Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Hearing Voices: Female Transmission Of Memories In Okinawan Literature In The 1970s And 1980s, Erumi Honda

Masters Theses 1911 - February 2014

In this thesis, using Ōshiro Tatsuhiro’s “Meiro” (Maze, 1991) and Nakandakari Hatsu’s “Hahatachi onnatachi” (Mothers/Women, 1984) as primary sources, I have pursued two main questions about postwar Okinawan literature: the question of how memory is transmitted, along gender lines, about a traumatic past through the generations and the question of yuta operating as transmitters, mediators, and anchors of cultural identity under the threat of foreign influence.

Both “Maze” and “Mothers/Women” address the issue of postwar Okinawan identity in the face of an influx of new ideas and practices by portraying Okinawan women’s struggle to find their identity. These two stories …

Taira No Masakado In Premodern Literature Of Japan, Genesie T. Miller

Masters Theses 1911 - February 2014

The tenth-century rebel Taira no Masakado occupies a unique place in the literature of Japan. His reception through history is most prominent in the works of Ōkagami, Shōmonki, Konjaku Monogatari, Jinnō Shōtōki, and Ehon Maskado Ichidaiki. The author’s geographic location often determined whether they sympathized with or demonized Masakado. Their occupations also influenced how they wrote about warrior culture, particularly the custom of buntori, or the taking of heads. Ehon Masakado Ichidaiki provides not only textual accounts of the rebellion, but numerous images depicting an Edo-interpretation of Heian-period warrior culture and but also images of the buntori of Masakado and …

The Go-Tsuchimikado Shinkan-Bon ~ Izumi Shikibu Shū: A Translation Of The Poems And An Analysis Of Their Sequence, Lisa Nelson

Masters Theses 1911 - February 2014

The Go-Tsuchimikado Shinkan-bon ~ Izumi Shikibu Shū is a 15th century manuscript of 150 poems by the 10th/11th century poet, Izumi Shikibu. This thesis includes translations for all 150 poems with detailed translation notes and an examination of the arrangement of the poems. It seems likely that the Shinkan-bon would have been organized in a sequence that links poems together in such a way as to create a larger poetical work for the collection as a whole. Sequences are developed through a natural progression of temporal and spatial elements in the poems, as well as connections through mood, theme, imagery, …

Expressions Of Self In A Homeless World: Zhang Dai (1597-1680?) And His Writings In The Ming-Qing Transition Period, Wenjie Liu

Masters Theses 1911 - February 2014

This essay analyzes Zhang Dai’s life and his major literary work, and argues that the expression of self is the core of his writings. By contextualizing Zhang Dai’s work in the Ming-Qing dynastic transition, this essay explains the hidden motives of Zhang Dai to justify, preserve and identify his self through literary practice, suggests that this explosion of self-expression is not only a literary response to the historical event of dynastic transition, but also a reflection of the cultural and literary trends of the 17th century. This essay also provides close readings and genre study to Zhang Dai’s poems, prose …

Poems Of The Gods Of The Heaven And The Earth, Christina E. Olinyk

Masters Theses 1911 - February 2014

This thesis analyzes the development of the Jingika book in the first seven Japanese waka anthologies (chokusenshū). Jingika are Japanese poems written on the gods of the heaven and the earth and illustrate man’s interactions with them through worship and prayer. They have characteristics in common with what modern scholars term the Shinto religion, and have been referenced as such in past scholarship. However, jingika are more accurately a product of the amalgamation of native kami cults and foreign Buddhist doctrine. Although the first independent Jingika book emerged in the seventh anthology (Senzaishū), poems which can be termed Jingika book …

Readings Of Chinese Poet Xue Tao, Lu Yu

Masters Theses 1911 - February 2014

Xue Tao was one of the Tang Dynasty's best-known female poets. Her poems are beautiful and of her own style, but there have only been a few of studies on them. This study comprises nine close readings of her thirteen poems most of which can be defined as yongwu poems, as well as a conclusion which summarizes the main characteristics in these poems. The methodology of this research is based on the theory of New Criticism and combined with sinology. Every poem is studied as an independent entity, but its allusions and images are examined in the history of Chinese …