Izumi Kyoka (1873-1939) had a predilection for the richly figurative and supernatural that seemed not only irrelevant to the concerns of modern life but an affront to the social and psychological realism that became the common currency of both literature and theater in modern Japan. Believing in beauty and truth and in language's mystical evocation of experience, Kyoka sought for a way to reinvest the world with a kind of magic that he felt was being lost. Although better known as a novelist, Kyoka also wrote a large number of plays, and his work has continued to be adapted by others for the stage and screen.Spirits of Another Sort, the first work in any language to focus on Izumi Kyoka's career as a playwright, argues that the dramas reveal, in an often unmitigated fashion, the writer's romanticism, his belief in the occult, his aversion to contemporary society, and his idiosyncratic but powerful ethical and aesthetic ideals. In an attempt to create a dramaturgy of the sacred from the dregs of the past, Kyoka's plays resemble the work of Maeterlinck or even Artaud.Spirits of Another Sort is a literary-critical study that traces the development of Kyoka's work from the melodramatic formulas of his early ideological fiction to the increasingly grotesque and fantastic permutations of the original pattern in his plays of the Taisho era. It is important reading for those whose interests lie in Japanese literature, theater, and film and in cross-cultural theater and film. 

Spirits of Another Sort: The Plays of Izumi Kyoka (Volume 29) (Michigan Monograph Series in Japanese Studies)

Poulton, M.

Poulton, Cody

Humor & Entertainment

University of Michigan, Center for Japanese Studies

<p><div><i>Shotetsu monogatari</i> was written by a disciple of Shotetsu (1381-1459), whom many scholars regard as the last great poet of the courtly tradition. The work provides information about the practice of poetry during the 14th and 15th centuries, including anecdotes about famous poets, advice on how to treat certain standard topics, and lessons in etiquette when attending or participating in poetry contests and gatherings. But unlike the many other works of that time that stop at that level, Shotetsu's contributions to medieval aesthetics gained prominence, showing him as a worthy heir--both as poet and thinker--to the legacy of the great poet-critic Fujiwara no Teika (1162-1241).</div> <div>The last project of the late Robert H. Brower, <i>Conversations with Shôtetsu</i> provides a translation of the complete <i>Nihon koten bungaku taikei</i> text, as edited by Hisamatsu Sen'ichi. Steven D. Carter has annotated the translation and provided an introduction that details Shôtetsu's life, his place in the poetic circles of his day, and the relationship of his work to the larger poetic tradition of medieval Japan.</div> <div><i>Conversations with Shotetsu</i> is important reading for anyone interested in medieval Japanese literature and culture, in poetry, and in aesthetics. It provides a unique look at the literary world of late medieval Japan.</div></p>

Conversations with Shotetsu (Shotetsu Monogatari) (Michigan Monograph Series in Japanese Studies, Number 7)

Literature & Fiction

Shōtetsu

History & Criticism

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