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Seeds in the Heart: Japanese Literature from Earliest Times to the Late Sixteenth Century

AUTHOR: Donald Keene
ISBN: 0231114419
SHORT DESCRIPTION: Donald Keene employs his prodigious wealth of knowledge, critical insight, and narrative aplomb to guide readers through the first nine hundred years of Japanese literature -a period that not only defined the unique properties of Japanese prosody...

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	Japanese Literature

Editorial Review

Seeds in the Heart: Japanese Literature from Earliest Times to the Late Sixteenth Century
- Book Review, by Donald Keene

From Book News, Inc.
With this volume, Keene completes his sweeping four-volume survey of Japanese literature from the earliest times to 1970, here examining a thousand years of literary history that both defined the unique properties of Japanese prosody and prose, and produced some of its greatest works: the robust and grand poetry of the Man'yoshu; the subtle and sparse perfection of the 31-syllable waka poem; The Tale of the Genji, still regarded as one of the greatest novels in world literature; the poetic texts of the 15th-century No dramas; and the vast canvases of the medieval war tales, such as The Tale of the Heike. For both expert and lay readers, with or without knowledge of Japanese history. Annotation copyright Book News, Inc. Portland, Or.

Review
"During the nine hundred years covered here... literature was primarily an aristocratic pursuit.... The elegance and urbanity of Keene's style suit this material." -- The New Yorker

The New Yorker
During the nine hundred years covered here . . . literature was primarily an aristocratic pursuit. . . . The elegance and urbanity of Keenes style suit this material

Review
During the nine hundred years covered here . . . literature was primarily an aristocratic pursuit. . . . The elegance and urbanity of Keene´s style suit this material.

Book Description
Donald Keene employs his prodigious wealth of knowledge, critical insight, and narrative aplomb to guide readers through the first nine hundred years of Japanese literature -- a period that not only defined the unique properties of Japanese prosody and prose but also produced some of its greatest works. Covering courtly fiction, Buddhist writings, war tales, diaries, poems, and more, Seeds in the Heart explores a vast and variegated treasury of writings. Detailed textual examinations of classic texts -- from the Kojiki to The Tale of Genji, from The Pillow Book of Sei Shônagon to Zeami's Nô plays -- allow students, lay readers, and scholars a new understanding and enjoyment of this great literature.

About the Author
Donald Keene is Shincho Professor of Japanese Literature and University Professor Emeritus at Columbia University. He is the author of a multivolume history of Japanese literature, of which Seeds in the Heart is the first part, and at least thirty other books, including many translations from Japanese literature. He has received numerous honors in both the United States and Japan, and is a member of the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters.

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Book Review

Seeds in the Heart: Japanese Literature from Earliest Times to the Late Sixteenth Century
- Book Reviews, by Donald Keene

Seeds in the Heart: Japanese Literature from Earliest Times to the Late Sixteenth Century

FROM THE PUBLISHER

With Seeds in the Heart, Donald Keene has completed his masterful, four-volume survey of Japanese literature from the earliest times to 1970 - a major achievement of one of the world's most illustrious careers in literary criticism. Keene, the preeminent presenter of Japanese culture to the West, has long understood the key that literature holds to revealing a culture's sensibilities. This volume, like the first three, "will be hailed as definitive" (said Edwin O. Reischauer) as Keene employs his prodigious wealth of knowledge, depth of critical insight, and gift for narrative to guide us through one thousand years of a literary history that both defined the unique properties of Japanese prosody and prose, and produced some of its greatest works: the robust and grand poetry of the Manyoshu; the subtle and sparse perfection of the thirty-one syllable waka poem; The Tale of the Genji, still regarded as one of the greatest novels in world literature; the richly distilled poetic texts of the fifteenth-century No dramas; and the vast canvases of the medieval war tales, such as The Tale of the Heike. Detailed textual examinations of these and many other works at once present new scholarship to the expert and allow the lay reader to understand and enjoy Keene's narrative without prior knowledge of Japanese history. Above all, the author shows us the relevance this great body of literature has for all centuries; as the tenth-century poet Tsurayuki said, "Japanese poetry has its seeds in the human heart."

FROM THE CRITICS

New Yorker

During the nine hundred years covered here . . . literature was primarily an aristocratic pursuit. . . . The elegance and urbanity of Keene´s style suit this material.

Booknews

This volume covers 900 years of Japanese literature, beginning with early Heian works through the late 16th century, exploring works such as the , of , and . In addition, Keene (Japanese literature, Columbia U.) evaluates diaries, Waka poetry, war tales, Buddhist writings, and No plays, creating a diverse collection of literary history and criticism. His discussion of the pieces is thorough, although there are not many excerpts from the selections themselves. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

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