Myth Reading Group 23 March: In Ghostly Japan

The Myth Reading Group will meet on ‘Zoom’ on Thursday 23 March 2023, 5:30-6:30 pm (UK time). The link to join is posted in the comments for this post. All are welcome.

The theme for the Spring Term is Japanese Myth.

The Peony Lantern, illustration from Lafcadio Hearn, In Ghostly Japan (Gutenberg.org)

Continuing our readings of Japanese myth, this week we will look into some of the work of Lafcadio Hearn (1850-1904), a Greek-British writer who travelled from the US to Japan and finally settled there towards the end of the nineteenth century. Hearn (later known as Koizumi Yakumo after marrying in Japan and obtaining citizenship), explores the supernatural, strange “ghosts” of Japanese culture through a series of essays, stories, poems and fairy tales. In the story of the Peony Lantern, taken from the collection In Ghostly Japan (1899), the ghosts of two women appear as ambivalent, deceitful beings, and harmful to mortals who interact with them. In another “ghost” story from the same collection, the story of the Tengu, a bird-like spirit grants a wish to a priest with disappointing results.

Texts:

1. A Passional Karma/Ghosts in the Romance of the Peony-Lantern
2. Story of a Tengu

Further reading:

1. Lafcadio Hearn, Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things (1904)
2. “The Many Lives of Lafcadio Hearn”, Andrei Codrescu, The Paris Review, 2019