Ca’ Foscari Japanese Studies

Images from the Past: Intertextuality in Japanese Premodern Literature

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open access | peer reviewed

Abstract
This volume brings together scholars from different backgrounds and career stages to rethink the role and scope of intertextuality in the context of premodern Japan. From antiquity to the rise of modernity, originality through repetition persists as a staple in the literary, performative, and artistic traditions of this country. Nonetheless, rather than slavish recycling of pre-existing tropes, the redeployment of familiar motifs by patterns of borrowing, allusion, and imitation would become a means to explore untrodden creative pathways and craft a shared sense of cultural belonging. Stemming from an international symposium hosted at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice in 2021 with the generous support of The Japan Foundation, the papers in this collection offer a thoughtful contribution to this debate by engaging texts from different historical periods, media, and genres – be it poetic, narrative, theatrical, visual, or religious. Although intertextuality may not be a new topic, the essays that follow attest to the enduring appeal of a concept whose explanatory power proves most effective when combined with other methods of inquiry, such as discourse analysis, social sciences, gender studies, and material culture. Thus, while opening new windows onto Japan’s literary worlds, these cross-disciplinary approaches provide further insights into the uses (and abuses) of the past in a non-Western non-modern society.

Keywords Waka • Sharebon • Nō theatre • Gender dynamics • Japanese poetry • San’yūtei Enchō • Kana literature • Nihon ryōiki • Fujiwara no Teika (Sadaie) • Outer writings • Chinese novels • Mythologies • Edo literature • Re-interpretation • Zen • Buddhism • Text • Sarayashiki • Genji monogatari • Yomihon • Morishima Chūryō • Book indexes • Court Diary • Kabuki • Layers of narration in intertextuality • Premodern Japanese literature • Female enlightenment • Temporality • Ki no Tsurayuki, Kagerō nikki • Baba Bunkō • Fantastic literature • Inner scriptures • Katsura Bunji I • Sarashina nikki • Kawara-no-in • Fujiwara no Shunzei (Toshinari) • Classical Chinese literature • Tsuruya Nanboku IV • Shinkokinshū • Utatane • Ise monogatari • Commentaries • Religion • Kokin wakashū • Sūtras • Dōgen • Metatextuality • Intertextuality • Roland Barthes • Nun Abutsu

Permalink http://doi.org/10.30687/978-88-6969-608-4 | e-ISBN 978-88-6969-608-4 | ISBN (PRINT) 978-88-6969-609-1 | Published Aug. 30, 2022 | Language en

Copyright © 2022 Carolina Negri, Pier Carlo Tommasi. This is an open-access work distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction is permitted, provided that the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. The license allows for commercial use. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.