The Academic History Of The Legend Of The Cowherd And The Weaving Maid In Japan

The legend of the Seventh Evening is an eye-catching phenomenon in the history of the China-Japan cultural communication. In the late period of Nara and the earlier period of Heian, there was a fashion that literati competed to create some poetry about the legend, so now a lot of excellent Chinese classical poems and Waka have been left. Both the nobles’ begging for skills and their poems in the Double Seventh Day in the Heian period and the common people’s supplication by using bamboo in the period of Edo originate from the Festival of the Double Seven Day and its legend in China. Since Takagitosio’s study on such stories as the tale type of swan maiden in 1900, Japanese scholars have done many studies on the legend from different perspectives, such as folklore, sociology, mythology, literature, anthropology and so on.The academic materials about the legend of the Seventh Evening are many and various. But up to now, there is no one who has done the work to comb and comment on the academic history of the study on the legend except that some short and concise relevant literature review and appraisal are made in certain essays’ introductory parts. To know the academic research on the legend can not only provide us some evidence to know the situation of the dissemination of the legend in Japan but also be helpful for us to identify the different perspectives of the study on the legend, such as the contents, the methodologies and theories and so on, in different periods. Through the academic history of the legend, we can know the process of the development of Japanese Folklore and the social vicissitude behind it, which is necessary and can be considered as an active duty because it plays a referential role both in promoting the desciplinary development and academic reflection and in thinking about the pioneering academic questions.This dissertation is trying to illustrate the process of the development of such subjects as folklore and Japanese literature from a side view and identify the process of the vicissitude of Japanese society behind the research on the legend through scrutinizing the Japanese academic research papers about the legend and some first-hand relevant Japanese theoretical books. Therefore, the following conceptions are included in this dissertation. Firstly, with trying to exhaust the existing relevant study material as much as possible, this dissertation is to comb its research contents, ideas, methods and paradigms and so on and give enough recognition to the interrelationship among scholars of different times especially the evolution of their heritage and innovation in the academic field. Secondly, by thinking of the academic history of the legend as the setting of the Japanese Folklore and literature, this dissertation will disclose the vicissitude of the academic practices in Japan in this field, such as academic schools, academic paradigms, research theories, through which we can know the development of the history of Japanese Folklore. Thirdly, by putting the legend study in the whole Japanese society and through introducing its background, this paper tries to illustrate the factors relevant to history, ideology and politics behind it in hope that people can understand the social vicissitude in Japan.According to the material collected, this paper can be divided into seven parts. The main idea of each part is as follows:The first part is introduction. The first section of this part is to explain the meaning of the title and some relevant concepts, the denotation and connotation of the legend and data ranges, research significance and the contents of the research. The second section is to have a presentation about the heritage of the legend between China and Japan. The third section tries to sum up the study on the legend by introducing the origin of the study and its background, some important scholars and their achievements, and the contents of each chapter in the main part of this paper will be included in this section.The second chapter is about the study contents of the legend in China. In the first section, this paper will explain the social and scientific background of this study through the introducing the conflict and communication between Sinology and Western culture studies. The second section is to probe into the literature study on the legend. The third section will focus on the monographic study in the off seasons together with its historical background. The last part in this chapter is to comb and comment the field study on the legend and then conclusion of this part follows.The third chapter tries to talk about the study on the legend in the process of its handing down among the civilians in Japan. The first part begins with the study background and looks back on the contents of the origin of Japanese Folklore and the investigation of folk songs and tales in Japan. The second part is about the main study methods and the field study based on field investigation. The third part tries to sum up and appraise the study on the texts and styles gained in the field work. Then this paper will put the transmission of the legend and regional study on the legend at its heart to sort through the existing academic achievements with the writer’s assessments. At last, it comes to the conclusion.The fourth chapter focuses on the comparative study on the legend in both China and Japan and then the author’s comments will follow. In the first section, this paper will talk about the introduction and variation of the Chinese story of The Cowherd and The Weaving Maid from China to Japan, which paves the way for the study on the legend. Then this paper tries to identify the differences between two studies on the legend in China and Japan through comparing the literature materials. In the third part, the comparative field study and investigation will be on the focus. Through the comparison, this paper can summarize the study on the different variations of similar stories presented in the field investigation in the process of oral transmission in both China and Japan. The fourth part is to show the similarities, differences and evolvement of the different styles of the legend through comparing the studies on its different styles in the two countries. And at the end of this part, there is a summary of the whole chapter.The fifth chapter is to comb and comment on the legend from the perspective of the study on the festal activities in the celebration of the double seven festival. The first section is about the survey of the study. In the second and third parts, this paper mainly clears up the study and research on the legend in both China and Japan through analyzing the activities of the Chinese and Japanese festival celebration. The fourth section, based on the academic research from the perspective of Japanese literature, intends to sort and evaluate the academic study on the celebrating activities about the legend in Japan by using the theories of literature environment in the study of the native Japanese literature and the folklore culture. Then it is the conclusion of this part.The sixth part will cover the study on the legend in Japanese classical literature and make a comment on it. In the beginning of this part, this paper will make a survey of the legend in Japanese classical literature and its research contents. The second section is to use the study of the introduction and infiltration of the legend in the poems made by imitating Chinese classical poetry as the core to neaten and evaluate the academic research on the poetry about the legend of the Seventh Evening in the Kaifuusou. The third section is to put the assimilation and native study of the poetry about the legend in chanting Waka at the heart to make a sorting and evaluation of the study on the relevant poems in the Mannyousyuu and Kokinnsyuu about the legend. The fourth section, based on the study of the novels in the middle ages, tries to sort out the research on the infiltration and variation of the legend in the Monogatari literature. Then it is the conclusion of this part.The last part is the conclusion. This part will give a summary of the research content of this dissertation according to its research purpose:the content of each chapter, the research methods and the communication and amendment of the research, the academic course of the study on the Japanese Folklore, folktales, Japanese literature embodied in the history of the study on the legend, and the social vicissitude implied in the history of the study on the legend.