ARTH 225: Pleasure and Design in Confinement: Japanese Prints In and After Edo: Iconography and Historical Context

During the eighteenth century, Edo (today's Tokyo) became the world's largest city, quickly surpassing London and Paris. Its rapidly expanding population and flourishing economy encouraged the development of a thriving popular culture.

The Tales of the Heike focuses on the lives of both the samurai warriors who fought for two powerful twelfth-century Japanese clans-the Heike (Taira) and the Genji (Minamoto)-and the women with whom they were intimately connected.

The Tale of Genji and The Tale of the Heike are the two major works of classical Japanese prose.

The tale of the Hōgen years -- The tale of the Heiji years -- A record of the Jōkyū years

The war tales are one of the most important sources of knowledge about Japan's premodern warriors, revealing much about the medieval psyche and the evolving perceptions of warriors, warfare, and warrior customs.

A masterpiece of eighteenth-century Japanese puppet theater, Yoshitsune and the Thousand Cherry Trees is an action-packed play set in the aftermath of the twelfth-century Genji-Heike wars. It follows the adventures of the military commander, Yoshitsune, as he tries to avoid capture by his jealous older brother and loyal henchmen.

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- MONSTERS, WARRIORS, AND JOURNEYS TO OTHER WORLDS -- BUDDHIST TALES -- INTERSPECIES AFFAIRS -- ENGLISH-L ANGUAGE SECONDARY SOURCES -- PERMISSIONS

Introductory note.--Madame Yukio Ozaki [by Mrs. Hugh Fraser]--Hachiro Tametomo, the archer.--Gen. Sanmi Yorimasa, the knight.--The story of Yoshitsune.--The story of Benkei.--The goblin of Oyeyama.--Kidomaru the robber, Raiko the Bravek, and the goblin spider.--The story of the pots of plum, cherry, and pine.--Shiragiku, or White Chrysanthemum.--The princess of the bowl.--The story of lazy Taro

Kanadehon Chushingura has been one of the most popular bunraku and kabuki plays. This fascinating study explores the full spectrum of ukiyo-e (floating world) representations of the Chushingura story.

Printing Landmarks tells the story of the late Tokugawa period's most distinctive form of popular geography: meisho zue. Beginning with the publication of Miyako meisho zue in 1780, these monumental books deployed lovingly detailed illustrations and informative prose to showcase famous places (meisho) in ways that transcended the limited scope, quality, and reliability of earlier guidebooks and gazetteers.

Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849), an unchallenged master of ukiyo-e , the Floating World, active between the late 1700s and the first-half of the 1800s, stands out on the art scene not only for his Great Wave and the series Thirty-six V iews of Mount Fuji of which the print is a part, but also his great versatility expressed in his treatment of all types of subjects: from landscapes to nature, kabuki actor portraits, beautiful women, warriors and even ghosts and spirits, semi-legendary beings and animals.