East Asia Seminar - Prof Joshua Mostow

Illustrations and Popular Interpretations of the Hundred Poets in Edo Japan

This talk will introduce popular printed Edo-period editions of the Hyakunin isshu (One Hundred Poets, One Poem Each) collection that included not only written commentary but also illustrations of the contents of the poems. A distinctly vernacular interpretative tradition will be revealed, which even influenced the earliest English translations of these poems.

Joshua Mostow is Professor in the Dept. of Asian Studies at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada. He is currently a Visiting Fellow at Clare Hall. He has published widely on premodern Japanese literature and its relations to visual arts.