Authors, historical personages, fictional characters

Question 1

Kan’ami (1333-1384)

Answer 1

famous no writer. father to Zeami. founded school of Noh in Zomato

Question 2

Zeami

Answer 2

famous no writer. wrote to the working class because they now have money

Question 3

Ashikaga Yoshimitsu

Answer 3

plays important role in elevating no to a high art

he was a warrior and essentially a ruler of japan at this time

Question 4

Atsumori

Answer 4

famous warrior, no play based on his death

Question 5

Kumagae

Answer 5

minimoto soldier who killed astsumori

Question 6

Ono no Komachi

O-no

Answer 6

Character in sotoba komachi
-a beautiful and heartless poetess of ancient Japan. A nobleman who once loved her was supposed to go and meet her, but he dies on the way to her house. His unresolved love and passionate jealousy come to possess Komachi later when she is old

Question 7

Toyotomi Hideyoshi (1536 -1598) 
(Hide-yo-country)

Answer 7

nobanunga’s successor. sent invading forces to Korea in 1592 and 1597
ordered suicide of tea master Sen no Tikyu in 1591

Question 8

Tokugawa Ieyasu

Answer 8

unifies Japan in 1603. imposes control to christian missionaries

Question 9

Chikamatsu Monzaemon

Answer 9

-WRITER OF LOVE SUICIDES
one of the most famous dramatists of Japan. Chikamatsu started out as a writer of Kabuki scripts, later doing puppet theater. He did historical plays and domestic plays, and love suicide plays. all of his plays explore conflicts between duty and human feelings in Tokugawa society

Question 10

Ihara Saikaku

Iharaaaaa

Answer 10

born into merchant family, Saikaku was one of the first authors In Japan to earn his living professionally from writing. He started out as a poet of linked verse, his haikaiesque quality influenced his famous “books of the floating world” composed in vernacular prose

• aimed for readership of low level samurai, merchants, and artisans
• When his wife died, he made this wonderful work of literature, shaved his head bald in mourning, and became a lay monk, writing poetry until his death

Question 11

Matsuo Bashō (1644 -1694)

Bashed the haters

Answer 11

raised the independent Haiku to a level of art. Born into merchant class.

Question 12

Tsuruya Nanboku (1755 -1829)

Answer 12

writer of Yatsuya Ghost Stories

Question 13

Yamamoto Tsunetomo (late 17th to early 18th C.)

Answer 13

coined Bushido (code of honor by samurai) in early Tokugawa period. popular among martial arts fans

Question 14

Motoori Norinaga (1730 -1801)

Answer 14

merchant class, scholar, one of the most famous Japanese intellectuals, huge influence on how we read Japanese literature today.
-under the nativist trend of Japanese learning

Question 15

Okuni of Izumo

Answer 15

ORIGINATOR OF KABUKI THEATER

Authorities thought she was a potential threat to capital (sought prostitutes and minors to help develop her plays)

Question 16

Kamo no Mabuchi (1697 -1769)

Answer 16

prominent 18th century poet that revolutionized Waka poetry with Manyoshu style.

• Romanticizes the past and says that the ancient people were simple and their actions were direct
• thought that we could do this by going back to ancient Japanese and reading and writing in this ancient language

Question 17

Andō Tameakira (1659 -1716)

Answer 17

chinese learning trend

Question 18

Ogyū Sorai (1666 -1728)

Answer 18

chinese learning trend

Question 19

Tokubei Kuheiji Ohatsu

Answer 19

character in Love and Suicides. main character. commits suicide with his lover

Question 20

Hikokurō Otane Gen’emon

Answer 20

Character in The Drum of the Waves of Horikawa

- kills wife for adultery

Question 21

Yonosuke

Answer 21

character in Saikaku’s life of a sensuous man
- His father is an expert in the ways of love and his mother is a Tayu, sort of a quasi-pleasure woman who can agree to NOT see a man in the pleasure quarters
- Disowned at 19 because of his reckless ways and started to wander
- Inherits a large fortune at 34 when his father dies
- Heads for the island of women
Yonosuke is like Genji in the sense that he is seeking women in all of the land but he’s also parody like because he is aware that he would be “food for hungry demons” because he won’t be reborn in any good realm at all.

Question 22

lemon

Answer 22

samurai in Yotsuya Ghost Stories

Question 23

Oiwa

Answer 23

lemon’s wife

Question 24

Itō Kihei

Answer 24

wealthy retainer of Lord Ko no Moranao, rival and enemy of Lord En’ya (lemon’s deceased master)

Question 25

Meiji Emperor (1852 -1912)

Answer 25

Dies of a mysterious disease and symbolizes the end of the old ways and the start of the new modern ways at the end of the Meiji Period

Question 26

General Nogi (1849 -1912)

Answer 26

kills himself several days after Meji dies as a ritual suicide. symbol of selflessness and devotion to nation

Question 27

Natsume Sōseki (1867 -1916)

Answer 27

author of Kokoro.

Question 28

Fatabeti

Answer 28

wrote Ukigumo (floating clouds) - Japan's first realistic novel
Introduced European realism

Question 29

Mori Ogai

Answer 29

wrote “The Incident at Saki”

-Dramatizes conflict between traditional ways and modern legal system

Question 30

Tanizaki Jun’ichirō (1886 -1965)

Answer 30

early life was characterized by a fascination with the West and his second phase was by his rediscovery of Japanese Culture. moved from TOkyo to western Japan, probably explained his shift in writing.
translated the Tale of Genji to modern Japanese
wrote In Praise of Shadows, an exposition and defense of traditional Japanese aesthetics

Question 31

Sakaguchi Angō (1906 -1955)

Answer 31

Tanizaki’s younger contemporary, is most famously associated with a group of post war writers known as the decadents
-wrote “A personal view of Japanese Culture” reflecting on the relationship between culture, nature and Japanese tradition

Question 32

Sensei

Answer 32

main character in Kokoro
elderly man who is in a state of solidarity and unhappiness because he is living his life in shame due to the fact that he stole Ojosan from K and inadvertently killed K.

Question 33

K

Answer 33

character in Kokoro that is killed by Sensei

Question 34

Ojōsan

Answer 34

sensei’s loverrrr

Question 35

Bruno Taut (1880 -1938)

Answer 35

wrote “Personal Views on Japanese Culture” that Ango Sakaguchi responds to later

• Discusses where the “origins” of Japanese culture comes from
• Appreciation of traditional Japanese culture: Shinto, architecture, Buddhism, kimonos, etc.

Question 36

Ezra Pound (1885 -1972)

Answer 36

poet influenced by Haiku

Question 37

Mishima Yukio (1925 -1970)

Answer 37

directed and created the Patriotism film of Bushido

Question 38

Ishimure Michiko (1927 - )

Answer 38

Author of Paradise in the Sea of Sorrow

Question 39

Yoshimoto Banana

Answer 39

author of Kitchen. Father was famous marxist scholar and so she changes her name so that her writing was not associated with that world. she drew on popular culture in her literature such as Bewiched, which has not been done before

Question 40

Murakami Haruki (1949 - )

Answer 40

At first, he was not considered a serious writer in japan for writing mass literature
- probably most exemplar for writing world literature

Question 41

Mikage

Answer 41

character in kitchen in search of a family

- Rejecting the typical girl boy relationships

Question 42

Yunike Tanabe

Answer 42

worked for the Mikage’s grandma

- after grandma died, Yuichi and Eriko let Mikage stay with them