expository and partly descriptive involving a single thought or sentiment usually expressed in a reflective manner.  Language ranges from the simple to the rhetorical.

e)   lu-shih or ‘regulation poetry’ was developed during the Tang dynasty but has remained popular even in the present times.  It is an octave consisting of five or seven syllabic verses with a definite rhyming scheme with all even lines rhyming together and the presence of the caesura in every line.  The first four lines of this poem is the ching (scene) while the remaining four lines describe the ch’ing (emotion).  Thus, emotion evolves from the setting or atmosphere and the two becomes fused resulting in a highly focused reflection of the persona’s loneliness but with determination to struggle.

f)    chueh-chu or truncated poetry is a shorter version of the lu-shih and was also popular during the Tang dynasty.  It contains only four lines but within its twenty or twenty-eight syllables or characters were vivid pictures of natural beauty.

g)   tzu was identified with the Sung dynasty.  It is not governed by a fixed number of verses nor a fixed number of characters per verse.  The tzu lyrics were sung to the tunes of popular melodies.

4.   Conventions of Chinese Theater.  Chinese drama may be traced to the song and dances of the chi (wizards) and the wu (witches) whom the people consulted to exercise evil spirits, to bring rain, to insure bountiful harvest, etc., an origin in worship or in some sacred ritual. 

a)    There are four principal roles: sheng, tau, ching, and chao.

·      The sheng is the prerogative of the leading actor, usually a male character, a scholar, a statesman, a warrior patriot and the like.

·      The tau plays all the women’s roles.  At least six principal characters are played by the female impersonator who has taken over the role after women were banned from the Chinese stage as they were looked down upon as courtesen.

·      The ching roles usually assigned the roles of brave warriors, bandits, crafty and evil ministers, upright judges, loyal statesmen, at times god-like and supernatural beings.  Conventionally, the ching must have broad faces and forehead suitable for the make-up patters suggestive of his behavior. 

·      The chau is the clown or jester who is not necessarily a fool and may also do serious or evil character.  He is easily recognized for the white patch around his eyes and nose, his use of colloquial language and adeptness in combining mimicry and acrobatics.

b)        Unlike Greek plays, classical Chinese plays do not follow the unities of time, place, and action.  The plot may be set in two or more places, the time element sometimes taking years to develop or end, and action containing many other sub-plots.

c)         Chinese drama conveys an ethical lesson in the guise of art in order to impress a moral truth or a Confucian tenet.  Dramas uphold virtue, condemn vice, praise fidelity, and filial piety.  Vice is represented on the stage not for its own sake but as contrast to virtue.

d)        There are two types of speeches – the dialogue, usually in prose, and the monologues.  While the dialogue carries forward the action of the day, the monologue is the means for each character to introduce him/herself at the beginning of the first scene of every scene as well as to outline the plot.

e)         Chinese plays are long – six or seven hours if performed completely.  The average length is about four acts with a prologue and an epilogue.  The Chinese play is a total theater.  There is singing, recitation of verses, acrobats, dancing, and playing of traditional musical instruments.

f)         Music is an integral part of the classical drama.  It has recitatives, arias, and musical accompaniment.  Chinese music is based on movement and rhythm that harmonized perfectly with the sentiments being conveyed by a character.

g)        The poetic dialogue, hsieh tzu (wedge), is placed at the beginning or in between acts and is an integral part of the play.

The stage is bare of props except a table and a pair of chairs may be converted to

a battlefield or a court scene, a bedroom, even a prison through vivid acting and poetry.

Property conventions are rich in symbolism table with a chair at the side, both placed at

the side of the stage, represents a hill or a high wall.

h)        Dramatic conventions that serve to identify the nature and function of each character.

Make-up identifies the characters and personalities.  Costumes help reveal types and

different colors signify ranks and status.

i)          Action reflects highly stylized movements.  Hand movements may indicate embarrassment or helplessness or anguish or anger.

5.   Major Chinese Writers.

·      Chuang Tzu  (4^th century B.C.) was the most important early interpreter  of the philosophy of Taoism.  Very little is known about his life except that he served as a minor court official.  In his stories, he appears as a quirky character who cares little for either public approval or material possessions.

·      Lieh Tzu (4^th century B.C.) was a Taoist teacher who had many philosophical differences with his forebears Lao-Tzu and Chuan Tzu.   He argued that a sequence of causes predetermines everything that happens, including one’s choice of action.

·      Lui An (172 – 122 B.C.) was not only a Taoist scholar but the grandson of the founder of the founder of the Han dynasty.  His royal title was the Prince of Haui-nan.  Together with philosophers and under his patronage, he produced a collection of essays on metaphysics, cosmology, politics, and conduct.

·      Ssu-ma Ch’ien (145 – 90 B.C.) was the greatest of China’s ‘Grand Historians’ who dedicated himself to completing the first history of China the Records of the Historian.  His work covers almost three thousand years of Chinese history in more than half a million written characters etched onto bamboo tablets.

     The T’ang Poets:

• Li Po (701 –762) was Wang Wei’s contemporary and he spent a short time in courts, but seems to have bee too much of a romantic and too give to drink to carry out responsibilities.  He was a Taoist, drawing sustenance from nature and his poetry was often other-wordly and ecstatic.  He had no great regard for his poems himself.  He is said to have mad thousands of them into paper boats which he sailed along streams.
• Tu Fu (712 –770) is the Confucian moralist, realist, and humanitarian.  He was public-spirited, and his poetry helped chronicle the history of the age: the deterioration
• Wang Wei (796? – 761?) was an 8^th century government official who spent the later years of his life in the country, reading and discussing Buddhism with scholars and monks.  He is known for the pictorial quality of his poetry and for its economy.  His word-pictures parallel Chinese brush artistry in which a few strokes are all suggestive of authority, the disasters of war, and official extravagance.

·         Po Chu-I (772 – 846) was born two years after Tu Fu died, at a time when China was still in turmoil from foreign invasion and internal strife.  He wrote many poems speaking bitterly against the social and economic problems that were plaguing China.

·         Li Ch’ing-chao (A.D. 1084 – 1151) is regarded as China’s greatest woman poet and was also one of the most liberated women of her day.  She was brought up in court society and was trained in the arts and classical literature quite an unusual upbringing for a woman of the Sung dynasty.  Many of her poems composed in the tz’u form celebrate her happy marriage or express her loneliness when her husband was away. 

·         Chou-Shu-jen (1881 – 1936) has been called the ‘father of the modern Chinese short story because of his introduction of Western techniques.  He is also known as Lu Hsun whose stories deal with themes of social concern, the problems of the poor, women, and intellectuals.

B.     JAPAN

1.   Historical Background.  Early Japan borrowed much from Chinese culture but evolved its own character over time.  Early Japan’s political structure was based on clan, or family.  Each clan developed a hierarchy of classes with aristocrats, warriors, and priests at the top and peasants and workers at the bottom.  During the 4^th century A.D. the Yamato grew to be most powerful and imposed the Chinese imperial system on Japan creating an emperor, an imperial bureaucracy, and a grand capital city.

a)   The Heian Age was the period of peace and prosperity, of aesthetic refinement and artificial manners.  The emperor began to diminish in power but continued to be a respected figure.  Since the Japanese court had few official responsibilities, they were able to turn their attention to art, music, and literature.

The Pillow Book by Sei Shōnagon, represents a unique form of the diary genre.  It contains vivid sketches of people and place, shy anecdotes and witticisms, snatches of poetry, and 164 lists on court life during the Heian period.  Primarily intended to be a private journal, it was discovered and eventually printed.  Shōnagon served as a lady-in-waiting to the Empress Sadako in the late 10^th century.

From Hateful Things

One is in a hurry to leave, but one’s visitor keeps chattering away.  If it is someone of no importance, one can get rid of him by saying, “You must tell me all about it next time”; but, should it be the sort of visitor whose presence commands one’s best behavior, the situation is hateful indeed.

b)   The Feudal Era was dominated by the samurai class which included the militaristic lords, the daimyo and the band of warriors, the samurai who adhered to a strict code of conduct the emphasized bravery, loyalty, and honor.  In 1192 Yorimoto became the shogun or chief general one of a series of shoguns who ruled Japan for over 500 years. 

c)   The Tokugawa Shogonate in the late 1500s crushed the warring feudal lords and controlled all of Japan from a new capital at Edo, now Tokyo.  By 1630 and for two centuries, Japan was a closed society: all foreigners were expelled, Japanese Christians were persecuted, and foreign travel was forbidden under penalty of death.  The shogonate was ended in 1868 when Japan began to trade with the Western powers.  Under a more powerful emperor, Japan rapidly acquired the latest technological knowledge, introduced universal education, and created an impressive industrial economy.

2.   Religious Traditions.  Two major faiths were essential elements in the cultural foundations of Japanese society.

a)   Shintoism or ‘ the way of the gods,’ is the ancient religion that reveres in dwelling divine spirits called kami, found in natural places and objects.  For this reason natural scenes, such as waterfall, a gnarled tree, or a full moon, inspired reverence in the Japanese people.

The Shinto legends have been accepted as historical fact although in postwar times they were once again regarded as myths.  These legends from the Records of Ancient Matters, or Kokiji, A.D. 712, and the Chronicles of Japan, or Nihongi, A.D. 720 form the earliest writings of ancient Japan.  Both collections have been considerably influenced by Chinese thought.

b)   Zen Buddhism emphasized the importance of meditation, concentration, and self-discipline as the way to enlightenment.  Zen rejects the notion that salvation is attained outside of this life and this world.  Instead, Zen disciples believe that one can attain personal tranquility and insights into the true meaning of life through rigorous phusical and mental discipline. 

3.   Socio-political concepts.  Japan has integrated Confucian ethics and Buddhist morality which India implanted in China.  The concepts of giri and on explain why the average Japanese is patriotic, sometimes ultra-nationalistic, law-abiding.  Even seppuku or ritual disembowelment exemplify to what extent these two socio-political concepts could be morally followed.

a)   Giri connotes duty, justice, honor, face, decency, respectability, courtesy, charity, humanity, love, gratitude, claim.  Its sanctions are found in mores, customs, folkways.  For example, in feudal Japan ‘loss of face’ is saved by suicide or vendetta, if not renouncing the world in the monastery.

b)   On suggests a sense of obligation or indebtedness which propels a Japanese to act, as it binds the person perpetually to other individuals to the group, to parents, teachers, superiors, and the emperor.

4.   Poetry is one of the oldest and most popular means of expression and communication in the Japanese culture.  It was an integral part of daily life in ancient Japanese society, serving as a means through which anyone could chronicle experiences and express emotions

a)   The Manyoshu or ‘Book of Ten Thousand Leaves is an anthology by poets from a wide range of social classes, including the peasantry, the clergy, and the ruling class.

b)   There are different poems according to set forms or structures:

·   choka  are poems that consist of alternate lines of five and seven syllables with an additional seven-syllable line at the end.  There is no limit to the number of lines which end with envoys, or pithy summations.  These envoys consist of 5-7-5-7-7 syllables that elaborate on or summarize the theme or central idea of the main poem.

·   tanka is the most prevalent verse form in traditional Japanese literature.  It consists of five lines of 5-7-5-7-7 syllables including at least one caesura, or pause.  Used as a means of communication in ancient Japanese society, the tanka often tell a brief story or express a single thought or insight and the common subjects are love and nature.

Every Single Thing                (by Priest Saigyo)        Every single thing Changes and is changing Always in this world. Yet with the same light The moon goes on shining.

How Helpless My Heart! (by Ono Komachi) How helpless my heart! Were the stream to tempt, My body, like a reed Severed at the roots, Would drift along, I think.

·   renga is a chain of interlocking tanka.  Each tanka within a renga was divided into verses of 17 and 14 syllables composed by different poets as it was fashionable for groups of poets to work together during the age of Japanese feudalism.

·   hokku was the opening verse of a renga which developed into a distinct literary form known as the haiku.  The haiku consist of 3 lines of 5-7-5 syllable characterized by precision, simplicity, and suggestiveness.  Almost all haiku include a kigo or seasonal words such as snow or cherry blossoms that indicates the time of year being described.

Buson Blossoms on the pear; and a woman in the moonlight reads a letter there…	Sokan If to the moon one puts a handle – what a splendid fan!
Onitsura                                                Even stones in streams                                                of mountain water compose                                   songs to wild cherries.

5.   Prose appeared in the early part of the 8^th century focusing on Japanese history.  During the Heian Age, the members of the Imperial court, having few administrative or political duties, kept lengthy diaries and experimented with writing fiction.

·      The Tale of Genji by Lady Murasaki Shikibu, a work of tremendous length and complexity, is considered to be the world’s first true novel.  It traces the life of a gifted and charming prince.  Lady Murasaki was an extraordinary woman far more educated than most upper-class men of her generation.  She was appointed to serve in the royal court of the emperor.

·      The Tale of Haike written by an anonymous author during the 13^th century was the most famous early Japanese novel.  It presents a striking portrait of war-torn Japan during the early stages of the age of feudalism.

·      Essays in Idleness by Yoshida Kenko was written during the age of feudalism.  It is a loosely organized collection of insights, reflections, and observations, written during the 14^th century.  Kenko was born into a high-ranking Shinto family and became a Buddhist priest.

Excerpt from Essays in Idleness:

In all things it is Beginning and End that are interesting.  The love of men and women – is it only when they meet face to face?  To feel sorrow at an unaccomplished meeting, to grieve over empty vows, to spend the long night sleepless and alone, to yearn for distant skies, in a neglected house to think fondly of the past – this is what love is.

·      In the Grove by Ryunusuke Akutagawa is the author’s most famous story made into the film Rashomon.  The story asks these questions: What is the truth?  Who tells the truth?  How is the truth falsified?  Six narrators tell their own testimonies about the death of a husband and the violation of his wife in the woods.  The narrators include a woodcutter, a monk, an old woman, the mother-in-law of the slain man, the wife, and finally, the dead man whose story is spoken through the mouth of a shamaness.  Akutagawa’s ability to blend a feudal setting with deep psychological insights gives this story an ageless quality.

An Excerpt: “The Story Of The Murdered Man As Told Through A Medium”

After violating my wife, the robber, sitting there, began to speak comforting words to her.  Of course I couldn’t speak.  My whole body was tied fast to the root of a cedar.  But meanwhile I winked at her many times, as much as to say, “Don’t believe the robber.”  I wanted to convey some such meaning to her. But my wife, sitting dejectedly on the bamboo leaves, was looking hard at her lap.  To all appearances, she was listening to his words.  I was agonized by jealousy.”

6.      Drama.

a)      Nō plays emerged during the 14^th century as the earliest form of Japanese drama.  The plays are performed on an almost bare stage by a small but elaborately costumed cast of actors wearing masks.  The actors are accompanied by a chorus and the plays are written either in verse or in highly poetic prose.  The dramas reflect many Shinto and Buddhist beliefs, along with a number of dominant Japanese artistic preferences.  The Nō performers’ subtle expressions of inner strength, along with the beauty of the costumes, the eloquence of the dancing, the mesmerizing quality of the singing, and the mystical, almost supernatural, atmosphere of the performances, has enabled the Nō theater to retain its popularity.

Atsumori by Seami Motokiyo is drawn from an episode of The Tale of the Heike, a medieval Japanese epic based on historical fact that tells the story of the rise and fall of the Taira family, otherwise known as the Heike.  The play takes place by the sea of Ichi no tani.  A priest named Rensei, who was once a warrior with the Genji clan, has decided to return to the scene of the battle to pray for a sixteen-year-old named Atsumori, whom he killed on the beach during the battle.  Rensei had taken pity on Atsumori and had almost refrained from killing him.  He realized though that if he did not kill the boy, his fellow warriors would.  He explained to Atsumori that he must kill him, and promised to pray for his soul.  On his return, he meets two peasants who are returning home from their fields and Rensai makes an astonishing discovery about one of them.

An Excerpt from Atsumori

Chorus:  [ATSUMORI rises from the ground and advances toward the Priest with uplifted sword.]

            “There is my enemy,” he cries, and would strike,

But the other is grown gentle

And calling on Buddha’s name

Has obtained salvation for his foe;

So that they shall be reborn together

On one lotus seat.

“No, Rensai is not my enemy.

Pray for me again, oh pray for me again.”

b)      Kabuki involves lively, melodramatic acting and is staged using elaborate and colorful costumes and sets.  It is performed with the accompaniment of an orchestra and generally focus on the lives of common people rather than aristocrats.

c)      Jorori (now called  Bunraku) is staged using puppets and was a great influence on the development of the Kabuki.

d)     Kyogen is a farce traditionally performed between the Nō tragedies.

7.      Novels and Short Stories.

·      Snow Country by Kawabata tells of love denied by a Tokyo dilettante, Shimamura, to Komako, a geisha who feels ‘used’ much as she wants to think and feel that she is drawn sincerely, purely to a man of the world.  She has befriended Yoko to whom Shimamura is equally and passionately drawn because of her virginity, her naivete, as he is to Komako who loses it, after her affair with him earlier.  In the end, Yoko dies in the cocoon-warehouse in a fire notwithstanding Komako’s attempt to rescue her.  Komako embraces the virgin Yoko in her arms while Shimamura senses the Milky Way ‘flowing down inside him with a roar.’  Kawabata makes use of contrasting thematic symbols in the title: death and purification amidst physical decay and corruption.

·      The House of Sleeping Beauties by Kawabata tells of the escapades of a dirty old man, Eguchi, to a resort near the sea where young women are given drugs before they are made to sleep sky-clad.  Decorum rules it that these sleeping beauties should not be touched, lest the customers be driven away by the management.  The book lets the reader bare the deeper recesses of the septuagenarian’s mind.  Ironically, this old man who senses beauty and youth is incapable of expressing, much less having it.  Thus, the themes of old age and loneliness and coping become inseparable.

·      The Makioka Sisters by Tanizaki is the story of four sisters whose chief concern is finding a suitable husband for the third sister, Yukiko, a woman of traditional beliefs who has rejected several suitors.  Until Yukiko marries, Taeko, the youngest, most independent, and most Westernized of the sisters, must remain unmarried.  More important than the plot, the novel tells of middle-class daily life in prewar Osaka.  It also delves into such topics as the intrusion of modernity and its effect on the psyche of the contemporary Japanese, the place of kinship in the daily life of the people, and the passage of the old order and the coming of the new.

·      The Sea of Fertility by Mishima is the four-part epic including Spring Snow, Runaway Horses, The Temple of Dawn, and The Decay of the Angel.  The novels are set in Japan from about 1912 to the 1960s.  Each of them depicts a different reincarnation of the same being: as a young aristocrat in 1912, as a political fanatic in the 1930s, as a Thai princess before the end of WWII, and as an evil young orphan in the 1960s.  Taken together the novels are a clear indication of Mishima’s increasing obsession with blood, death, and suicide, his interest in self-destructive personalities, and his rejection of the sterility of modern life.

·      The Setting Sun by Ozamu is a tragic, vividly painted story of life in postwar Japan.  The narrator is Kazuko, a young woman born to gentility but now impoverished.  Though she wears Western clothes, her outlook is Japanese; her life is static, and she recognizes that she is spiritually empty.  In the course of the novel, she survives the deaths of her aristocratic mother and her sensitive, drug-addicted brother Naoji, an intellectual ravage by his own and society’s spiritual failures.  She also spends a sad, sordid night with the writer Uehara, and she conceives a child in the hope that it will be the first step in a moral revolution

·      In the Grove by Akutagawa is the author’s most famous story made into the film Rashomon.  The story asks these questions: What is the truth?  Who tells the truth?  How is the truth falsified?  Six narrators tell their own testimonies about the death of a husband and the violation of his wife in the woods.  The narrators include a woodcutter, a monk, an old woman, the mother-in-law of the slain man, the wife, and finally, the dead man whose story is spoken through the mouth of a shamaness.  Akutagawa’s ability to blend a feudal setting with deep psychological insights gives this story an ageless quality.

·      The Wild Geese by Oagi is a melodramatic novel set in Tokyo at the threshold of the 20^th century.  The novel explores the blighted life of Otama, daughter of a cake vendor.  Because of extreme poverty, she becomes the mistress of a policeman, and later on of a money-lender, Shazo.  In her desire to rise from the pitfall of shame and deprivation, she tries to befriend Okada, a medical student who she greets every day by the window as he passes by on his way to the campus.  She is disillusioned however, as Okada, in the end, prepares for further medical studies in Germany.  Ogai’s novel follows the traditio of the watakushi-shosetsu or the confessional I- novel where the storyteller is the main character.

·      The Buddha Tree by Fumio alludes to the awakening of Buddha under the bo tree when he gets enlightened after fasting 40 days and nights.  Similarly, the hero of the novel, Soshu, attains self-illumination after freeing himself from the way of all flesh.  The author was inspired by personal tragedies that befell their family and this novel makes him transcend his personal agony into artistic achievement.

8.      Major Writers.

·   Seami Motokiyo had acting in his blood for his father Kanami, a priest, was one of the finest performers of his day.  At age 20 not long after his father’s death, he took over his father’s acting school and began to write plays.  Some say he became a Zen priest late in life; others say he had two sons, both of them actors.  According to legend, he died alone at the age of 81 in a Buddhist temple near Kyoto.

·   The Haiku Poets

-       Matsuo Bashō (1644 – 1694) is regarded as the greatest haiku poet.  He was born into a samurai family and began writing poetry at an early age.  After becoming a Zen Buddhist, he moved into an isolated hut on the outskirts of Edo (Tokyo) where he lived the life of a hermit, supporting himself by teaching and judging poetry.  Bashō means ‘banana plant,’ a gift given him to which he became deeply attached.  Over time his hut became known as the Bashō  Hut until he assumed the name.

-       Yosa Buson (1716 – 1783) is regarded as the second-greatest haiku poet.  He lived in Kyoto throughout most of his life and was one of the finest painters of his time.  Buson presents a romantic view of the Japanese landscape, vividly capturing the wonder and mystery of nature.

-       Kobayashi Issa (1763 –1827) is ranked with Bashō and Buson although his talent was not widely recognized until after his death.  Issa’s poems capture the essence of daily life in Japan and convey his compassion for the less fortunate.

• Yasunari Kawabata (1899 – 1972) won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1968.  The sense of loneliness and preoccupation with death that permeates much of his mature writing possibly derives from the loneliness of his childhood having been orphaned early. Three of his best novels are: Snow Country, Thousand Cranes,  and Sound of the Mountains.  He committed suicide shortly after the suicide of his friend Mishima.
• Junichiro Tanizaki (1886 –1965) is a major novelist whose writing is characterized by eroticism and ironic wit.  His earliest stories were like those of Edgar Allan Poe’s but he later turned toward the exploration of more traditional Japanese ideals of beauty.  Among his works are Some Prefer Nettles, The Makioka Sisters, Diary of a Mad Old Man.   
• Yukio Mishima (1925 – 1970) is the pen name of Kimitake Hiraoka, a prolific writer who is regarded by many writers as the most important Japanese novelist of the 20^th century.  His highly acclaimed first novel, Confessions of a Mask is partly autobiographical work that describes with stylistic brilliance a homosexual who must mask his sexual orientation.  Many of his novels have main characters who, for physical or psychological reasons, are unable to find happiness.  Deeply attracted to the austere patriotism and marital spirit of Japan’s past, Mishima was contemptuous of the materialistic Westernized society of Japan in the postwar era.  Mishima committed seppuku (ritual disembowelment).
• Dazai Ozamu (1909 – 1948) just like Mishima, and Kawabata committed suicide, not unusual, but so traditional among Japanese intellectuals.  It is believed that Ozamu had psychological conflicts arising from his inability to draw a red line between his Japaneseness clashing with his embracing the Catholic faith, if not the demands of creativity.  The Setting Sun is one of his works.
• Ryunosuke Akutagawa (1892 – 1927) is a prolific writer of stories, plays, and poetry, noted for his stylistic virtuosity.  He is one of the most widely translated of all Japanese writers, and a number of his stories have been made into films.  Many of his short stories are Japanese tales retold in the light of modern psychology in a highly individual style of feverish intensity that is well-suited to their macabre themes.  Among his works are Rashomon, and Kappa. He also committed suicide. 

·         Oe Kenzaburo (1935 -) a novelist whose rough prose style, at time nearly violating the natural rhythms of the Japanese language, epitomizes the rebellion of the post-WWII generation which he writes.  He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1994.  Among his works are: Lavish are the Dead, The Catch, Our Generation, A Personal Matter, The Silent Cry,  and Awake, New Man!.

C.    AFRICA

1.      The Rise of Africa’s Great Civilization.   Between 751 and 664 B.C. the kingdom of Kush at the southern end of the Nile River gained strength and prominence succeeding the New Kingdom of Egyptian civilization.  Smaller civilizations around the edges of the Sahara also existed among them the Fasa of the northern Sudan, whose deeds are recalled by the Soninka oral epic, The Daust.

• Aksum (3^rd century A.D.), a rich kingdom in eastern Africa arose in what is now Ethiopia.  It served as the center of a trade route and developed its own writing system.  The Kingdom of Old Ghana (A.D. 300) the first of great civilizations in western Africa succeeded by the empires of Old Mali and Songhai.  The legendary city of Timbuktu was a center of trade and culture in both the Mali and Songhai empires.  New cultures sprang up throughout the South: Luba and Malawi empires in central Africa, the two Congo kingdoms, the Swahili culture of eastern Africa, the kingdom of Old Zimbabwe, and the Zulu nation near the southern tip of the cotinent.

·         Africa’s Golden Age (between A.D. 300 and A.D. 1600) marked the time when sculpture, music, metalwork, textiles, and oral literature flourished.

·         Foreign influences came in the 4^th century.  The Roman Empire had proclaimed Christianity as its state religion and taken control of the entire northern coast of Africa including Egypt.    Around 700 A.D. Islam, the religion of Mohammed, was introduced into Africa as well as the Arabic writing system.  Old Mali, Somali and other eastern African nations were largely Muslim.  Christianity and colonialism came to sub-Saharan Africa towards the close of Africa’s Golden Age.  European powers created colonized countries in the late 1800s.  Social and political chaos reigned as traditional African nations were either split apart by European colonizers or joined with incompatible neighbors.

·         Mid-1900s marked the independence and rebirth of traditional cultures written in African languages.

2.      Literary Forms.

a)      Orature is the tradition of African oral literature which includes praise poems, love poems, tales, ritual dramas, and moral instructions in the form of proverbs and fables.   It also includes epics and poems and narratives.

b)      Griots, the keepers of oral literature in West Africa, may be a professional storyteller, singer, or entertainer and were skilled at creating and transmitting the many forms of African oral literature.  Bards, storytellers, town criers, and oral historians also preserved and continued the oral tradition.

c)      Features of African oral literature:

·     repetition and parallel structure – served foremost as memory aids for griots and other storytellers.  Repetition also creates rhythm, builds suspense, and adds emphasis to parts of the poem or narrative.  Repeated lines or refrains often mark places where an audience can join in the oral performance.

·     repeat-and-vary technique – in which lines or phrases are repeated with slight variations, sometimes by changing a single word.

·     tonal assonance – the tones in which syllables are spoken determine the meanings of words like many Asian languages.

·     call-and-response format  - includes spirited audience participation in which the leader calls out a line or phrase and the audience responds with an answering line or phrase becoming performers themselves.  

d)     Lyric Poems do not tell a story but instead, like songs, create a vivid, expressive testament to a speaker’s thoughts or emotional state.  Love lyrics were an influence of the New Kingdom and were written to be sung with the accompaniment of a harp or a set of reed pipes.

The Sorrow of Kodio by Baule Tribe

We were three women      Three men      And myself, Kodio Ango.      We were on our way to work in the city.      And I lost my wife Nanama on the way.      I alone have lost my wife      To me alone, such misery has happened,      To me alone, Kodio, the most handsome of the three men,      Such misery has happened.      In vain I call for my wife,      She died on the way like a chicken running.      How shall I tell her mother?      How shall I tell it to her, I Kodio,      When it is so hard to hold back my own pain.

e)      Hymns of Praise Songs were offered to the sun god Aten.  The Great Hymn to Aten is the longest of several New Kingdom hymns.  This hymn was found on the wall of a tomb built for a royal scribe named Ay and his wife.  In was intended to assure their safety in the afterlife.

f)       African Proverbs are much more than quaint old sayings.  Instead, they represent a poetic form that uses few words but achieves great depth of meaning and they function as the essence of people’s values and knowledge. 

·      They are used to settle legal disputes, resolve ethical problems, and teach children the philosophy of their people.

·      Often contain puns, rhymes, and clever allusions, they also provide entertainment.

·      Mark power and eloquence of speakers in the community who know and use them.  Their ability to apply the proverbs to appropriate situations demonstrates an understanding of social and political realities.

Kenya.  Gutire muthenya ukiaga ta ungi. (No day dawns like another.)

South Africa.  Akundlovu yasindwa umboko wayo. 

                       (No elephant ever found its trunk too heavy.)

Kikuyu.  Mbaara ti ucuru.  (War is not porridge.)

g)      Dilemma or Enigma Tale is an important kind of African moral tale intended for listeners to discuss and debate.  It is an open-ended story that concludes with a question the asks the audience to choose form among several alternatives.  By encouraging animated discussion, a dilemma tale invites its audience to think about right and wrong behavior and how to best live within society.

h)      Ashanti Tale comes from Ashanti, whose traditional homeland is the dense and hilly forest beyond the city of Kumasi in south-central Ghana which was colonized by the British in the mid-19^th century.  But the Ashanti, protected in their geographical stronghold, were able to maintain their ancient culture.  The tale exemplifies common occupations of the Ashanti such as farming, fishing, and weaving.  It combines such realistic elements with fantasy elements like talking objects and animals.

i)        Folk Tales have been handed down in the oral tradition from ancient times.  The stories represent a wide and colorful variety that embodies the African people’s most cherished religious and social beliefs.  The tales are used to entertain, to teach, and to explain.  Nature and the close bond that Africans share with the natural world are emphasized.  The mystical importance of the forest, sometimes called the bush, is often featured.

j)        Origin stories include creation stories and stories explaining the origin of death.

k)      Trickster Tale is an enormously popular type.  The best known African trickster figure is Anansi the Spider, both the hero and villain from the West African origin to the Caribbean and other parts of the Western Hemisphere as a result of the slave trade.

l)        Moral Stories attempt to teach a lesson.

m)    Humorous Stories is primarily intended to amuse.

“Talk”

                        The chief listened to them patiently, but he couldn’t refrain from scowling.

            “Now, this is really a wild story,” he said at last.  “You’d better all go back to your work before I punish you for disturbing the peace.”

            So the men went away, and the chief shook his head and mumbled to himself, “Nonsense like that upsets the community”

            “Fantastic, isn’t it?” his stool said, “Imagine, a talking yam!”

n)      Epics of vanished heroes – partly human, partly superhuman, who embody the highest values of a society – carry with them a culture’s history, values, and traditions.  The African literary traditions boasts of several oral epics.

·      The Dausi from the Soninke

·      Monzon and the King of Kore from the Bambara of western Africa

·      The epic of Askia the Great, medieval ruler of the Songhai empire in western Africa

·      The epic of the Zulu Empire of southern Africa

·      Sundiata from the Mandingo peoples of West Africa is the best-preserved and the best-known African epic which is a blend of fact and legend.  Sundiata Keita, the story’s hero really existed as a powerful leader who in 1235 defeated the Sosso nation of western Africa and reestablished the Mandingo Empire of Old Mali.  Supernatural powers are attributed to Sundiata and he is involved in a mighty conflict between good and evil.  It was first recorded in Guinea in the 1950s and was told by the griot Djeli Mamoudou Kouyate. 

 

3.   Negritude, which means literally ‘blackness,’ is the literary movement of the 1930s – 1950s that began among French-speaking African and Caribbean writers living in Paris as a protest against French colonial rule and the policy of assimilation.  Its leading figure was Leopold Sedar Senghor (1^st president of the Republic of Senegal in 1960) , who along with Aime Cesaire from Martinique and Leo Damas from French Guina, began to examine Western values critically and to reassess African culture.  The movement largely faded in the early 1960s when its political and cultural objectives had been achieved in most African countries.  The basic ideas behind Negritude include:

·      Africans must look to their own cultural heritage to determine the values and traditions that are most useful in the modern world.

·      Committed writers should use African subject matter and poetic traditions and should excite a desire for political freedom.

·      Negritude itself encompasses the whole of African cultural, economic, social, and political values.

·      The value and dignity of African traditions and peoples must be asserted.

4.   African Poetry is more eloquent in its expression of Negritude since it is the poets who first articulated their thoughts and feelings about the inhumanity suffered by their own people.

·      Paris in the Snow swings between assimilation of French, European culture or negritude, intensified by the poet’s catholic piety.

·      Totem by Leopold Senghor shows the eternal linkage of the living with the dead.

·      Letters to Martha by Dennis Brutus is the poet’s most famous collection that speaks of the humiliation, the despondency, the indignity of prison life.

·      Train Journey by Dennis Brutus reflects the poet’s social commitment, as he reacts to the poverty around him amidst material progress especially and acutely felt by the innocent victims, the children

·      Telephone Conversation by Wole Soyinka is the poet’s most anthologized poem that reflects Negritude.  It is a satirical poem between a Black man seeking the landlady’s permission to accommodate him in her lodging house.  The poetic dialogue reveals the landlady’s deep-rooted prejudice against the colored people as the caller plays up on it.

Excerpt from Telephone Conversation

The price seemed reasonable, location

indifferent.  The landlady swore she lived

 off premises.  Nothing remained

but self-confession.  “Madam,” I warned,

⁵“I hate a wasted journey – I am African.”

 Silence.  Silenced transmission of

pressurized good-breeding.  Voice, when it came,

 lipstick coated, long gold-rolled

cigarette-holder pipped.  Caught I was foully.

¹⁰“HOW DARK?” … I had not misheard … “ARE YOU LIGHT

OR VERY DARK?”  Button B.  Button A.  Stench

of rancid breath of public hide-and-speak.

·      Africa by David Diop is a poem that achieves its impact by a series of climactic sentences and rhetorical questions

Africa

Africa, my Africa Africa of proud warriors on ancestral savannahs Africa that my grandmother sings On the bank of her distant river I have never known you But my face is full of your blood Your beautiful black blood which waters        the wide fields The blood of your sweat The sweat of your work The work of your slavery The slavery of your children    Africa tell me Africa Is this really you this back which is bent And breaks under the load of insult

This back trembling with red weals Which says yes to the whip on the hot        roads of noon Then gravely a voice replies to me Impetuous son that tree robust and       young That tree over there Splendidly alone amidst white and faded       flowers That is Africa your Africa which grows Grows patiently obstinately And whose fruit little by little learn The bitter taste of liberty.

                                                                       

  

·      Song of Lawino by Okot P’Bitek is a sequence of poems about the clash between African and Western values and is regarded as the first important poem in “English to emerge from Eastern Africa.  Lawino’s song is a plea for the Ugandans to look back to traditional village life and recapture African values.

5.   Novels.

·      The Houseboy by Ferdinand Oyono points out the disillusionment of Toundi, a boy who leaves his parents maltreatment to enlist his services as an acolyte to a foreign missionary.  After the priest’s death, he becomes a helper of a white plantation owner, discovers the liaison of his master’s wife, and gets murdered later in the woods as they catch up with him.  Toundi symbolizes the disenchantment, the coming of age, and utter despondency of the Camerooninans over the corruption and immortality of the whites.  The novel is developed in the form of a recit, the French style of a diary-like confessional work.

·      Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe depict a vivid picture of Africa before the colonization by the British.  The title is an epigraph from Yeats’ The Second Coming: ‘things fall apart/ the center cannot hold/ mere anarchy is loosed upon the world.’  The novel laments over the disintegration of Nigerian society, represented in the story by Okwonko, once a respected chieftain who looses his leadership and falls from grace after the coming of the whites.  Cultural values are woven around the plot to mark its authenticity: polygamy since the character is Muslim; tribal law is held supreme by the gwugwu, respected elders in the community; a man’s social status is determined by the people’s esteem and by possession of fields of yams and physical prowess; community life is shown in drinking sprees, funeral wakes, and sports festivals.

·      No Longer at Ease by Chinua Achebe is a sequel to Things Fall Apart and the title of which is alluded to Eliot’s The Journey of the Magi: ‘We returned to our places, these kingdoms,/ But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation.’  The returning hero fails to cope with disgrace and social pressure.  Okwonko’s son has to live up to the expectations of the Umuofians, after winning a scholarship in London, where he reads literature, not law as is expected of him, he has to dress up, he must have a car, he has to maintain his social standing, and he should not marry an Ozu, an outcast.  In the end, the tragic hero succumgs to temptation, he, too receives bribes, and therefore is ‘no longer at ease.’

·      The Poor Christ of Bombay by Mongo Beti begins en medias res and exposes the inhumanity of colonialism.  The novel tells of Fr. Drumont’s disillusionment after the discovery of the degradation of the native women, betrothed, but forced to work like slaves in the sixa.  The government steps into the picture as syphilis spreads out in the priest’s compound.  It turns out that the native whose weakness is wine, women, and song has been made overseer of the sixa when the Belgian priest goes out to attend to his other mission work.  Developed through recite or diary entries, the novel is a satire on the failure of religion to integrate to national psychology without first understanding the natives’ culture.

·      The River Between by James Ngugi show the clash of traditional values and contemporary ethics and mores.  The Honia River is symbolically taken as a metaphor of tribal and Christian unity – the Makuyu tribe conducts Christian rites while the Kamenos hold circumcision rituals.  Muthoni, the heroine, although a new-born Christian, desires the pagan ritual.  She dies in the end but Waiyaki, the teacher, does not teach vengeance against Joshua, the leader of the Kamenos, but unity with them.  Ngugi poses co-existence of religion with people’s lifestyle at the same time stressing the influence of education to enlighten people about their socio-political responsibilities.

·      Heirs to the Past by Driss Chraili is an allegorical, parable-like novel.  After 16 years of absence, the anti-hero Driss Ferdi returns to Morocco for his father’s funeral.  The Signeur leaves his legacy via a tape recorder in which he tells the family members his last will and testament.  Each chapter in the novel reveals his relationship with them, and at the same time lays bare the psychology of these people.  His older brother Jaad who was ‘born once and had ided several times’ because of his childishness and irresponsibility.  His idiotic brother, Nagib, has become a total burden to the family.  His mother feels betrayed, after doin her roles as wife and mother for 30 years, as she yearns for her freedom.  Driss flies back to Europe completely alienated fro his people, religion, and civilization.

·      A Few Days and Few Nights by Mbella Sonne Dipoko deals withracial prejudice.  In the novel originally written in French, a Cameroonian scholar studying in France is torn between the love of a Swedish girl and a Parisienne show father owns a business establishment in Africa.  The father rules out the possibility of marriage.  Therese, their daughter commits suicide and Doumbe, the Camerronian, thinks only of the future of Bibi, the Swedish who is expecting his child.  Doumbe’s remark that the African is like a turtle which carries it home wherever it goes implies the racial pride and love for the native grounds.

·      The Interpreters by Wole Soyinka is about a group of young intellectuals who function as artists in their talks with one another as they try to place themselves in the context of the world about them.

6.   Major Writers.

·      Leopold Sedar Senghor (1906) is a poet and statesman who was cofounder of the Negritude movement in African art and literature. He went to Paris on a scholarship and later taught in the French school system.  During these years Senghor discovered the unmistakable imprint of African art on modern painting, sculpture, and music, which confirmed his belief in Africa’s contribution to modern culture.  Drafted during WWII, he was captured and spent two years in Nazi concentration camp where he wrote some of his finest poems.  He became president of Senegal in 1960.  His works include: Songs of Shadow, Black Offerings, Major Elegies, Poetical Work.  He became Negritude’s foremost spokesman and edited an anthology of French-language poetry by black African that became a seminal text of the Negritude movement.

·      Okot P’Bitek (1930 – 1982) was born in Uganda during the British domination and was embodied in a contrast of cultures.  He attended English-speaking schools but never lost touch with traditional African values and used his wide array of talents to pursue his interests in both African and Western cultures.  Among his works are: Song of Lawino, Song of Ocol, African Religions and Western Scholarship, Religion of the Central Luo, Horn of My Love.

·      Wole Soyinka (1934) is a Nigerian playwright, poet, novelis, and critic who was the first black African to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1986.  He wrote of modern West Africa in a satirical style and with a tragic sense of the obstacles to human progress.  He taught literature and drama and headed theater groups at various Nigerian universities.  Among his works are: plays – A Dance of the Forests, The Lion and the Jewel, The Trials of Brother Jero; novels – The Interpreters, Season of Anomy; poems – Idanre and Other Poems, Poems from Prison, A Shuttle in the Crypt, Mandela’s Earth and Other Poems. 

 

·      Chinua Achebe (1930) is a prominent Igbo novelist acclaimed for his unsentimental depictions of the social and psychological disorientation accompanying the imposition of Western customs and values upon traditional African society.  His particular concern was with emergent Africa at its moments of crisis.  His works include, Things Fall Apart, Arrow of God, No Longer at Ease, A Man of the People, Anthills of Savanah.

·      Nadine Gordimer (1923) is a South African novelist and short story writer whose major theme was exile and alienation.  She received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1991.  Gordimer was writing by age 9 and published her first story in a magazine at 15.  Her works exhibit a clear, controlled, and unsentimental technique that became her hallmark.  She examines how public events affect individual lives, how the dreams of on’s youth are corrupted, and how innocence is lost.  Among her works are: The Soft Voice of the Serpent, Burger’s Daughter, July’s People, A Sport of Nature, My Son’s Story.

·      Bessie Head (1937 –1986) described the contradictions and shortcomings of pre- and postcolonial African society in morally didactic novels and stories.  She suffered rejection and alienation from an early age being born of an illegal union between her white mother and black father.  Among her works are:  When Rain Clouds Gather, A Question of Power, The Collector of Treasures, Serowe.

·      Barbara Kimenye (1940) wrote twelve books on children’s stories known as the Moses series which are now a standard reading fare for African school children.  She also worked for many years for His Highness the Kabaka of Uganda, in the Ministry of Education and later served as Kabaka’s librarian.  She was a journalist of The Uganda Nation and later a columnist for a Nairobi newspaper.  Among her works are: KalasandaRevisited, The Smugglers, The Money Game.

·      Ousmane Sembene (1923) is a writer and filmmaker from Senegal.  His works reveal an intense commitment to political and social change.  In the words of one of his characters: “You will never be a good writer so long as you don’t defend a cause.”  Sembene tells his stories from out of Africa’s past and relates their relevance and meaning for contemporary society.  His works include, O My Country, My Beautiful People, God’s Bits of Wood, The Storm.

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