Japanese Literature

Haiku Blue can of steel

what promise do you hold?salt flesh so ripe

Pink tender morselGlistening with salty gel

What the hell is it?

Old man seeks doctor"I eat Spam daily", he says.

Angioplasty

Born in World War TwoHogs marching off to battle

Dressed in tin armor.

Japanese Literature Influenced by

Buddhism Novel

• The Tale of Genji (ca. 1004) First novel in the

world Psychological novel

of a prince Shows the

aristocracy

The Tale of Genji Murasaki Shikibu

• Female• Women excluded

from education

Nō Drama

Nō Drama Themes of history

and literature• All men• Chorus

Square wooden stage• No scenery

The Hell of Mirrors (1956) Taro Hirai

• Edogawa Rampo (Edgar Allen Poe)

Grew up in Meiji period of Japan (1868-1912)

Pre Reading

1. Consider the title, The Hell of Mirrors. Explain why some people might find looking into a mirror to be a hellish experience.

2. If a person finds looking into a mirror “hellish,” what character/personal traits might you assume?

3. One of the first sentences of the story reads, “Some might have called [Kan Tanuma] just eccentric, but I am convinced he was a lunatic” (109). Explore the difference in flavor between these two descriptors, possible including examples of each from history/popular culture.

Thought Questions as you read1. What was Rampo’s attitude toward the western

science coming into Japan?

2. While the question and response above suggests a hesitant suspicion regarding incoming western science, Rampo also demonstrated a contrasting embrace of western thought in selecting his pen name, patterned after the American master of the macabre, Edgar Allen Poe. How might we bring together these apparently conflicting messages?

3. The Meiji Period during which Rampo came of age was an extremely dynamic historical period. What general attitudes about the social upheaval and change of the era might this short story illuminate?