Essays in Idleness by Meredith Mckinney

Essays in Idleness by Meredith Mckinney

Offers two works on life's fleeting pleasures by Buddhist monks from medieval Japan, but each shows a different world-view. This book includes ribald stories of drunken monks to aching nostalgia for the fading traditions of the Japanese court.

[Essays in Idleness is] a most delightful book, and one that has served as a model of Japanese style and taste since the 17th centuryThese cameo-like vignettes reflect the importance of the little, fleeting futile things, and each essay is Kenko himself * Asian Student *

Kenkô was born around 1283 in Kyoto. He probably became a monk in his late twenties, and was also noted as a calligrapher. Today he is remembered for his wise and witty aphorisms, 'Essays in Idleness'.

Chômei was born into a family of Shinto priests in around 1155, at at time when the stable world of the court was rapidly breaking up. He became an important though minor poet of his day, and at the age of fifty, withdrew from the world to become a tonsured monk. He died in around 1216.

Meredith McKinney is a translator of Japanese literature, both contemporary and classical. She lived in Japan for twenty years and is currently a visitng fellow at the Australian National University in Canberra.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780141192109
ISBN 10	0141192100
Title	Essays in Idleness
Author	Meredith Mckinney
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Penguin Books Ltd
Year published	2013-12-05
Number of pages	224
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.