Asian Literature

Chinese Literature Indian Literature

Japanese Literature Arabian Literature

Hebrew Literature
 Asian Literature
Asian literature refers to the literature that was
written over a period of thousands of years, in a
variety of countries in Asia.
Asian literature encompasses East Asian literature
that includes Chinese, Japanese and Korean
literature; Central Asian literature comprising of
Bengali, Indian, Pakistani and Tamil literature;
West Asian Literature that covers Arabic
literature, Persian literature and Turkish literature
and South East Asian Literature that is comprised
of literature of the Philippines.
 Chinese Literature
Chinese literature is a vast subject that spans thousands of years.
One of the interesting things about Chinese literature is that much of
the serious literature was composed using a formal written language
that is called Classical Chinese.
The best literature of the Yuan Dynasty era and the four novels that
are considered the greatest classics are important exceptions.
However, even during the Qing Dynasty of two hundred years ago,
most writers composed in a literary stream that extended back about
2,400 years.
They studied very ancient writings in more or less the original written
language. This large breadth of time with so many writers living in the
various eras and countries makes Chinese literature complex.
Chinese literary works include fiction, philosophical and religious
works, poetry, and scientific writings. The dynastic eras frame the
history of Chinese literature and are examined one by one.
 Chinese Literature
He was one of the greatest realistic poets of ancient China.
He wrote at least a thousand poems on a variety of subjects from political matters to
natural scenery.

Also wrote more than a thousand poems.

He is thought of as one of the greatest romantic poets of China.
His poems reflect the hard realities of war, dying people living next to rich rulers,
and primitive rural life.

Confucius (or Kongzi) was a Chinese philosopher who lived in the 6th century BCE and
whose thoughts, expressed in the philosophy of Confucianism, have influenced
Chinese culture right up to the present day.

Lao-Tzu (also known as Laozi or Lao-Tze) was a Chinese philosopher credited with
founding the philosophical system of Taoism. He is best known as the author of
the Tao-Te-Ching, the work which exemplifies his thought.
 Du Fu
Also known as Du Fu, Tu Fu is considered with Li Po to be one of Chinas
greatest poets of the Tang dynasty.
His early poems thread together incidents from his travels and personal
accounts of the hardships he endured; he also wrote poems to or about Li Po.
Tu Fu is often described as a poet-historian, and his works convey the
emotional impact and import of political and social issues and register a range
of private concerns, trials, and dramas.
His poems are remarkable for their range of moods as well as contents.
According to one of his translators, David Hinton, [Tu Fu] explored the full
range of experience, and from this abundance shaped the monumental
proportions of being merely human.
Farewell to My Soldier-Friend
Pounding the Clothes
Thwarted [Version by Carolyn Kizer]
A Toast for Men Yun-Ching
 Li Bai
A Chinese poet of the Tang Dynasty, Li Po (also known as Li Bai, Li Pai, Li Tai-po,
and Li Tai-pai) was probably born in central Asia and grew up in Sichuan Province.
He was married four times and was friends with the poet Tu Fu.
Li Po wrote occasional verse and poems about his own life.
His poetry is known for its clear imagery and conversational tone. His work
influenced a number of 20th-century poets, including Ezra Pound and James
Wright.
Exile's Letter
Goodfellowship
The Green Water
The Jewel Stairs Grievance
The Long War
A Poem of Changgan
The Solitude of Night
Sorrow Untold
Zazen on Ching-ting Mountain
 Confucius
Confucius has become a larger than life figure and it is
difficult to separate the reality from the myth.
He is considered the first teacher and his teachings are
usually expressed in short phrases which are open to
various interpretations.
Chief among his philosophical ideas is the importance
of a virtuous life, filial piety and ancestor worship. Also
emphasized is the necessity for benevolent and frugal
rulers, the importance of inner moral harmony and its
direct connection with harmony in the physical world
and that rulers and teachers are important role models
for wider society.
 Lao-Tzu
The name by which he is known is not a personal name
but an honorific title meaning `Old Man or `Old
Teacher and there has been countless speculation as
to whether an individual by that name ever existed or
whether Lao-Tzu is an amalgam of many different
philosophers.
The historian Durant writes, Lao-Tze, greatest of the
pre-Confucian philosophers, was wiser than Teng Shih;
he knew the wisdom of silence, and lived, we may be
sure, to a ripe old age though we are not sure that he
lived at all (652). If he did exist, he is thought to have
lived in the 6th century BCE.
 Japanese Literature
Japanese literature, the body of written works produced by Japanese authors in Japanese
or, in its earliest beginnings, at a time when Japan had no written language, in the Chinese
classical language.
Both in quantity and quality, Japanese literature ranks as one of the major literatures of the
world, comparable in age, richness, and volume to English literature, though its course of
development has been quite dissimilar.
The surviving works comprise a literary tradition extending from the 7th century CE to the
present; during all this time there was never a dark age devoid of literary production.
Not only do poetry, the novel, and the drama have long histories in Japan, but some
literary genres not so highly esteemed in other countriesincluding diaries, travel accounts,
and books of random thoughtsare also prominent.
A considerable body of writing by Japanese in the Chinese classical language, of much
greater bulk and importance than comparable Latin writings by Englishmen, testifies to the
Japanese literary indebtedness to China.
Even the writings entirely in Japanese present an extraordinary variety of styles, which
cannot be explained merely in terms of the natural evolution of the language. Some styles
were patently influenced by the importance of Chinese vocabulary and syntax, but others
developed in response to the internal requirements of the various genres, whether the
terseness of haiku (a poem in 17 syllables) or the bombast of the dramatic recitation.
 Japanese Literature
Kakinomoto Hitomaro
Also called Kakinomoto no Hitomaro (died 708, Japan),
poet venerated by the Japanese since earliest times. He
was also Japans first great literary figure.

Matsuo Bash
In full Matsuo Bash, pseudonym of Matsuo
Munefusa (born 1644, Ueno, Iga province, Japan
died Nov. 28, 1694, saka), the supreme
Japanese haiku poet, who greatly enriched the 17-
syllable haiku form and made it an accepted medium
of artistic expression.
 Kakinomoto Hitomaro
Among his surviving works are poems in the two major Japanese
poetic forms of his daytanka and chka. Probably he also
wrote sedka (head-repeated poem, consisting of two three-line
verses of 5, 7, 7 syllables), a relatively minor song form that seems
to have been first adapted to literary purposes by Hitomaro and to
have barely survived him.
All of the poems accepted as indisputably authored by Hitomaro
(61 tanka and 16 chka), as well as a large number of others
attributed to him, are to be found in the Manysh (Collection
of Ten Thousand Leaves), the first and largest of Japans
anthologies of native poetry. These poems, together with notes by
the compilers, are the chief source for information on his life,
about which very little is known
 Matsuo Bash
Interested in haiku from an early age, Bash at first put his literary
interests aside and entered the service of a local feudal lord.
After his lords death in 1666, however, Bash abandoned
his samurai (warrior) status to devote himself to poetry. Moving to
the capital city of Edo (now Tokyo), he gradually acquired a
reputation as a poet and critic. In 1679 he wrote his first verse in
the new style for which he came to be known:
On a withered branch
A crow has alighted:
Nightfall in autumn.
NOTABLE WORKS
The Narrow Road to Oku
The Monkeys Straw Raincoat and Other Poetry of the Basho
School
 Indian Literature
Indian literature, writings of the Indian subcontinent,
produced there in a variety of vernacular languages,
including Sanskrit, Prakrit, Pali, Bengali, Bihari, Gujara
ti, Hindi, Kannada, Kashmiri, Malayalam, Oriya, Punja
bi, Rajasthani, Tamil, Telugu, Urdu, Lahnda, Siraiki,
and Sindhi, among others, as well as in English.
The term Indian literature is used here to refer
to literature produced across the Indian subcontinent
prior to the creation of the Republic of India in 1947
and within the Republic of India after 1947.
 Indian Literature
Mahabharata
One of the worlds longest literary works
The story of two Indian families struggling for control of a kingdom
Many long passages of Hindu beliefs and practices

The Ramayana
The story of a god, Vishnu, who has taken human form
Written long after the Mahabharata; contains models for the ideal
ruler (Rama) and the ideal mate (Sita)

The Panchatantra
A book of stories intended to teach moral lessons and quick
thinking, was translated into many languages.
 Mahabharata
The Mahabharata is one of the two major Sanskrit
epics of ancient India.
The authorship of the Mahabharata is attributed to the
great sage Veda Vyasa (Krsna Dvaipaya)
Ohundred thousand verses, long prose passages, or
about 1.8 million words in total
Roughly ten times the length of the Iliad and Odyssey
combined or about four times the length of the
Ramayana.
Called Mahabharata due to the immense size and its
dealing with the story of the people of the race
descended from the ancient emperor Bharata
 The Ramayana
The Ramayana is an ancient Indian epic, composed some time in the 5th
century BCE, about the exile and then return of Rama, prince of Ayodhya.
It was composed in Sanskrit by the sage Valmiki, who taught it to Rama's
sons, the twins Lava and Kush.
At about 24000 verses, it is a rather long poem and, by tradition, is known
as the Adi Kavya (adi = original, first; kavya = poem).
While the basic story is about palace politics and battles with demon
tribes, the narrative is interspersed with philosophy, ethics, and notes on
duty. While in that other Indian epic, the Mahabharata, the characters are
presented with all their human follies and failings, the Ramayana leans
more towards an ideal state of things: Rama is the ideal son and king, Sita
the ideal wife, Hanuman the ideal devotee, Lakshman and Bharat the ideal
brothers, and even Ravana, the demon villian, is not entirely despicable
 The Panchatantra
Panchatantra discusses varied topics like philosophy,
psychology, politics, music, astronomy, human
relationship, etc., in a simple yet elegant style. This
makes it a rare piece of literature, and a unique book.
It attempts to illustrate how to understand others, how
to choose reliable and trustworthy friends, how to
overcome difficulties and problems through tact and
wisdom.
Moreover, it illustrates how to live in peace and
harmony even in the midst of deceit, hypocrisy and
other pitfalls in life.
 Arabian Literature
Arabic literature is the writing produced, both prose
and poetry, by speakers (not necessarily native
speakers) of the Arabic language.
It does not usually include works written using the
Arabic alphabet but not in the Arabic language such
as Persian literature and Urdu literature.
The Arabic word used for literature is adab which is
derived from a word meaning "to invite someone for
a meal" and implies politeness, culture and
enrichment.
 Arabian Literature
Arabian Nights
The One Thousand and One Nights, also more commonly known
as the Arabian Nights is the most well-known of all Arabic
literature.
Kahlil Gibran
Though he considered himself to be mainly a painter, lived
most of his life in the United States, and wrote his best-known
works in English, Kahlil Gibran was the key figure in a Romantic
movement that transformed Arabic literature in the first half of
the twentieth century.
Quran
The Qur'an was the first major work of Arabic literature and
the most influential.
 Arabian Nights
The Arabian Nights is a collection of Middle Eastern
and South Asian stories and folk tales that were
compiled during the Islamic Golden Age.
However, the Arabian Nights is not only a collection
of stories and folk tales now, its become more than
that.
When it was first translated in the 18th century by
Antoine Galland he decided to add more stories and
folk tales that werent present in the original
manuscript like Aladdins Lamp and Ali Baba and
the Forty Thieves as well as other lesser known
stories.
 Kahlil Gibran
Educated in Beirut, Boston, and Paris, Gibran was influenced by the
European modernists of the late nineteenth century.
His early works were sketches, short stories, poems, and prose poems
written in simple language for Arabic newspapers in the United States.
These pieces spoke to the experiences and loneliness of Syrian
immigrants in the New World.
For Arab readers accustomed to the rich but difficult and rigid tradition
of Arabic poetry and literary prose, many of the forms and conventions
of which went back to pre-Islamic Bedouin poetry, Gibrans simple and
direct style was a revelation and an inspiration.
His themes of alienation, disruption, and lost rural beauty and security
in a modernizing world also resonated with the experiences of his
readers.
He quickly found admirers and imitators among Arabic writers, and his
reputation as a central figure of Arabic literary modernism has never
been challenged.
 Quran
The Qur'an had a significant influence on the Arab language.
The language used in the Qur'an is called classical Arabic and
while modern Arabic has diverged slightly, the classical is still
the style to be admired.
Not only is the Qur'an the first work of any significant length
written in the language it also has a far more complicated
structure than the earlier literary works with its 114 suras
(chapters) which contain 6,236 ayat (verses).
It contains injunctions, narratives, homilies, parables, direct
addresses from God, instructions and even comments on
itself on how it will be received and understood.
It is also, paradoxically, admired for its layers of metaphor as
well as its clarity, a feature it mentions itself in sura 16:103.
 Hebrew Literature
Hebrew literature, the body of written works produced in the Hebrew
language and distinct from Jewish literature, which also exists in other
languages.
Literature in Hebrew has been produced uninterruptedly from the
early 12th century BC, and certain excavated tablets may indicate a
literature of even greater antiquity.
From 1200 BC to c. AD 200, Hebrew was a spoken language in Palestine,
first as biblical Hebrew, then as Mishnaic Hebrew, a later dialect that
does not derive directly from the biblical dialect and one that gained
literary status as the Pharisees began to employ it in their teaching in
the 2nd century BC. It was not revived as a spoken language until the
late 19th century, and in the 20th century it was adopted as the official
language of the new State of Israel.
The latter event gave impetus to a growing movement in Hebrew
literature centered in Israel.
 Hebrew Literature
Bible
Collection of 66 books but for the Catholics, 72 books
Dates ranging from 750 BC to AD 100
Most widely read book in the world