Clouds Thick Whereabouts Unknown

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Clouds Thick, Whereabouts Unknown

Author : Anonim
Publisher : Columbia University Press
Page : 345 pages
File Size : 41,5 Mb
Release : 2010-05-19
Category : Poetry
ISBN : 9780231520980

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Clouds Thick, Whereabouts Unknown by Anonim Pdf

Compiled by a leading scholar of Chinese poetry, Clouds Thick, Whereabouts Unknown is the first collection of Chan (Zen) poems to be situated within Chan thought and practice. Combined with exquisite paintings by Charles Chu, the anthology compellingly captures the ideological and literary nuances of works that were composed, paradoxically, to "say more by saying less," and creates an unparalleled experience for readers of all backgrounds. Clouds Thick, Whereabouts Unknown includes verse composed by monk-poets of the eighth to the seventeenth centuries. Their style ranges from the direct vernacular to the evocative and imagistic. Egan's faithful and elegant translations of poems by Han Shan, Guanxiu, and Qiji, among many others, do justice to their perceptions and insights, and his detailed notes and analyses unravel centuries of Chan metaphor and allusion. In these gems, monk-poets join mainstream ideas on poetic function to religious reflection and proselytizing, carving out a distinct genre that came to influence generations of poets, critics, and writers. The simplicity of Chan poetry belies its complex ideology and sophisticated language, elements Egan vividly explicates in his religious and literary critique. His interpretive strategies enable a richer understanding of Mahayana Buddhism, Chan philosophy, and the principles of Chinese poetry.

Clouds Thick, Whereabouts Unknown

Author : Anonim
Publisher : Columbia University Press
Page : 346 pages
File Size : 55,6 Mb
Release : 2010
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 9780231150392

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Clouds Thick, Whereabouts Unknown by Anonim Pdf

Compiled by a leading scholar of Chinese poetry, Clouds Thick, Whereabouts Unknown is the first collection of Chan (Zen) poems to be situated within Chan thought and practice. Combined with exquisite paintings by Charles Chu, the anthology compellingly captures the ideological and literary nuances of works that were composed, paradoxically, to "say more by saying less," and creates an unparalleled experience for readers of all backgrounds. Clouds Thick, Whereabouts Unknown includes verse composed by monk-poets of the eighth to the seventeenth centuries. Their style ranges from the direct vernacular to the evocative and imagistic. Egan's faithful and elegant translations of poems by Han Shan, Guanxiu, and Qiji, among many others, do justice to their perceptions and insights, and his detailed notes and analyses unravel centuries of Chan metaphor and allusion. In these gems, monk-poets join mainstream ideas on poetic function to religious reflection and proselytizing, carving out a distinct genre that came to influence generations of poets, critics, and writers. The simplicity of Chan poetry belies its complex ideology and sophisticated language, elements Egan vividly explicates in his religious and literary critique. His interpretive strategies enable a richer understanding of Mahayana Buddhism, Chan philosophy, and the principles of Chinese poetry.

Zen Echoes

Author : Zishou Miaozong
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
Page : 172 pages
File Size : 41,6 Mb
Release : 2017-05-09
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9781614291879

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Zen Echoes by Zishou Miaozong Pdf

"Zen echoes is a collection of classic koans from Zen's Chinese history that were first collected and commented on by Miaozong, a twelfth-century nun so adept that her teacher, the legendary Dahui Zonggao, used to tell other students--male and female--that perhaps if they practiced hard enough, they might become as realized as her. Nearly five hundred years later, the seventeenth-century nuns Baochi and Zukui added their own commentaries to the collection. The three voices--distinct yet harmonious--remind us that enlightenment is at once universal and individual" --Page 4 of cover.

The Transnational Beat Generation

Author : N. Grace
Publisher : Springer
Page : 282 pages
File Size : 44,9 Mb
Release : 2012-03-15
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 9781137014498

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The Transnational Beat Generation by N. Grace Pdf

This collection maps the Beat Generation movement, exploring American Beat writers alongside parallel movements in other countries that shared a critique of global capitalism. Ranging from the immediate post-World War II period and continuing into the 1990s, the essays illustrate Beat participation in the global circulation of a poetics of dissent.

Teaching the Global Middle Ages

Author : Geraldine Heng
Publisher : Modern Language Association
Page : 263 pages
File Size : 52,9 Mb
Release : 2022-10-28
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN : 9781603295192

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Teaching the Global Middle Ages by Geraldine Heng Pdf

While globalization is a modern phenomenon, premodern people were also interconnected in early forms of globalism, sharing merchandise, technology, languages, and stories over long distances. Looking across civilizations, this volume takes a broad view of the Middle Ages in order to foster new habits of thinking and develop a multilayered, critical sense of the past. The essays in this volume reach across disciplinary lines to bring insights from music, theater, religion, ecology, museums, and the history of disease into the literature classroom. The contributors provide guidance on texts such as the Thousand and One Nights, Sunjata, Benjamin of Tudela's Book of Travels, and the Malay Annals and on topics such as hotels, maps, and camels. They propose syllabus recommendations, present numerous digital resources, and offer engaging class activities and discussion questions. Ultimately, they provide tools that will help students evaluate popular representations of the Middle Ages and engage with the dynamics of past, present, and future world relationships.

Haiku Before Haiku

Author : Steven D. Carter
Publisher : Columbia University Press
Page : 177 pages
File Size : 52,8 Mb
Release : 2011-02-05
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 9780231156486

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Haiku Before Haiku by Steven D. Carter Pdf

While the rise of the charmingly simple, brilliantly evocative haiku is often associated with the seventeenth-century Japanese poet Matsuo Basho, the form had already flourished for three hundred years before Basho even began to write. These early poems, known as hokku, are identical to haiku in syllable count and structure but function differently as a genre. Whereas each haiku is its own constellation of image and meaning, hokku opens a a series of linked, collaborative stanzas in a sequence called renga. Under the mastery of Basho, hokku first gained its modern independence. His talents evolved the style into the haiku beloved by so many poets today& mdash;Richard Wright, Jack Kerouac, and Billy Collins being notable devotees. This anthology reproduces 300 Japanese hokku poems composed between the thirteenth and early eighteenth centuries, from the work of the courtier Nijo Yoshimoto to the genre's first "professional" master, Sogi, and his subsequent disciples. It also features twenty masterpieces by Basho himself. Steven Carter, a renowned scholar of Japanese poetry and prominent translator, includes an introduction covering the history of haiku and the form's aesthetics and classifies these poems according to style and context& mdash;distinguishing early renga from Haikai renga and renga from the Edo period, for example. His rich commentary and analysis illuminates each work, and he adds their romanized versions and notes on composition and setting, as well as brief descriptions of the poets and the times in which they wrote.

From Chinese Chan to Japanese Zen

Author : Steven Heine
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 289 pages
File Size : 48,8 Mb
Release : 2018
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9780190637491

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From Chinese Chan to Japanese Zen by Steven Heine Pdf

From Chinese Chan to Japanese Zen investigates the remarkable century that lasted from 1225 to 1325, during which the transformation of the Chinese Chan school of Buddhism into the Japanese Zen sect was successfully completed. Steven Heine reveals how this school of Buddhism, which started half a millennium earlier as a mystical utopian cult for reclusive monks, gained a broad following among influential lay followers in both China and Japan.

The Columbia Anthology of Chinese Folk and Popular Literature

Author : Victor H. Mair,Mark Bender
Publisher : Columbia University Press
Page : 661 pages
File Size : 47,7 Mb
Release : 2011-05-03
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 9780231526739

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The Columbia Anthology of Chinese Folk and Popular Literature by Victor H. Mair,Mark Bender Pdf

In The Columbia Anthology of Chinese Folk and Popular Literature, two of the world's leading sinologists, Victor H. Mair and Mark Bender, capture the breadth of China's oral-based literary heritage. This collection presents works drawn from the large body of oral literature of many of China's recognized ethnic groups including the Han, Yi, Miao, Tu, Daur, Tibetan, Uyghur, and Kazak and the selections include a variety of genres. Chapters cover folk stories, songs, rituals, and drama, as well as epic traditions and professional storytelling, and feature both familiar and little-known texts, from the story of the woman warrior Hua Mulan to the love stories of urban storytellers in the Yangtze delta, the shaman rituals of the Manchu, and a trickster tale of the Daur people from the forests of the northeast. The Cannibal Grandmother of the Yi and other strange creatures and characters unsettle accepted notions of Chinese fable and literary form. Readers are introduced to antiphonal songs of the Zhuang and the Dong, who live among the fantastic limestone hills of the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region; work and matchmaking songs of the mountain-dwelling She of Fujian province; and saltwater songs of the Cantonese-speaking boat people of Hong Kong. The editors feature the Mongolian epic poems of Geser Khan and Jangar; the sad tale of the Qeo family girl, from the Tu people of Gansu and Qinghai provinces; and local plays known as "rice sprouts" from Hebei province. These fascinating juxtapositions invite comparisons among cultures, styles, and genres, and expert translations preserve the individual character of each thrillingly imaginative work.

Zen and Material Culture

Author : Pamela D. Winfield,Steven Heine
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 360 pages
File Size : 45,6 Mb
Release : 2017-06-07
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9780190693732

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Zen and Material Culture by Pamela D. Winfield,Steven Heine Pdf

The stereotype of Zen Buddhism as a minimalistic or even immaterial meditative tradition persists in the Euro-American cultural imagination. This volume calls attention to the vast range of "stuff" in Zen by highlighting the material abundance and iconic range of the Soto, Rinzai, and Obaku sects in Japan. Chapters on beads, bowls, buildings, staffs, statues, rags, robes, and even retail commodities in America all shed new light on overlooked items of lay and monastic practice in both historical and contemporary perspectives. Nine authors from the cognate fields of art history, religious studies, and the history of material culture analyze these "Zen matters" in all four senses of the phrase: the interdisciplinary study of Zen's matters (objects and images) ultimately speaks to larger Zen matters (ideas, ideals) that matter (in the predicate sense) to both male and female practitioners, often because such matters (economic considerations) help to ensure the cultural and institutional survival of the tradition. Zen and Material Culture expands the study of Japanese Zen Buddhism to include material inquiry as an important complement to mainly textual, institutional, or ritual studies. It also broadens the traditional purview of art history by incorporating the visual culture of everyday Zen objects and images into the canon of recognized masterpieces by elite artists. Finally, the volume extends Japanese material and visual cultural studies into new research territory by taking up Zen's rich trove of materia liturgica and supplementing the largely secular approach to studying Japanese popular culture. This groundbreaking volume will be a resource for anyone whose interests lie at the intersection of Zen art, architecture, history, ritual, tea ceremony, women's studies, and the fine line between Buddhist materiality and materialism.

Wisdom Within Words

Author : Steven Heine
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 281 pages
File Size : 46,5 Mb
Release : 2022
Category : History
ISBN : 9780197553527

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Wisdom Within Words by Steven Heine Pdf

"This book is the first complete bilingual edition and annotated translation of the poetry collection entitled Mystery Within Words (Kuchūgen), which features 150 Chinese-style verses (kanshi) written by Dōgen Zenji (1200-1253), founder of the Sōtō Zen sect in early medieval Japan. These poems are very important for highlighting several key aspects of Dōgen's manner of thinking and process of writing. Dōgen composed Sinitic poetry throughout all stages of his career at both Kōshōji temple in Kyoto and Eiheiji temple in the remote mountains. for various purposes. These aims included reflections on meditation during periods of reclusion, commenting on cryptic kōan cases, eulogizing deceased patriarchs, celebrating festivals and seasonal occasions, welcoming new administrative appointees at the temple, remarking on the life of the Buddha and other aspects of attaining enlightenment, and offering capping phrases that help highlight prose teachings or instructions. Although Dōgen's poetry has often been overlooked by the sectarian tradition, even though this collection was edited by the most eminent Edo period scholar-monk, Menzan, this style should of writing now be regarded in relation to the valuable roles that poetry played in the development of East Asian Buddhist contemplative life"--

Monsters, Animals, and Other Worlds

Author : Keller Kimbrough,Haruo Shirane
Publisher : Columbia University Press
Page : 328 pages
File Size : 40,8 Mb
Release : 2018-02-20
Category : Literary Collections
ISBN : 9780231545501

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Monsters, Animals, and Other Worlds by Keller Kimbrough,Haruo Shirane Pdf

Monsters, Animals, and Other Worlds is a collection of twenty-five medieval Japanese tales of border crossings and the fantastic, featuring demons, samurai, talking animals, amorous plants, and journeys to supernatural realms. The most comprehensive compendium of short medieval Japanese fiction in English, Monsters, Animals, and Other Worlds illuminates a rich world of literary, Buddhist, and visual culture largely unknown today outside of Japan. These stories, called otogizōshi, or Muromachi tales (named after the Muromachi period, 1337 to 1573), date from approximately the fourteenth through seventeenth centuries. Often richly illustrated in a painted-scroll format, these vernacular stories frequently express Buddhist beliefs and provide the practical knowledge and moral education required to navigate medieval Japanese society. The otogizōshi represent a major turning point in the history of Japanese literature. They bring together many earlier types of narrative—court tales, military accounts, anecdotes, and stories about the divine origins of shrines and temples––joining book genres with parlor arts and the culture of itinerant storytellers and performers. The works presented here are organized into three thematically overlapping sections titled, “Monsters, Warriors, and Journeys to Other Worlds,” “Buddhist Tales,” and “Interspecies Affairs.” Each translation is prefaced by a short introduction, and the book features images from the original scroll paintings, illustrated manuscripts, and printed books.

Record of Miraculous Events in Japan

Author : Anonim
Publisher : Columbia University Press
Page : 225 pages
File Size : 49,7 Mb
Release : 2013-07-23
Category : Literary Collections
ISBN : 9780231535168

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Record of Miraculous Events in Japan by Anonim Pdf

The Nihon ryoiki, a collection of setsuwa, or "anecdotal" tales, compiled by a monk in late-eighth- or early-ninth-century Japan, records the spread of Buddhist ideas in Japan and the ways in which Buddhism's principles were adapted to the conditions of Japanese society. Beginning in the time before Buddhism was introduced to Japan, the text captures the effects of the nation's initial contact with Buddhism—brought by emissaries from the king of the Korean state of Paekche—and the subsequent adoption and dissemination of these new teachings in Japanese towns and cities. The Nihon ryoiki provides a crucial window into the ways in which Japanese Buddhists began to make sense of the teachings and texts of their religion, incorporate religious observances and materials from Korea and China, and articulate a popularized form of Buddhist practice and belief that could extend beyond monastic centers. The setsuwa genre would become one of the major textual projects of classical and medieval Buddhism, with nearly two dozen collections appearing over the next five centuries. The Nihon ryoiki serves as a vital reference for these later works, with the tales it contains finding their way into folkloric traditions and becoming a major source for Japanese authors well into the modern period.

Plum Shadows and Plank Bridge

Author : Mao Xiang,Yu Huai
Publisher : Columbia University Press
Page : 190 pages
File Size : 40,5 Mb
Release : 2020-01-21
Category : Literary Collections
ISBN : 9780231546867

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Plum Shadows and Plank Bridge by Mao Xiang,Yu Huai Pdf

Amid the turmoil of the Ming-Qing dynastic transition in seventeenth-century China, some intellectuals sought refuge in romantic memories from what they perceived as cataclysmic events. This volume presents two memoirs by famous men of letters, Reminiscences of the Plum Shadows Convent by Mao Xiang (1611–93) and Miscellaneous Records of Plank Bridge by Yu Huai (1616–96), that recall times spent with courtesans. They evoke the courtesan world in the final decades of the Ming dynasty and the aftermath of its collapse. Mao Xiang chronicles his relationship with the courtesan Dong Bai, who became his concubine two years before the Ming dynasty fell. His mournful remembrance of their life together, written shortly after her early death, includes harrowing descriptions of their wartime sufferings as well as idyllic depictions of romantic bliss. Yu Huai offers a group portrait of Nanjing courtesans, mixing personal memories with reported anecdotes. Writing fifty years after the fall of the Ming, he expresses a deep nostalgia for courtesan culture that bears the toll of individual loss and national calamity. Together, they shed light on the sensibilities of late Ming intellectuals: their recollections of refined pleasures and ruminations on the vagaries of memory coexist with political engagement and a belief in bearing witness. With an introduction and extensive annotations, Plum Shadows and Plank Bridge is a valuable source for the literature of remembrance, the representation of women, and the social role of intellectuals during a tumultuous period in Chinese history.

Chan Rhetoric of Uncertainty in the Blue Cliff Record

Author : Steven Heine
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 240 pages
File Size : 47,5 Mb
Release : 2016-04-28
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9780199397785

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Chan Rhetoric of Uncertainty in the Blue Cliff Record by Steven Heine Pdf

This book provides an in-depth textual and literary analysis of the Blue Cliff Record (Chinese Biyanlu, Japanese Hekiganroku), a seminal Chan/Zen Buddhist collection of commentaries on one hundred gongan/koan cases, considered in light of historical, cultural, and intellectual trends from the Song dynasty (960-1279). Compiled by the disciples of Yuanwu Keqin in 1128, the Blue Cliff Record is considered a classic of East Asian literature for its creative integration of prose and verse as well as hybrid or capping-phrase interpretations of perplexing cases.The collection employs a variety of rhetorical devices culled from both classic and vernacular literary sources and styles and is particularly notable for its use of indirection, allusiveness, irony, paradox, and wordplay, all characteristic of the approach of literary or lettered Chan. However, as instrumental and influential as it is considered to be, the Blue Cliff Record has long been shrouded in controversy. The collection is probably best known today for having been destroyed in the 1130s at the dawn of the Southern Song dynasty (1127-1279) by Dahui Zonggao, Yuanwu's main disciple and harshest critic. It was out of circulation for nearly two centuries before being revived and partially reconstructed in the early 1300s. In this book, Steven Heine examines the diverse ideological connections and disconnections behind subsequent commentaries and translations of the Blue Cliff Record, thereby shedding light on the broad range of gongan literature produced in the eleventh to thirteenth centuries and beyond.

The Kokinshū

Author : Anonim
Publisher : Columbia University Press
Page : 387 pages
File Size : 41,6 Mb
Release : 2023-05-23
Category : Poetry
ISBN : 9780231557054

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The Kokinshū by Anonim Pdf

Compiled in the early tenth century, the Kokinshū is an anthology of some eleven hundred poems that aimed to elevate the prestige of vernacular Japanese poetry at the imperial court. From shortly after its completion to the end of the nineteenth century, it was celebrated as the cornerstone of the Japanese vernacular poetic tradition. The composition of classical poetry, other later poetic forms such as linked verse and haikai, and vernacular Japanese literary writing in its entirety (including classic works such as Murasaki Shikibu’s Tale of Genji and Sei Shōnagon’s Pillow Book) all draw from the Kokinshū. This book offers an inviting and immersive selection of roughly one-third of the anthology in English translation. Torquil Duthie focuses on rendering the poetic language of the Kokinshū as a whole, in such a way that readers can understand and experience how its poems work together to create a literary world. He emphasizes that classical Japanese poems do not stand alone as self-contained artifacts but take part in an ongoing intertextual conversation. Duthie provides translations and interpretations of the two prefaces to the Kokinshū, which deeply influenced Japanese literary aesthetics. The book also includes critical essays on various aspects of the anthology and its history. This translation helps specialist and nonspecialist readers alike appreciate the beauty and richness of the Kokinshū, as well as its significance for the Japanese literary tradition.