IliasBansui Tsuchii 土井晩翠　　 １９４０Chigeichi Kure 　呉茂一 1953-1958Chiaki Matsudaira 　松平千秋

1992

Japanese epic of the battle between two clans, Taira ( 平 ) and Minamoto ( 源）

1180-1185English tr. Tale of Heike

by H. C. McCullough 1988

Japanese great classic comparable to Homer’s epics

English translation A.Waley 1921-1933 E.Seidensticker 1976 R.Taylor 2001

Early Modern Japan Edo Period(1603-1868) -seclusion

Meiji period(1868-1912)- Meiji Restoration,

　　　 War with China, with Russia

Taisho Period(1912-1926)- WWIShowa Period(1926-1989)-militarism,

WWII, 　　　　　　 Defeat, New Constitution(democratic Japan)

Heisei Period(1989- present)

Japan opened towards the

Western World in 1868.　→ modernization of the nation

In Praise of Learning 学問のすすめ　 1872

　　 220,000 copies were printed,

when population was 35,000,000

Japan got to know about ancient Greece and Greek culture through west European philhellenism.

The Classical Society of Japan was founded in 1950 by the scholars who were Hellenists, and no Latinists.

Founded in 1950

Natsuki Ikezawa: born in July 7, 1945. Moved to Greece in 1975 and lived there for three years.

Provided Japanese subtitles of the Theo Angelopoulos film, O Thiassos in 1979, and Theo commissioned him to continue providing subtitles for his films.

Haruki Murakami: born in 1949. Wrote Norwegian Wood (published in

1987) duirng a three-year sojourn in Greece and Italy.

Oedipous tyrannos sure to be staged almost every month somewhere in Japan

“The present day and the myths” Asahi Newspaper 23 Feb.2008.

about two writers who died recently

(one is Makoto Oda d. July 30,2007)

Both worked on ancient Greece in their later years.