Francis Brinkley

“ In view of all this there is a strong movement in favour of romanizing the Japanese script: that is to say, abolishing the ideograph and adopting in its place the Roman alphabet. But while every one appreciates the magnitude of the relief that would thus be afforded, there has as yet been little substantial progress. A language which has been adapted from its infancy to ideographic transmission cannot easily be fitted to phonetic uses. ”

“ The most attenuated form of all is the hokku (or haikai) which consists of only three lines, namely, 17 syllables. Necessarily the ideas embodied in such a narrow vehicle must be fragmentary. Thus it results that Japanese poems are, for the most part, impressionist; they suggest a great deal more than they actually express. Here is an example:—
There is no English metre with this peculiar cadence.
It is not to be inferred that the writers of Japan, enamoured as they were of Chinese ideographs and Chinese style, deliberately excluded everything Chinese from the realm of poetry. ”

“ The Tokugawa era (1603–1867) , which popularized the drama, had other memorable effects upon Japanese literature. Yedo, the shōgun’s capital, displaced Kiōto as the centre of literary activity. Its population of more than a million, including all sorts and conditions of men—notably wealthy Literature of the Tokugawa Era. merchants and mechanics—constituted a new audience to which authors had to address themselves; and an unparalleled development of mental activity necessitated wholesale drafts upon the Chinese vocabulary. ”

“ By the term “archaic” is to be understood the pure Japanese language of earliest times, and by the term “classical” the quasi-Chinese language which came into use for literary purposes when Japan appropriated the civilization of her great neighbours. The Kojiki is written in the archaic form: that is to say, the language is the language of old Japan, the script, although ideographic, is used phonetically only, and the case-indicators are represented by Chinese characters having the same sounds. ”

“ The Japanese are essentially a laughter-loving people. They are highly susceptible of tragic emotions, but they turn gladly to the brighter phases of life. Hence a need was soon felt of something to dispel the pessimism of the Nō, and that something took the form of comedies played in the interludes The Farce. of the Nō and called Kyōgen (mad words) . The Kyōgen needs no elaborate description: it is a pure farce, never immodest or vulgar.
The classic drama Nō and its companion the Kyōgen had two children, the Jōruri and the Kabuki. ”

“ A much more moderate tone pervades the writings of the press since restrictions were entirely removed, and although there are now 1775 journals and periodicals published throughout the empire, with a total annual circulation of some 700 million copies, intemperance of language, such as in former times would have provoked official interference, is practically unknown to-day. Moreover, the best Japanese editors have caught with remarkable aptitude the spirit of modern journalism. ”

“ In the meanwhile Osaka, always pioneer in matters of commercial enterprise, had set the example of applying the force of capital to journalistic development. Tōkyō journals were all on a literary or political basis, but the Osaka Asahi Shimbun (Osaka Rising Sun News) Commercial Journalism. was purely a business undertaking. Its proprietor, Maruyama Ryūhei, spared no expense to obtain news from all quarters of the world, and for the first time the Japanese public learned what stores of information may be found in the columns of a really enterprising journal. ”

“ Although the incursions made into Chinese philosophy and the revival of Japanese traditions during the Tokugawa Epoch contributed materially to the overthrow of feudalism and the restoration of the Throne’s administrative power, the immediate tendency of the last two events was to The Meiji Era. divert the nation’s attention wholly from the study of either Confucianism or the Record of Ancient Matters. ”

“ Every branch of learning can thus be equipped with a vocabulary. Potent, however, as such a vehicle is for expressing thought, its ideographic script constitutes a great obstacle to general acquisition, and the Japanese soon applied themselves to minimizing the difficulty by substituting a phonetic system. Analysis showed that all the required sounds could be conveyed with 47 syllables, and having selected the ideographs that corresponded to those sounds, they reduced them, first, to forms called hiragana, and, secondly, to still more simplified forms called katakana. ”

“ Their motives were chiefly confined to such themes as the law of retribution to which all human beings are subjected, the transitoriness of life and the advisability of shaking off from one’s feet the dust of this sinful world. ”

“ The so-called dark age of Japanese literature was not entirely unproductive: it gave the drama (Nō) to Japan. Tradition ascribes the origin of the drama to a religious dance of a pantomimic character, called Kagura and associated with Shintō ceremonials. The Nō, however, owed its development The Drama. mainly to Buddhist influence. ”

“ The period from the early part of the 14th century to the opening of the 17th is generally regarded as the dark age of Japanese literature. The constant wars of the time left their impress upon everything. To them is due the fact that the two principal works compiled during this epoch were, The Dark Age. ”

“ The uta-awase, in its later developments, may not unjustly be compared to the Occidental game of bouts-rimés. The poetry of the nation remained immovable in the ancient groove until very modern times, when, either by direct access to the originals or through the medium of very defective translations, the nation became acquainted with the masters of Occidental song. A small coterie of authors, headed by Professor Toyama, then attempted to revolutionize Japanese poetry by recasting it on European lines. ”

“ The life of the virtuous Japanese woman being essentially uneventful, these romancists not unnaturally sought their female types among dancing-girls and courtesans. The books were profusely illustrated with woodcuts and chromoxylographs from pictures of the ukiyoe masters, who, like the playwright, the actor and the romancer, ministered to the pleasure of the “man in the street.” Brief mention must also be made of two other kinds of books belonging to this epoch ”

“ Very different was the case when China presented her noble code of Confucian philosophy and the literature embodying it. The Japanese then recognized a lofty civilization and placed themselves as pupils at its feet, learning its script and deciphering its books. Their veneration extended to ideographs. At first they adapted them frankly to their own tongue. For example, the ideographs signifying rice or metal or water in Chinese were used to convey the same ideas in Japanese. Each ideograph thus came to have two sounds, one Japanese, the other Chinese—e.g. ”

“ There remains to be noted the incursion of amateurs into the histrionic realm. In former times the actor’s profession was absolutely exclusive in Japan. Children were trained to wear their fathers’ mantles, and the idea that a non-professional could tread the hallowed ground of the stage did not enter any imagination. ”

“ Evidently this triplication of sounds had many disadvantages, but, on the other hand, the whole Chinese language may be said to have been grafted on the Japanese. Chinese has the widest capacity of any tongue ever invented. ”

“ These were called “the five great journals.” The Nichi Nichi Shimbun had an editor of conspicuous literary ability in Fukuchi Genichirō, and the Hōchi Shimbun, its chief rival, received assistance from such men as Yano Fumio, Fujita Makichi, Inukai Ki and Minoura Katsundo. Japan had not yet any political parties, but the ferment that preceded their birth was abroad. The newspaper press being almost entirely in the hands of men whose interests suggested wider opening of the door to official preferment, nearly all editorial pens were directed against the government. ”

“ By this device Japanese conservatism was effectually conciliated, and Buddhism became in fact the creed of the nation, its positive and practical precepts entirely eclipsing the agnostic intuitionalism of Shintō. Against this hybrid faith several Japanese scholars arrayed themselves in the 17th and 18th centuries, the greatest of them being Mabuchi and Motoori. ”

“ It has often been said of the Japanese that they are slow in forming a decision but very quick to act upon it. This was illustrated in the case of journalism. In 1870 the country possessed only two quasi-journals, both under official auspices. In 1875 it possessed over 100 periodicals and daily newspapers. ”

“ And it was under the auspices of an Influence of Women in Japanese Literature. empress that the Chronicles of Japan were composed (720) . To women, indeed, from the 8th century onwards may be said to have been entrusted the guardianship of the pure Japanese language, the classical, or Chinese, form being adopted by men. ”

“ The latter were often little more than historical novels founded on facts; and the former, though nominally intended to engraft the doctrines of Buddhism and Shintō upon the philosophy of China, were really of rationalistic tendency. ”