Designed to follow at least two years of instruction in the grammatical structures of Classical Japanese in which the student has already mastered the fundamentals of grammar, read short excerpts from the prose masterworks of Japanese literature from the eighth through the seventeenth centuries, studied and analyzed important poems from the Manyoshu and subsequent Imperial Anthologies, and read at least one complete chapter of The Tale of Genji, this course follows two streams of the tradition of study and writing of Chinese belles lettres in Japan. The first term begins with examples of Classical Chinese Poetry to illustrate the traditions of reading and translating such works in Japan. This is followed by study of examples of prose writing from the traditions of Confucius, Mencius, and Chuang-tzu. In the second term, writings in Chinese produced in Japan on subjects of importance to the Japanese tradition are studied in depth. Materials selected for study will vary in accordance with the research interests of graduate students, but will cover such important works as the Imperial Anthologies of Chinese Poetry, Rai Sanyo's Dai Nihonshi, and poetry in Chinese by the novelist Natsume Soseki. What follows below are transcriptions and translations for the first segment of the Kambun course, a study of classical Chinese poetry from ancient times through the T'ang Dynasty.Click on the title of your choice.

Text/References to transliterated Japanese