Meanings of Antiquity

Myth Interpretation in Premodern Japan

Matthieu Felt

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English

Harvard University Press
18 July 2023

Literature: history & criticism; History of religion; Shintoism; Folklore, myths & legends

Series: Harvard East Asian Monographs

Meanings of Antiquity is the first dedicated study of how the oldest Japanese myths, recorded in the eighth-century texts Kojiki and Nihon shoki, changed in meaning and significance between 800 and 1800 CE. Generations of Japanese scholars and students have turned to these two texts and their creation myths to understand what it means to be Japanese and where Japan fits into the world order.

As the shape and scale of the world explained by these myths changed, these myths evolved in turn. Over the course of the millennium covered in this study, Japan transforms from the center of a proud empire to a millet seed at the edge of the Buddhist world, from the last vestige of China's glorious Zhou Dynasty to an archipelago on a spherical globe. Analyzing historical records, poetry, fiction, religious writings, military epics, political treatises, and textual commentary, Matthieu Felt identifies the geographical, cosmological, epistemological, and semiotic changes that led to new adaptations of Japanese myths. Felt demonstrates that the meanings of Japanese antiquity and of Japan's most ancient texts were-and are-a work in progress, a collective effort of writers and thinkers over the past 1,300 years.

By: Matthieu Felt
Imprint: Harvard University Press
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 229mm, Width: 152mm,
ISBN: 9780674293786
ISBN 10: 0674293789
Series: Harvard East Asian Monographs
Pages: 376
Publication Date: 18 July 2023
Audience: Professional and scholarly , Undergraduate
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

Matthieu Felt is Assistant Professor of Japanese at the University of Florida.