abstract: Stories concerning Minamoto no Yoshitsune, one of Japan's best known and most tragic heroes, are numerous and varied. From his birth to his death, nearly every episode of Yoshitsune's life has been retold in war tales, histories, and plays. One of the major and most influential retellings of the Yoshitsune legend is found in Gikeiki, a text from the fifteenth century. This study looks at the early period of the legend and specifically focuses on the Kibune episode, when Yoshitsune lived and trained at Kurama Temple. It provides a new translation of the episode as told in Gikeiki and discusses the different portrayals of Yoshitsune within the Gikeiki textual lineage and in previous and subsequent works of literature. The thesis also takes a brief look at the development of Gikeiki texts; it shows the malleability of the Yoshitsune legend and the Gikeiki text and discusses the implications that this malleability has on our understanding of the place of Gikeiki and the legend of Yoshitsune within the medieval Japanese cultural consciousness. / Dissertation/Thesis / M.A. Asian Languages and Civilizations 2014

This thesis aims to examine the ways in which women are used as vehicles within the noh and kabuki theatre traditions to perpetuate moral and religious doctrine. Using the theoretical frameworks of Michel Foucault, Judith Butler, and Jill Dolan, I examine two plays which feature a female demon as their antagonist, Momijigari and Dojoji, and focus on the ways they incorporate Buddhist and Neo-Confucian ideology in their respective noh and kabuki renditions.

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Sesshu Toyo (1420-1506) was a preeminent Japanese monk painter who journeyed to China in the mid-fifteenth century. This thesis focuses on a diptych of landscape paintings by Sesshu Toyo, Autumn and Winter Landscapes (Shutou sansui zu), to analyze how Sesshu; selectively synthesized traditions of Chinese painting tradition that had already been established in Japan and the art conventions he discovered in fifteenth-century China. To contextualize this topic, this thesis explores the revival of the Southern Song (1127-1279) painting tradition which had impacts on both contemporary Chinese painters and landscape painters in Japan during the fifteenth century. I also analyze the culture of Japanese Zen monastics and their art-related activities and the transformation of Southern Song painting traditions within China in the early Ming period (later half of the fourteenth century-first half of the fifteenth century).

This thesis presents translations of Kazashi no himegimi and Sakuraume no sōshi, two tales belonging to the genre of medieval Japanese narrative known as otogi-zōshi, and of the subcategory known as iruimono (tales of non-humans). Chapter 1 provides context, beginning with a brief history of otogi-zōshi and a description of residual challenges in its research, including the parameters of the genre and problems with its nomenclature. This is followed by a discussion of the typical physical formats of these tales, Nara ehon and emaki, and a brief history of iruimono and plant symbolism in otogi-zōshi completes the chapter. Literary analysis of Kazashi no himegimi and Sakuraume no sōshi in Chapter 2 focuses on the irui characters in each tale, describing their motivations and the effect they have on the humans they interact with. Format, plot, and character are compared and contrasted for each tale, and the textual sources are briefly described. Chapter 3 provides complete translations for Kazashi no himegimi and Sakuraume no sōshi with annotations for obscure words, puns, and meanings that may be unclear in the text. The chapter ends with a conclusion discussing aspects of the tales that might usefully be explored further.