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Howard Hibbett: The Floating World In Japanese Fiction

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Howard Hibbett has dedicated his career to the study and academic appreciation of Japanese Literature. In addition to teaching at UCLA and Harvard, where he specialized in Japanese literature, Hibbett was the director of the Edwin O. Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies. Hibbett has contributed to the academic community as a translator and scholar. He has translated many works from Japanese so that English-speaking students may appreciate a foreign world of literature. The Floating World in Japanese Fiction is the product of many years of study. The book features extensive historical context and commentary on the Genroku Era of Japanese history, the time when the ukiyo lifestyle was born and thrived. Also, the book contains Hibbett 's translations of the works, and their original illustrations, he claims epitomize the spirit of the ukiyo movement. …show more content…

A reader without any significant knowledge of the Japanese language may easily fail to initially comprehend the difference between these three main terms: ukiyo, ukiyo-e, and ukiyo-zōshi. Ukiyo translates literally to “the floating world,” which refers to the pleasure-seeking lifestyle of the Genroku Era (1680-1740);Ukiyo-e, “pictures of the floating world,” refers to art produced through woodblock prints or, less commonly, paintings; Ukiyo-zōshi, “tales of the floating world,” refers to the popular fiction of the era (p. vii). Even if one may easily learn the literal distinction between these words, they are impossible to properly understand in the intentionally limited scope of the preface; therefore, evaluating Hibbett’s further development of these terms in relation to the sociological development of the Genroku culture is essential to grasping a broader understanding of Japanese

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