CLPW

• Asian Literature


  Various facets of literature, primarily the poetry and prose writings produced in a variety of languages in Asia
• Religion, politics, and other developments have influenced the flourishing of Asian literature
• The literary mores of Asia, the largest continent, are immense in scope and length of existence
• Exploring Asian Literature by geographical region

  1. Literary exploration

  2. Categorisation by region
• Asian literature reflects similarities in customs, traditions, philosophies, struggles, and successes of Asian and African countries and their developing nations
• Ways to categorise Asian literature


  • Religion
  • Zone
  • Region
  • Ethnic group
  • Literary genre
  • Historical perspective
  • Language of origin
• Chinese literature


  One of the major literary heritages of the world, with an uninterrupted history of more than 3,000 years
• The Chinese language has retained its unmistakable identity in its spoken and written aspects despite changes
• Chinese literature


  • The Tang Dynasty is the finest era, with poets like Tu Fu, Li Po and Wang Wei creating landmark works
  • Profoundly influenced the literary traditions of other Asian countries like Korea, Japan, and Vietnam
• The pronunciation of Chinese graphs led to homonyms and misunderstandings when spoken or read aloud without the aid of the graphs
• Japanese literature


  One of the major literatures in the world both in quantity and quality, with a literary tradition extending from the 7th century CE to the present
• Japanese literature


  • Early writing was motivated by impact from China, but later Japanese tradition created its distinct literary landmark
  • Renowned poetic forms include haiku and theatrical genres like Noh and Kabuki
  • Favors vagueness, with elements of speech required for easy understanding often excluded
• Despite the complexities, Japanese literature is extremely interesting to modern-day readers
• Li Po and Tu Fu


  Two of the greatest Chinese poets, who competed heavily but were called friends by many scholars
• Korean literature


  The body of works written by Koreans, initially in Classical Chinese, later in various transcription systems using Chinese characters, and finally in Hangul
• Major traditional poetic forms in Korean literature


  • Hyangga
  • Pyŏlgok
  • Sijo
  • Kasa
• Before the 20th century, much of Korean literature was written in Chinese rather than in Korean, even after the invention of Hangul
• Seo Jeong-ju


  A Korean poet and university professor, widely considered one of the best poets in 20th-century Korean literature, nominated five times for the Nobel Prize
• Indian literature


  The original Indian literature took the form of the canonic Hindu sacred writings, the Veda, written in Sanskrit
• Other related languages appeared in the modern languages of northern India from the ancient Indian experience, which consists of two Sanskrit epic poems, the Mahabharata and Ramayana, as well as the Bhagavata-purana and the other Puranas
• The South Indian language of Tamil is an exception to the Sanskrit influence, having a classical tradition of its own
• Beginning in the 19th century, Western literary models had an impact on Indian literature, leading to the use of language prose on a major scale
• Rabindranath Tagore


  A Bengali poet, short-story writer, song composer, playwright, essayist, and painter who introduced new prose and verse forms and the use of colloquial language into Bengali literature, and was the first non-European to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature