Ca’ Foscari Japanese Studies

Collana | Ca’ Foscari Japanese Studies
Miscellanea | Rethinking Nature in Japan
Capitolo | Japan and the Culture of the Four Seasons

Japan and the Culture of the Four Seasons

Nature, Literature and the Arts

Abstract

This paper examines the major functions of the representations of nature in traditional Japanese culture with an emphasis on the following: 1) the codification of nature and the seasons in a wide range of Japanese cultural phenomena, beginning with classical poetry (waka) and scroll paintings (emaki), from at least the tenth century onward; 2) the cause, manner, and function of that codification, particularly the social and religious functions; 3) a major historical change in the representation of nature in the late medieval period (fourteenth to sixteenth centuries) to include more farm-village based views of nature and the seasons; and 4) the dynamic of intertwining courtly and popular representations of nature in the early modern period (seventeenth to nineteenth centuries).


Open access | Peer reviewed

Presentato: 07 Ottobre 2016 | Accettato: 27 Marzo 2017 | Pubblicato 15 Dicembre 2017 | Lingua: en

Keywords NatureSocial and talismanic functionsJapanese cultureFour seasons


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