In this peerless study of the Kasuga Gongen genki, twenty fourteenth-century picture scrolls illuminating the sacred powers of the Kasuga Shrine on Mount Miyama, Royall Tyler collapses the distinction between high and low forms of medieval Japanese religious practice and argues for reading in the scrolls critical reflections of developments in Japanese history, society, culture, literature, and religion.

The Miracles of the Kasuga Deity (RECORDS OF CIVILIZATION)

History

Tyler, Royall

Americas

Columbia University Press

In this annotated translation and study of an early fourteenth-century Japanese devotional picture scroll set, Royall Tyler illuminates the complex relationships between medieval Japanese religion and politics, text, and art. The Kasuga Gongen genki ("The Miracles of the Kasuga Deity") mingles text and painting on silk to tell the tale of miraculous events at the Kasuga shrine in Nara, a site favored by the dominant Fujiwara clan for centuries. The work's values are aristocratic, but the text sheds light on the syncretic nature of the era's religious practices, allowing Tyler to collapse the distinction between high and low forms of medieval Japanese religion. Tyler provides a detailed examination of the scrolls, the shrine, and their history and political role. He also elucidates the scrolls' relationship to literary genre and religious practice, including the interaction between Shintoism and Buddhism. His copious annotations describe the work's historical context, as well as its religious and cultural influences. This study is essential for scholars of religion, art historians, and cultural historians alike.

The Miracles of the Kasuga Deity (Records of Civilization: Sources & Studies)

Literature & Fiction

History & Criticism

The Dawn of the Warrior Age: War Tales from Medieval Japan

The war between the Heike and Genji clans in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries is among the most compelling and significant moments in Japan's history, immortalized in The Tale of the Heike. Beyond the events recorded in this canonical text, the conflicts of the surrounding years are crucial to medieval Japanese culture and history. In 1156, power began to slip away from the court nobility in Kyoto. A shogunate was later founded in Kamakura, and in 1221, it won a decisive victory over the court. The three war tales translated in this book tell the story of these critical decades, vividly recording stages in the passage from rule by the imperial court in Kyoto to rule by the warrior government in Kamakura. "The Tale of the H&#333;gen Years" recounts a deposed emperor's disastrous attempt to regain the throne in 1156. "The Tale of the Heiji Years" narrates a bloody clash between rival courtier factions in 1159. "An Account of the J&#333;kyü Years" records Kamakura's victory over the imperial attempt to overthrow it in 1221. These works do not simply complete the story of The Tale of the Heike-they are classics of Japanese literature in their own right. Royall Tyler's lively translation masterfully conveys the nature of medieval Japanese warfare, rendering aristocratic power politics and the brutal realities of violence with equal aplomb. The Dawn of the Warrior Age is an essential book for readers interested in premodern Japanese history and literature.

The Miracles of the Kasuga Deity

Asia

Two hundred and twenty tales from medieval Japan—tales that welcome us into a fabulous faraway world populated by saints, scoundrels, ghosts, magical healers, and a vast assortment of deities and demons. Stories of miracles, visions of hell, jokes, fables, and legends, these tales reflect the Japanese civilization. They ably balance the lyrical and the dramatic, the ribald and the profound, offering a window into a long-vanished culture. With black-and-white illustrations throughout Part of the Pantheon Fairy Tale and Folklore Library

Japanese Tales (The Pantheon Fairy Tale and Folklore Library)

Contemporary

Pantheon

A predecessor of both the nativist humor of Mark Twain and the exotic adventure stories of Washington Irving, Herman Melville, and Richard Dana, Royall Tyler’s The Algerine Captive is an entertaining romp through eighteenth-century society, a satiric look at a variety of American types, from the backwoods schoolmaster to the southern gentleman, and a serious exposé of the horrors of the slave trade. “In stylistic purity and the clarity with which Tyler investigates and dramatizes American manners,” the critic Jack B. Moore has noted, The Algerine Captive “stands alone in our earliest fiction.” It is also one of the first attempts by an American novelist to depict the Islamic world, and lays bare a culture clash and diplomatic quagmire not unlike the one that obtains between the United States and Muslim nations today.

The Algerine Captive: or, The Life and Adventures of Doctor Updike Underhill (Modern Library Classics)

Dramas & Plays

Random House Publishing Group

This selection of over two hundred tales from medieval Japan includes stories of miracles, visions of hell, jokes, fables, and legends from history

JAPANESE TALES

Mythology & Folk Tales

A dazzling selection of over 200 tales from medieval Japan, including stories of miracle, visions of hell, jokes, fables and historical legends.

Japanese Tales (Pantheon Fairy Tale & Folklore Library)

Politics & Social Sciences

Social Sciences

Contrast a Comedy in Five Acts

Poetry

Ams Pr Inc

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Tyler, Royall. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Tyler, Royall

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Tyler, Royall. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

The Miracles of the Kasuga Deity (RECORDS OF CIVILIZATION)

The Miracles of the Kasuga Deity (Records of Civilization: Sources & Studies)

The Dawn of the Warrior Age: War Tales from Medieval Japan

The Dawn of the Warrior Age: War Tales from Medieval Japan

The Miracles of the Kasuga Deity

Japanese Tales (The Pantheon Fairy Tale and Folklore Library)

The Algerine Captive: or, The Life and Adventures of Doctor Updike Underhill (Modern Library Classics)

JAPANESE TALES

Japanese Tales (Pantheon Fairy Tale & Folklore Library)

Contrast a Comedy in Five Acts