The oldest known book by one author which we have today is by Murasaki Shikibu during the Heian Period of Japan. This book is very lengthy and runs to more than 50 chapters but has been made into a very styalized animation called the Tale of Genji [Genji no Monogatari]. Use of this film necessitates a good deal of preparation to discuss court life in Heian Japan, custom and culture as well as court intrigue. Some high school students might find it a bit tedious because of the slowness generally found in ritualized behaviors, but it is a resource for the time period. This is another prime example of how literature can be worked into a Japanese class through films which also enable studies of history and custom.
.
THE BOOK:
The Tale of Genji - Murasaki Shikibu, ISBN: 0-394-73530-7, 1976
In addition to Genji no Monogatari, other literary sources are useful in the Japanese class. I personally have used Shogun, Bridge on the River Kwai, The Harp of Burma, Japan Sinks (Nihon Chinbotsu), The Book of 5 Rings (Go rin no Sho), the proverb books listed below, the Anthologies of Japanese literature by Donald Keene and the Haiku books by Higginson. There is such a wealth of information and many other items which have proved usefull. I have a personal library of over 500 books which directly relate to Japanese culture, history, society, government and other topics
Sei Shonagon: contemporary to Murasaki Shikibu
Lady Shonagon, a writer from the Heian period and contemporary to Lady Shikibu who wrote the Tale of Genji, also provides some resource for the study or attitudes and ideas of 900 a.d, and how they compare and contrast to attitudes and ideas of the present. Some of them seem to be very familiar to us even today.
THE BOOK:
This of course, is one way to practice kanji and calligraphy with a brush, and additional work can be done as you teach plain form uses to students. Haiku is an elegant and efficient way to have students study plain forms, historical sources of haiku and eventually attempt to write a simple haiku themselves. This is often a project I do with my second year students during spring break. I give a simple explanation of haiku in the week before spring break, we discuss season words, the impressionistic style of limiting the haiku to the examination of one moment in time that the student recognizes as having some sort of mental or emotional impact, and then students are asked to look for at least one haiku moment while they are off on spring break. When they return, we examine the various experiences they bring back and begin to develop a simple sentence structure with appropriate vocabulary and season words in a 5-7-5 format. The students begin to understand that haiku is based on simplicity and doesn’t have the capability of being as “wordy” as a haiku when it is written in English. This is also a good way to introduce simplicity as being a foundation in many Japanese arts - such as the tea ceremony, sumi-e (ink painting) and the use of negative space - which is a portion of a painting where the artist allows the observer to have an opportunity to imagine parts of landscapes or interiors which are suggested by minimal strokes - or complete absence of drawing.
Book Resources:
Haiku World (an internationl poetry almanac) - Higginson, William L., ISBN: 4-7700-2090-2, Kodansha, 1996
The Haiku Handbook, Higginson, William L. ISBN 4-7700-1430-9 Kodansha 1989
Haiku World - an internationl poetry almanac, Higginson, William L. ISBN 4-7700-2090-2 Kodansha 1996
Japan in Your Pocket 09 Who’s Who in Japan ISBN: 4533007988 ; Japan Travel Bureau.
Dimensions (in inches): 0.55 x 5.83 x 4.23
This last little paperback book is one resource for Haiku written by important figures from Japanese history, such as Oda Nobunaga, Hideyoshi Toyotomi and Tokugawa Ieyasu. Samples of haiku written by these Sengoky Era warriors are provided below. Students generally find it interesting to realize that warriors considered poetry and art to be mental and physical disciplines that were an important part in personal training.
Haiku from the Sengoku Period
Oda Nobunaga
1534-1582
Nakanu nara, koroshite shimae, hototogisu
If it won't sing, kill it immediately, the nightingale
Toyotomi Hideyoshi
1536-1598
Nakanu nara, nakasete miseyo-, hototogisu
If it won't sing, try to make it sing, the nightingale
Tokugawa Ieyasu
1542-1616
Nakanu nara, naku made mato-, hototogisu
If it won't sing, let's wait until it does, the nightingale
About Taira Yoshitsune
Natsu kusa ya, tsuwamonodomo ga, yume no ato
Things like summer grass... left of the great warriors after dreams
From a Ball State University TV Broadcast
haru no mori, tori toru tori mo, neburikeri
The groves in Spring... even the birds that prey on birds are slumbering
Student Haiku from Harrison and McCutcheon High Schools
The following are Haiku developed first in concept, and then in the Japanese language by students of 2nd year Japanese classes at Harrison and McCutcheon High School in Lafayette, Indiana (1998 - 2001).
Name and English Version..................Japanese version (romanized)
________________________________________________________________________________
Jonathon B.
small birds cry....................................kotori naku
a snake that enters the nest.......................su ni hairu hebi
then silence.......................................sugu shizuka
________________________________________________________________________________
Michael B.
Pines above........................................ue ni matsu
trees deep shadows.................................ki no fukai kage
peaceful...........................................odayaka na
________________________________________________________________________________
