Episode 76 - The Ten-Thousand Leaves

History of Japan

Isaac Meyer

Japan, History, Japanese

4.8 • 744 Ratings

🗓️ 8 November 2014

⏱️ 23 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

We're turning our attention this week to Japan's first classic of poetry: the Man'yoshu, or the Collection of Ten-Thousand Leaves. We'll trace the origins of the work as well as its cultural impact through the ages, and talk about why it is we should care about a bunch of poems some of which date back to times contemporary with the Roman Empire.

Transcript

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0:00.0	This week's episode is brought to you by Audible.
0:03.8	Audible has over 150,000 titles to choose from, all compatible with iPhone, Android, Kindle, or your MP3 player of choice.
0:14.3	For listeners of the show, Audible is offering a free 30-day trial membership, complete with credit for a free audiobook of your choice.
0:22.6	You can cancel any time and keep the free book, or keep going with one of Audible's subscription offers.
0:28.9	Go to audibletrial.com slash Japan to claim your offer.
0:33.6	This week, I'm going to recommend Embracing Defeat, Japan in the Wake of World War II, by John Dower.
0:41.5	This is one of the books anyone interested in Japan should read.
0:45.6	It's an absolutely tremendous work on the American occupation and its attempt to remake Japan in the American image.
0:53.1	Fascinating, insightful, and occasionally very disturbing,
0:56.9	it's an incredible work of history.
0:59.7	Go to audibletrial.com slash Japan to listen to it today. Hello and welcome to the History of Japan podcast. Episode 76.
1:29.1	The Ten Thousand Leaves.
1:35.0	This week, we're going to be talking about one of the most famous works of Japanese literature ever written.
1:37.0	It's a collection of poetry older than any other in Japan, and as a result, it's taken
1:42.3	on a significance far beyond what you might expect.
1:45.0	The book I'm referring to is called the Mon Yoshu, which translates as a collection of 10,000 leaves.
1:53.0	However, there's a lot of debate surrounding this work, and one of the debates is over the title.
2:00.0	10,000 in East Asia, is often used as a sort of metaphor, simply meaning a great mini.
2:06.7	And thus some scholars argue it's more correct to translate the title as a collection of numberless
2:12.1	leaves or something similar to that.
2:14.8	It's up to you which you prefer. I'm going to go with the majority on this one and just
2:19.5	use the Japanese name. The Man Yoshu was assembled in or shortly after 795 AD during the middle
	...

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