叙事詩

• Reading: じょじし
• Romaji: jojishi
• Kanji breakdown: 叙 (jo) — narrate, describe; 事 (ji) — event, matter; 詩 (shi) — poem
• Pronunciation: /dʑo.dʑi.ɕi/

Meaning

Epic poem; epic; a long narrative poem celebrating heroic deeds and historical or legendary events.

A literary genre in which a narrator recounts the deeds of a hero or the history of a people in elevated poetic form. Western examples include Homer's Iliad and Odyssey. Japan has no strong indigenous epic tradition in the strict sense, but the long poems (長歌) of the Man'yōshū and works like the Heike Monogatari fulfil comparable cultural roles. The term 叙事詩 was coined in the Meiji era to translate the Western concept.

Examples

1. ホメロスの叙事詩は西洋文学の原点とされ、今日も広く読み継がれている。 Homer's epics are regarded as the origin of Western literature and are still widely read today.
2. 日本には西洋的な叙事詩の伝統は薄いが、万葉集の長歌がその役割を担った。 Japan has little tradition of Western-style epic poetry, but the long poems of the Man'yōshū fulfilled that role.
3. 英雄の冒険を壮大なスケールで語る叙事詩を読むと、民族の歴史と誇りを肌で感じる。 Reading an epic that narrates a hero's adventures on a grand scale, one feels the history and pride of a people in one's bones.

Usage Guide

Context: classical poetry, world literature, mythology

Tone: neutral

Origin & History

Compound of 叙事 (joji, narrating events; 叙 narrate + 事 events/matters) and 詩 (shi, poem). The term was coined in the Meiji era as Japanese scholars translated and engaged with Western literary genres. The category of 'epic' had no direct equivalent in classical Japanese poetics.

Cultural Context

Era: Meiji–Modern

Generation: Adults

Social background: Educated