Find Primary Texts
- Japanese Text Initiative The Japanese Text Initiative (JTI) intends to put online on the Web texts of classical Japanese literature in Japanese characters. Our primary audience is English-speaking scholars and students. Where possible, the Japanese texts will be accompanied by English translations.
- Japanese Historical Text Initiative The Japanese Historical Text Initiative (JHTI) is a rapidly expanding database made up of historical texts dating back more than 1200 years. The original version of every paragraph in every text is cross-tagged with its English translation, making it possible for any researcher to see, on the same screen, both the original and English translation of any word or phrase appearing in any JHTI text.
- Aozora Bunko Open access collection of Japanese literary works in the public domain
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BU Databases:
- BU Libraries Search (BULS) This link opens in a new window BU Libraries Search provides a single place to search for a wide variety of academic material provided by the library. The material covered by the search includes books, journals, scores, video and audio recordings, and other physical items held by the library. The search also covers ebooks and ejournals owned by the library, as well as online material provided by the library from a variety of sources.
- Literature Online (LION) This link opens in a new window LION includes texts, criticism, and reference material, including thousands of literary articles, essays, biographies and encyclopedia entries on over 350,000 works of poetry, prose, and drama from the 8th to the 21st century.
- Literature Criticism Online This link opens in a new window Contains critical and biographical essays on authors currently living or who died after Jan. 1, 2000. May be searched simultaneously with Contemporary Authors and the Dictionary of Literary Biography.
- JSTOR This link opens in a new window This database provides full text access to the back issues of core scholarly journals in the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences. Book reviews are included as well as journal articles. Abstracts are available for some of the articles. Date coverage: earliest issues of each journal up to the most current five years for most publications and to the present for some.
- Project Muse This link opens in a new window Project Muse provides digital access to scholarly journals and books in the humanities and social sciences. The scholarly content comes from non-profit scholarly publishers, including university presses and societies. The full text resources include journal articles, book reviews and book chapters.
- Linguistics Collection This link opens in a new window The Linguistics Collection is comprised of index and full-text databases covering all aspects of the study of language including phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, and semantics. The collection includes the Linguistics & Language Behavior Abstracts (LLBA), which abstracts and indexes the international literature in linguistics and related disciplines in the language sciences. And Linguistics Database, which includes full-text journals and other sources in linguistics including many titles indexed in LLBA.
Featured Resources
The Columbia Companion to Modern East Asian Literature by
This extraordinary one-volume guide to the modern literatures of China, Japan, and Korea is the definitive reference work on the subject in the English language. With more than one hundred articles that show how a host of authors and literary movements have contributed to the general literary development of their respective countries, this companion is an essential starting point for the study of East Asian literatures.
Location: Available at Mugar Reference X PL493 .C55 2003 and OnlinePublication Date: 2003
Worlding Sei Shônagon : the pillow book in translation by
"The Makura no Sôshi, or The Pillow Book as it is generally known in English, is a collection of personal reflections and anecdotes about life in the Japanese royal court composed around the turn of the eleventh century by a woman known as Sei Shônagon. Its opening section, which begins haru wa akebono, or "spring, dawn," is arguably the single most famous passage in Japanese literature.
Location: OnlinePublication Date: 2012
Guides to Japanese Literature
- JapanKnowledge This link opens in a new window JapanKnowledge is an extensive database, mostly in Japanese, with information about Japanese language, culture, history, and more. It Includes encyclopedias, dictionaries, ebooks, news articles, and multimedia.
A Companion to World Literature by
A Companion to World Literature is a far-reaching and sustained study of key authors, texts, and topics from around the world and throughout history. Six comprehensive volumes present essays from over 300 prominent international scholars focusing on many aspects of this vast and burgeoning field of literature, from its ancient origins to the most modern narratives.
Location: OnlinePublication Date: 2020
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Bibliographies
Bibliographies in English:
- Japan and the Japanese: a bibliographic guide to reference sources by A useful guide to English-language reference materials on Japan and the Japanese, this selective annotated bibliography is designed for use by information seekers at all levels. It covers topics ranging from art, music, and literature to economics, people and society, politics, religion, and science and technology. Part I covers general reference works, while Part II covers materials on specific subject areas. The guide will also provide a useful collection development tool for librarians who want to strengthen their English-language materials on Japan, an area long neglected.Location: Mugar Memorial Library Stacks (DS835 .M33 1996 )Publication Date: 1996
- Bibliography of Asian Studies This link opens in a new window An index to works, primarily in the humanities and the social sciences, pertaining to East, Southeast, and South Asia. Covers articles, chapters in edited volumes, conference proceedings, anthologies, Festschriften, and books. Date coverage: 1971 - present except for books (1971-1992).
- MLA International Bibliography This link opens in a new window Indexes critical materials on literature, languages, linguistics, and folklore. Includes citations from worldwide publications: periodicals, books, essay collections, working papers, proceedings, dissertations and bibliographies. Date coverage: 1920s - present.
- Japanese Literature in Translation This database covers Japanese literary works translated into other languages, mostly after World War II. Searches can be made either in Japanese character or Roman letters.
Bibliographies in Japanese:
- CiNii CiNii(Scholarly and Academic Information Navigator, pronounced like "sigh-knee") is a database service which can be searched with academic information of articles, Books, Journals & Dissertations.
- National Diet Library "NDL Search" is an integrated search service of catalogs and digital archives including libraries, archives, museums, academic institutes and the National Diet Library.
- Union Catalogue of Early Japanese Books = Nihon Kotenseki Sōgō Mokuroku Dētabēsu (日本古典籍総合目録データベース) A database of pre-Meiji materials maintained by the National Institute of Japanese Literature (Kokubungaku Kenkyu Shiryōkan). It provides authoritative information about Japanese classical literary works and their authors.
- Kokubungaku Ronbun Mokuroku Database （国文学論文目録データベース）Index to journal articles and books in Japanese literary studies since 1912
- Zasshi Kiji Sakuin Detabesu (Japanese Magazines and Periodicals) This link opens in a new window Index to periodical articles published in Japanese, including those in former Japanese colonies, and including local periodicals not present in many other indexes. Date coverage: 1868 - present.
Librarian
Literary Biography
- Contemporary Authors This link opens in a new window A bio-bibliographical guide to current writers in fiction, general nonfiction, poetry, journalism, drama, motion pictures, television, and other fields.
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With the Meiji Restoration in 1868, Japan opened its doors to the West and underwent remarkable changes as it sought to become a modern nation. Accompanying the political changes that Western trade ushered in were widespread social and cultural changes. Newspapers, novels, poems, and plays from the Western world were soon adapted and translated into Japanese. The combination of the rich storytelling tradition of Japan with the realism and modernism of the West produced some of the greatest literature of the modern age.Historical Dictionary of Modern Japanese Literature and Theater, Second Edition contains a chronology, an introduction, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has more than 500 cross-referenced entries authors, literary and historical developments, trends, genres, and concepts that played a central role in the evolution of modern Japanese literature.
The New Yorker has called Donald Keene "America's preeminent scholar of Japanese literature." Now he presents a new book that serves as both a superb introduction to modern Japanese fiction and a memoir of his own lifelong love affair with Japanese literature and culture. Five Modern Japanese Novelistsprofiles five prominent writers whom Donald Keene knew personally: Tanizaki Jun'ichiro, Kawabata Yasunari, Mishima Yukio, Abe Kobo, and Shiba Ryotaro. Keene masterfully blends vignettes describing his personal encounters with these famous men with autobiographical observations and his trademark learned literary and cultural analysis. Keene opens with a confession: before arriving in Japan in 1953, despite having taught Japanese for several years at Cambridge, he knew the name of only one living Japanese writer: Tanizaki. Keene's training in classical Japanese literature and fluency in the language proved marvelous preparation, though, for the journey of literary discovery that began with that first trip to Japan, as he came into contact, sometimes quite fortuitously, with the genius of a generation. It is a journey that will fascinate experts and newcomers alike
Most Japanese literary historians have suggested that the Meiji Period (1868-1912) was devoid of women writers but for the brilliant exception of Higuchi Ichiyo (1872-1896). Rebecca Copeland challenges this claim by examining in detail the lives and literary careers of three of Ichiyo's peers, each representative of the diversity and ingenuity of the period: Miyake Kaho (1868-1944), Wakamatsu Shizuko (1864-1896), and Shimizu Shikin (1868-1933). In a carefully researched introduction, Copeland establishes the context for the development of female literary expression. She follows this with chapters on each of the women under consideration. Miyake Kaho, often regarded as the first woman writer of modern Japan, offers readers a vision of the female vitality that is often overlooked when discussing the Meiji era. Wakamatsu Shizuko, the most prominent female translator of her time, had a direct impact on the development of a modern written language for Japanese prose fiction. Shimizu Shikin reminds readers of the struggle women endured in their efforts to balance their creative interests with their social roles. Interspersed throughout are excerpts from works under discussion, most never before translated, offering an invaluable window into this forgotten world of women's writing.
After centuries of repression of the female voice in literature, the Meiji (1868-1912) and Taisho (1912-1926) periods in Japanese history saw important changes in both the way women wrote and the way they were read. However, even the most accepted female writers of these two eras were judged by criteria different from those applied to men, and only the most conservative were praised by the (male) critics. This study of the women who wrote in the modern era examines both famous and now-obscure writers within the context of their moments in time and their influence on later generations of Japanese women writers. Arranged chronologically, the book covers the pioneering women of the early Meiji period, the ethos of reactionary conservatism, the romantic movement in poetry, women writers of the naturalist school, Taisho liberalism, and the new era of literary women. An introduction outlines the various schools of Japanese female writers during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, as well as the social and cultural trends that helped produce them. The text is appropriate for both well-read scholars of Japanese literature and newcomers to the works of the "fair ladies of the back chamber," as these creative and driven writers were once called.
