The Vicissitudes of Samurai Culture

Paper Summary:

This paper examines two texts which were written more than one hundred years apart, both detailing samurai wars but written at two disparate points in samurai history. The paper also assesses the changes in the way in which samurai exploits were portrayed, and in particular, attempts to chart the progression of the concept of loyalty within the samurai realm over the course of its early history. The first text examined is "Shomonki: The Story of Masakado's Rebellion", written in 1099, when the samurai was a relatively new figure in society. The second text "The Tale of the Heike", also known as "Heike Monogatari", was written in 1221, when samurai involvement in government had increased, wars between clans had escalated, and samurai culture had become a distinctive and ubiquitous feature of greater Japanese culture.

From the Paper:

"Shomonki was written during the Heian period, by someone who was probably a first-hand observer (Rabinovitch, 44-45), and it is instructive in detailing the types of disputes which did, in the end, lead to the rise of the Samurai and also to the fall of the Heian court. Tales of the Heike, on the other hand, was written during the Kamakura period, when the samurai had become such a force in society that the traditional aristocracy of the court had been replaced by a new warrior aristocracy--with warring samurai clans fighting for and seeking control. In particular, Tales of the Heike, chronicles the Genpei war, between the Heike (or Taira) and Minamoto (or Genji) clans. It tells the tale from the perspective of both sides and, interestingly, focuses not only on battles, military strategy and the lives of warriors, but also on lesser players, such as women and servants, and their stories and plights throughout. The samurai, of course, gained government power in the twelfth century and it seems that around the tie that The Tales of the Heike were written, the samurai ethics, including that of loyalty, had changed to such an extent that it become an expectation of all people--a cultural value, rather than a warrior code."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Rabinovitch, Judith (Ed. & Transl.) Shomonki: The Story of Masakado's Rebellion. Tokyo: Monumenta Nipponica, 1986.
• Watson, Burton (Transl.) The Tales of the Heike. New York: Columbia UP, 2006.

More papers on The Vicissitudes of Samurai Culture:

• Comparison Essay # 134516 : "The Vicissitudes of Samurai Culture"
• Essay # 90868 : "The Media and the Americanization of Canadian Culture"
• Term Paper # 128500 : "The Fading of Japanese Culture"

APA Citation:

MLA Citation: