Handouts on Literary genres and their elements, structures, and traditions in Asia Asian Literature Asian literature refers to the literature that was written over a period of thousands of years, in a variety of countries in Asia. Asian literature encompasses East Asian literature that includes Chinese, Japanese and Korean literature; Central Asian literature comprising of Bengali, Indian, Pakistani and Tamil literature; West Asian Literature that covers Arabic literature, Persian literature and Turkish literature and South East Asian Literature that is comprised of literature of the Philippines. The study of the massive amount of Asian literature as a whole requires the aggregation of literature under specific headings. Asian literature can be divided into a host of different labels, categorized according to religion, zone, region, ethnic group, literary genre, historical perspective or language of origin. Though throughout the centuries a vast amount of Asian literature has been written, most of Asian literature can be broadly categorized as lyric, drama or narrative. The literary type of Asian writing was usually determined by the surrounding culture of the time and often expresses the ideologies prevalent in the era. Haiku, unrhymed poetic form consisting of 17 syllables arranged in three lines of 5, 7, and 5 syllables respectively. The haiku first emerged in Japanese literature during the 17th century, as a terse reaction to elaborate poetic traditions, though it did not become known by the name haiku until the 19th century. A poet cannot create poetry without having a theme in mind. There exists a defined theme for Haiku and all Haiku poets are bound to follow it. Haiku is a nature poem which revolves around seasons and nature. This means that Haiku brings the readers closer to natural beauty while highlighting a particular aspect of human psychology or activities which is associated with a seasonal word. For instance, snow indicate winters- snow could be a time of celebration such as Christmas or a phase of deep sorrow, grief and loneliness. Science fiction (sci-fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction that contains imagined elements that don’t exist in the real world. Science fiction spans a wide range of themes that often explore time travel, space travel, are set in the future, and deal with the consequences of technological and scientific advances. Ancient Indian poetry such as the Hindu epic Ramayana (5th to 4th century BC) includes Vimana flying machines able to travel into space or under water, and destroy entire cities using advanced weapons. In the first book of the Rigveda collection of Sanskrit hymns (1700–1100 BC), there is a description of "mechanical birds" that are seen "jumping into space speedily with a craft using fire and water... containing twelve stamghas (pillars), one wheel, three machines, 300 pivots, and 60 instruments. Folklore is the expressive body of culture shared by a particular group of people; it encompasses the traditions common to that culture, subculture or group. These include oral traditions such as tales, proverbs and jokes. They include material culture, ranging from traditional building styles to handmade toys common to the group Even though local tradition varies on how the different ethnic groups around China classify these narratives they can be classified many different groups that are to be sung or to be spoken. These include folk songs categorized as epics (Shishi), and narrative poems (Xushishi) similar to long ballads or lyrical fairy tales. There are also wedding songs (kujiage), drinking songs (jiuge), love songs (quingge), and work songs (laodongge). As well as the Spoken narratives such as folktales (minjiangushi), myths (shenhua), legends (chuanshuo), animal tales (dongwugushi) and many more different styles of stories. Haruki Murakami was born in Kyoto, Japan in January 12,1949. He grew up in Kobe and then moved to Tokyo, where he attended Waseda University. After college, Murakami opened small jazz bar which he and his wife ran for seven years. He is a famous Japanese author whose works have been translated into several languages. According to John Wray (2015) in The Paris Review, “Haruki Murakami” is not only arguably the most experimental Japanese novelist to have been translated into English, he is also the most popular, with sales in the millions worldwide. His greatest novels inhabit the liminal zone between realism and fable, mystery and science fiction. Internationally, Murakami is now the most widely-read Japanese novelist of his generation; he has won virtually every prize in Japan has to offer, including its greatest, the “Yomiuri Literary Prize”.
