Special note: Post-lecture series additions to the web site will follow this order:

• posting of the remaining uncorrected Tale of Genji genealogies (chapters 49-54); [completed 3/22/05].
• "Yoshitsune" drama character map (if feasible); [completed 3/27/05--the first two of four panels, completed 4/2/05 the final two panels; click on the below images to download -- ** these are pdf files that require Adobe reader and they are quite large, 2 - 3 MB each]

• corrected Genji genealogies;
• final notes on Kawabata;
• final notes on Chikamatsu;
• final notes on Bashô.

When each of these projects is more or less complete, details will be provided. I envision to work to take 1-2 weeks for each of these.

Special note: ** We will be reading Chikamatsu's "Double Love Suicides at Sonezaki" for this class. As it happens, the Grand Kabuki Theater of Japan (Chikamatsu-za) will be performing this very play June 17 (8PM) & 18 (8PM) (2005) as part of the Cal Performances, Zellerbach Hall, Berkeley. Go here for the Cal Performances announcement of this event and to purchase tickets: Cal Performances-Grand Kabuki Theater of Japan. **

Special note: ** Currently there is local, subtitled broadcasting of the new NHK historical drama titled "Yoshitsune." Broadcast times varying locally for the San Francisco Bay Area, but in general it can be found weekly on Saturday evenings. The 50-part series began February 5, 2005. Here is a link, updated monthly, that give a synopsis in English of the story as told by the drama: English episode-to-episode descriptions in monthly updates. Here is the link to the official homepage of the drama. It is in Japanese only: official web site. Also, I am archiving the monthly postings on the NHK web site that provides the episode-to-episode descriptions. For current and prior synopses, go here.**

Classes begin February 6, Sunday morning at 10:15 AM. See you there!

Contact me: john.r.wallace@stanfordalumni.org

Comments about what texts to buy. Go here.

Course "Basic Information Page" (distributed on site beginning the first day of the series)

• View on-screen
• Download pdf file (85k)

Basic reading schedule:

• First two weeks — Edo period haiku poet Matsuo Bashô's travel journal Narrow Road to the Deep North (Oku no hosomichi, 1694)
• Middle two weeks — Edo period puppet theater playwright Chikamatsu Monzaemon's "Double Suicides at Sonezaki" (Sonezaki shinjû, 1703) and "Double Love Suicides at Amijima" (Shinjû ten no Amijima, 1720)
• Final two weeks — Post World War II Nobel laureate Kawabata Yasunari's novel Snow County (Yukiguni, 1935-1947)

The pages devoted to this lecture series are divided into three groups. To enter a group of pages, begin by clicking on one of the three images below:

				Click on this portrait of Matsuo Bashô by Bashô's patron Sugiyama Sanpû, 1647-1732, (at the Tenri Central Library, Tenri, Japan) to go to the pages devoted to Narrow Road to the Deep North. (To see a larger image of the portrait, click here.)
				Click on this depiction of Koharu reading a love letter, a scene in "Double Love Suicides at Amijima," to enter the web pages devoted to the plays of Chikamatsu Monzaemon that we will read. (Contemporary artist Tomiko Kato painted the image to the left; unfortunately the link to her web site has been discontinued.)
				Click on the cover art for the first edition English translation (1953) of Kawabata Yasunari's Snow Country to go to the pages devoted to Snow Country. (*Under construction beginning March 10; now accessible.)