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

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 | Pubblicato 30 Agosto 2022 | Lingua 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.