Hello! First of all, English is not my first language, so I apologize and hope you can understand me. I plan to do a research on the representation of rivers in literature and I would like to do something related to Japanese literature. Although I would prefer poetry, it can be a book too. However, I don’t remember any work that I could do the research about. Doesn’t need to be that important in the story/poem, just something that I can work with (like, rivers representing the passing of time, how the story changes after passing by the river, idk anything that I could somewhat try working with?). I’m new to academic researching so… I don’t know if my question sounds too confusing.
I like Saigyo Hoshi’s and Matsuo Bansho’s poems a lot but idk if I could research on them about this…
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You can start by mentioning the earliest chronicle, the *Kojiki* (古事記). It has an episode where a deity called Izanagi performs a cleansing ritual in a river from which three major gods are born, one of which ends up being the founder of the Japanese imperial family.
It might be important to notice that this scene is a tad bit controversial. Story goes that his sister-wife Izanami (yeah, good start) dies during childbirth, ends up in the underworld, and he goes to take her back, but she can’t leave because she has already eaten from the food of the dead and should not be looked at. Izanagi obviously does, sees her as a corpse, and flees—basically a mix of the western myths of Persephone and Eurydice. Anyhow, during the confrontation he swears he’ll beget more people than she swore to kill as a punishment, and he actually manages to give ‘birth’ during this ritual bath at the river multiple times. Now, the problematic parts: whole story is heavily misogynistic—earlier they failed to produce a healthy offspring because she spoke first during the wedding-ritual, and they had to repeat it with him being in the lead. After that they could produce heirs, but those aren’t really important, and then she dies, they have this conflict (that may or may not be an allegory of interacting with a woman during menstruation), and now he has to cleanse himself at this river where he not only gives birth on his own, without the woman’s contribution, but these kids are literally the sun, moon, and seas, so a pretty big deal. (Although, to be fair, the one considered to be the progenitor of the imperial bloodline is at least a woman, the sun goddess Amaterasu)
Edit: For something more digestible, Nagai Kafū has a novel called *Bokutō Kidan* (濹東綺譚) about the clashes of the old and new in a quickly modernising Japan. You can find it in translation either as *A Strange Tale from East of the River* or as *Something Strange Across the River*—though the river itself isn’t really important here, but I cannot recall anything better atm
It’s more contemporary, however Ariyoshi Sawako’s 紀ノ川 might be relevant.
If you want to get metaphorical, there’s the [Tanabata](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanabata) story, where the two lovers are separated by the 天の川 (i.e., the Milky Way).
Found a website on waka poetry that may be a good starting point for you. The amazing thing is that there are a bunch of tags, making it snap to find particular poems that deal with a given image. Here are all the poems tagged with kawa. https://www.wakapoetry.net/tag/kawa/
It took me a minute to figure this out, so sharing this with you to save you time. The title of each entry tells you which collection of poetry it’s from and which poem it is.
>MAN’YŌSHŪ –> Collection
>MYS III: 440 –> Poem title
I think the translations could be viewed as scholarly, even though it appears to be a passion project. If you plan to use the English translations in your work, but check with your advisor whether or not it’s an acceptable reference.
> This contents of this site are produced by Dr Thomas McAuley of the School of East Asian Studies at the University of Sheffield.
Bodies of water are sometimes thought to be connected to the afterlife. Commonly known, 三途の川 is the name of the river people are said to cross when they pass. There’s probably lots of metaphors/literature on this