Works
Norinaga’s most important works include the Kojiki-den (Commentaries on the Kojiki), made over a period of around 35 years, and his annotations on the Tale of Genji. Norinaga took the view that the heritage of ancient Japan was one of natural spontaneity in feelings and spirit, and that imported Confucianism ran counter to such natural feelings. He criticized Ogyū Sorai for his worship of Chinese civilization and thought, although it has been pointed out that his philological methodology was heavily influenced by Sorai's. His ideas were influenced by the Chinese intellectual Wang Yangming (Ō Yōmei in Japanese), who had argued for innate knowing, that mankind had a naturally intuitive (as opposed to rational) ability to distinguish good and evil.
Hitherto scholars of ancient literature had shown a preference for the grandness and masculinity of Man'yōshū poetry and an aversion to works like the Tale of Genji, which were regarded as unmanly and feminine. Norinaga resurrected the position of the Tale of Genji, which he regarded as an expression of mono no aware, a particular Japanese sensibility of "sorrow at evanescence" that Norinaga claimed forms the essence of Japanese literature.
In undertaking his textual analysis of ancient Japanese, Norinaga also made vital contributions to establishing a native Japanese grammatical tradition, in particular the analysis of clitics, particles and auxiliary verbs.
Read more about this topic: Motoori Norinaga
Famous quotes containing the word works:
“I believe it has been said that one copy of The Times contains more useful information than the whole of the historical works of Thucydides.”
—Richard Cobden (1804–1865)
“And when discipline is concerned, the parent who has to make it to the end of an eighteen-hour day—who works at a job and then takes on a second shift with the kids every night—is much more likely to adopt the survivor’s motto: “If it works, I’ll use it.” From this perspective, dads who are even slightly less involved and emphasize firm limits or character- building might as well be talking a foreign language. They just don’t get it.”
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“Every man is in a state of conflict, owing to his attempt to reconcile himself and his relationship with life to his conception of harmony. This conflict makes his soul a battlefield, where the forces that wish this reconciliation fight those that do not and reject the alternative solutions they offer. Works of art are attempts to fight out this conflict in the imaginative world.”
—Rebecca West (1892–1983)