Meanings of antiquity : myth interpretation in premodern Japan / Matthieu Felt.
| Author/creator | Felt, Matthieu author. |
| Other author | Harvard University. Asia Center. |
| Format | Book |
| Publication | Cambridge, Massachusetts ; London : Harvard University Asia Center, 2023. |
| Description | xvi, 358 pages : illustrations, maps ; 24 cm. |
| Subjects |
| Series | Harvard East Asian monographs Harvard East Asian monographs ; 464. ^A21267 |
| Contents | Writing Imperial myths -- Reading Kojiki and Nihon shoki -- The study of myth -- From dynastic book to origin story -- The crisis-response model of the historical past -- Enmeshment strategies -- Universal unification -- A Japanese origin story -- Origin episodes -- Afterlife of an origin story -- Flexible meanings of "Nihongi" in early poetic treatises -- The ubiquity of the Nihongi in poetic treatises -- In pursuit of the origins of Japan -- A new creation story -- Sun Goddess and King M ara -- Sword, mirror, and jewels -- Parallelism in commentary -- Metaphysics for Japan -- Commentary after the Sanso -- Commentary as a spiritual exercise -- Rationalizing divinity -- Yamazaki Ansai and Prince Toneri -- Suika commentary after Ansai -- Myths for a New World -- Creating a world origin story -- The Kawamura Family and Nihon shoki commentary -- The world of Motoori Norinaga -- A New world in Pictures -- The end and beginning of Japanese mythology -- Canon and commentary -- Kojiki, Nihon shoki, and the future of Japan. |
| Abstract | First dedicated study of how the oldest Japanese myths, recorded in the eighth-century texts Kojiki and Nihon shoki, changed in meaning and significance between 800 and 1800 CE. Generations of Japanese scholars and students have turned to these two texts and their creation myths to understand what it means to be Japanese and where Japan fits into the world order. As the shape and scale of the world explained by these myths changed, these myths evolved in turn. Over the course of the millennium covered in this study, Japan transforms from the center of a proud empire to a millet seed at the edge of the Buddhist world, from the last vestige of China's glorious Zhou Dynasty to an archipelago on a spherical globe. Analyzing historical records, poetry, fiction, religious writings, military epics, political treatises, and textual commentary, Matthieu Felt identifies the geographical, cosmological, epistemological, and semiotic changes that led to new adaptations of Japanese myths. Felt demonstrates that the meanings of Japanese antiquity and of Japan's most ancient texts were -- and are -- a work in progress, a collective effort of writers and thinkers over the past 1,300 years. |
| Bibliography note | Includes bibliographical references (pages [323]-338) and index. |
| ISBN | 9780674293786 |
| ISBN | 0674293789 hardcover |
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