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The Penguin Book of Japanese Verse: From the Earliest Times to the Present
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The Penguin Book of Japanese Verse: From the Earliest Times to the Present Paperback - 2009

by Various; Introduction by Geoffrey Bownas; Geoffrey Bownas (Translator)

The definitive anthology-unrivalled in scope and content

A millennium and a half old, Japan's poetry is widely known and loved around the world. Covering the earliest primitive period through the Nara, Heian, Kamakura, Muramachi, and Edo periods, right up to the modern day, The Penguin Book of Japanese Verse contains more than 700 poems, including short forms such as tanka and haiku, as well as folk-poetry, and more complex verse with which Western readers may be less familiar. Whether read for pleasure or scholarship, this accessible translation displays the full wit, sorrow, and subtlety of Japanese poetry and will remain the authoritative volume for years to come.


Summary

The definitive anthology-unrivalled in scope and content

A millennium and a half old, Japan's poetry is widely known and loved around the world. Covering the earliest primitive period through the Nara, Heian, Kamakura, Muramachi, and Edo periods, right up to the modern day, The Penguin Book of Japanese Verse contains more than 700 poems, including short forms such as tanka and haiku, as well as folk-poetry, and more complex verse with which Western readers may be less familiar. Whether read for pleasure or scholarship, this accessible translation displays the full wit, sorrow, and subtlety of Japanese poetry and will remain the authoritative volume for years to come.



Details

  • Title The Penguin Book of Japanese Verse: From the Earliest Times to the Present
  • Author Various; Introduction by Geoffrey Bownas; Geoffrey Bownas (Translator)
  • Binding Paperback
  • Edition Revised ed.
  • Pages 285
  • Volumes 1
  • Language ENG
  • Publisher Penguin Group, United Kingdom
  • Date 2009-12-29
  • ISBN 9780141190945 / 0141190949
  • Weight 0.59 lbs (0.27 kg)
  • Dimensions 7.8 x 5.08 x 0.76 in (19.81 x 12.90 x 1.93 cm)
  • Ages 18 to UP years
  • Grade levels 13 - UP
  • Dewey Decimal Code 895.610

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About the author

Geoffrey Bownas was born in 1923; he read Greats and Chinese at Oxford and in 1952-4 studied with Professor Kaizuka Shigeki in Kyoto University. He established Oxford's Department of Japanese Studies in 1954, then became Sheffield University's Founding Professor of Japanese Studies in 1966, pioneering the combination of the study of Japanese with social sciences. His publications include Japanese Rainmaking and Other Folk Practices, New Writing in Japan with Mishima Yukio, Doing Business with the Japanese with David Powers and Christopher Hood and Japanese Journeys, Writings and Recolllections of a half century of direct involvement with Japan.

Anthony Thwaite was born in 1930. After leaving Oxford in 1955 he went to Tokyo University where he taught English Literature until 1957. He has frequently revisited Japan, holding a Japan Foundation Fellowship in 1985-6, taking up a travelling scholarship in 1989, and going to Japan on various lectures and tours over the years, most recently in 2005. He has taught in Universities in Britain, the U.S.A., Libya and elsewhere. He has published seventeen books of poems, most recently Collected Poems (2007), holds honorary doctorates from the Universities of Hull and East Anglia, and was awarded an OBE for services to poetry in 1990.

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The Penguin Book of Japanese Verse
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The Penguin Book of Japanese Verse

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The Penguin Book of Japanese Verse
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The Penguin Book of Japanese Verse (Penguin Classics)
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The Penguin Book of Japanese Verse (Penguin Classics)

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The Penguin Book of Japanese Verse: From the Earliest Times to the Present (UNESCO Collection of...
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