IAFOR Journal of Arts & Humanities (Aug 2012)
Exploring Nagusamegusa (1418): The Semiotics of Encounter and Exchange for a Poet-Traveller in Muromachi Japan
Abstract
The paper applies the LibrAsia2012 conference theme of "exchanges and encounters" to a fifteenth-century Japanese travelogue, Nagusamegusa ("Grasses of Consolation", 1418), by the influential poet and Zen priest Shōtetsu (1381–1459). On a number of levels we can find in this work a great richness and diversity of exchanges and encounters; here the paper examines two types of encounters for their encoded significance in historical, social and cultural terms.
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