MARC record from Internet Archive

LEADER: 04180cam 2200445 a 4500
001 9922737870001661
005 20150423145102.0
008 110906s2012 nyuaf b 001 0 eng
010 $a 2011033921
020 $a9780231152808 (cloth : alk. paper)
020 $a0231152809 (cloth : alk. paper)
020 $a9780231526524 (e-book)
020 $a0231526520 (e-book)
035 $a(CSdNU)u513955-01national_inst
035 $a(OCoLC)693812400
035 $a(OCoLC)693812400
040 $aDLC$beng$cDLC$dYDX$dBTCTA$dYDXCP$dBWX$dYAM$dERASA$dUKMGB$dZWZ$dVLR
042 $apcc
043 $aa-ja---
049 $aCNUM
050 00 $aPL721.S4$bS55 2012
082 00 $a895.6/0936$223
100 1 $aShirane, Haruo,$d1951-
245 10 $aJapan and the culture of the four seasons :$bnature, literature, and the arts /$cHaruo Shirane.
260 $aNew York :$bColumbia University Press,$cc2012.
300 $axxi, 311 p., [8] p. of plates :$bill. (some col.) ;$c24 cm.
504 $aIncludes bibliographical references (p. [249]-258) and indexes.
505 0 $aIntroduction : Secondary nature, climate, and landscape -- Poetic topics and the making of the four seasons -- Visual culture, classical poetry, and linked verse -- Interiorization, flowers, and social ritual -- Rural landscape, social difference, and conflict -- Trans-seasonality, talismans, and landscape -- Annual observances, famous places, and entertainment -- Seasonal pyramid, parody, and botany -- Conclusion : History, genre, and social community -- Appendix : Seasonal topics in key texts.
520 $a"Elegant representations of nature and the four seasons populate a wide range of Japanese genres and media--from poetry and screen painting to tea ceremonies, flower arrangements, and annual observances. In Japan and the Culture of the Four Seasons, Haruo Shirane shows how, when, and why this practice developed and explicates the richly encoded social, religious, and political meanings of this imagery. Refuting the belief that this tradition reflects Japan's agrarian origin and supposedly mild climate, Shirane traces the establishment of seasonal topics to the poetry composed by the urban nobility in the eighth century. After becoming highly codified and influencing visual arts in the tenth and eleventh centuries, the seasonal topics and their cultural associations evolved and spread to other genres, eventually settling in the popular culture of the early modern period. Contrasted with the elegant images of nature derived from court poetry was the agrarian view of nature based on rural life. The two landscapes began to intersect in the medieval period, creating a complex, layered web of competing associations. Shirane discusses a wide array of representations of nature and the four seasons in many genres, originating in both the urban and the rural perspective: textual (poetry, chronicles, tales), cultivated (gardens, flower arrangement), material (kimonos, screens), performative (noh, festivals), and gastronomic (tea ceremony, food rituals). He reveals how this kind of 'secondary nature, ' which flourished in Japan's urban architecture and gardens, fostered and idealized a sense of harmony with the natural world just at the moment it was disappearing. Illuminating the deeper meaning behind Japanese aesthetics and artifacts, Shirane clarifies the use of natural images and seasonal topics and the changes in their cultural associations and function across history, genre, and community over more than a millennium. In this fascinating book, the four seasons are revealed to be as much a cultural construction as a reflection of the physical world."--book jacket.
650 0 $aJapanese literature$xHistory and criticism.
650 0 $aSeasons in literature.
650 0 $aArts and society$zJapan.
650 0 $aPhilosophy of nature in literature.
650 0 $aSeasons in art.
650 0 $aNature in art.
651 0 $aJapan$xCivilization.
947 $fHUMANITIES$hCIRCSTACKS$p$25.37$q1
949 $aPL721.S4 S55 2012$i31786102802839
994 $a92$bCNU
999 $aPL 721 .S4 S55 2012$wLC$c1$i31786102802839$lCIRCSTACKS$mNULS$rY$sY $tBOOK$u3/13/2013