Japanese Lit

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heterodyne
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Japanese Lit

Post by heterodyne »

Is there any way that the people of this here fine forum would reccomend for studying Japanese lit and poetry? Our team is so, so weak on that, and I can't get quizbowldb to work. Are there any good anthologies to read?
Alston [Montgomery] Boyd
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Red Panda Cub
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Re: Japanese Lit

Post by Red Panda Cub »

Find out who the important authors are and read lots of (summaries of) books by them. I find it more rewarding - both in terms of points and fun - to read the actual books. I can heartily recommend The Master of Go by Kawabata as a starting point.
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AKKOLADE
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Re: Japanese Lit

Post by AKKOLADE »

Japanese lit shouldn't be coming up that often at "regular difficulty tournaments" for high school - once or maybe twice for the day. If you insist on studying it, the easiest way is just to see who's come up in recent tournaments of the same difficulty and then study them. But this is worrying about an ice cream sundae's cherry when the actual ice cream is three weeks past date, melted and actually butter.
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David Riley
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Re: Japanese Lit

Post by David Riley »

The Japanese Literature article in Wikipedia would also be a good starting point, paying particular attention to Sei Shonagon, Lady Murasaki, Oe, and Kawabata. I'm sure others here will have suggestions as well.
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UlyssesInvictus
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Re: Japanese Lit

Post by UlyssesInvictus »

As for poetry, the only "poet" that I can think of at all is Basho, but the whole haiku thing is very commonly asked, so that's worth studying heavily.

For prose (in addition to those mentioned already), Mishima deserves mention. Akutagawa and Murakami are occasional HS answers as well. I suppose Nats level stuff would be Tanizaki, Soseki, Shusaku Endo, and Chikamatsu.
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