Treatise on epistolary style : João Rodriguez on the noble art of writing Japanese letters
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
Treatise on epistolary style : João Rodriguez on the noble art of writing Japanese letters
(Michigan monograph series in Japanese studies, no. 39)
Center for Japanese Studies, University of Michigan, 2002
- : cloth
Available at 14 libraries
  Aomori
  Iwate
  Miyagi
  Akita
  Yamagata
  Fukushima
  Ibaraki
  Tochigi
  Gunma
  Saitama
  Chiba
  Tokyo
  Kanagawa
  Niigata
  Toyama
  Ishikawa
  Fukui
  Yamanashi
  Nagano
  Gifu
  Shizuoka
  Aichi
  Mie
  Shiga
  Kyoto
  Osaka
  Hyogo
  Nara
  Wakayama
  Tottori
  Shimane
  Okayama
  Hiroshima
  Yamaguchi
  Tokushima
  Kagawa
  Ehime
  Kochi
  Fukuoka
  Saga
  Nagasaki
  Kumamoto
  Oita
  Miyazaki
  Kagoshima
  Okinawa
  Korea
  China
  Thailand
  United Kingdom
  Germany
  Switzerland
  France
  Belgium
  Netherlands
  Sweden
  Norway
  United States of America
Note
Includes bibliographical references (p. 95-97) and index
Description and Table of Contents
Description
The Great Grammar of the Japanese Language (Arte da lingoa de Japam) was written by the Portuguese Jesuit missionary Joao Rodriguez (1561-1633) and printed by the Jesuit mission press in Nagasaki between 1604 and 1608. The grammar is a veritable treasure house of information about the Japanese language in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, and particularly the language of polite society.<p>Japanese epistolary style, or sorobun, is one of the topics dealt with by Rodriguez. Rodriguez explains in his Treatise on Epistolary Style what kind of letters there are and their names, the set phrases that are used, how a letter is divided into its component parts, how to interpret the physical layout of a letter, and how the level of politeness can be determined. Rodriguez deals extensively with the courtesies for the Buddhist clergy, and he proposes an adaptation of these forms so that they can be used for and by Jesuit missionaries in Japan. Finally, Rodriguez provides a large number of sample letters.<p>The "Treatise on Epistolary Style" has a twofold utility for modern readers. First, it is an excellent instrument for dissecting Japanese letters from the early-modern era into their component parts. Second, it can help to make apparent the valuable historical and social clues that are often hidden in what appear to be trivial epistolary details. Once one understands the principles of the Japanese epistolary style, with its subtle social nuances and minute gradations of courtesies, much more information can be obtained from early-modern documents than their factual contents alone.
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