Page:A History of Japanese Literature (Aston).djvu/70

54 for the pursuit of pleasure. There was great laxity of morals, as the literature of the period abundantly shows; but learning flourished, and a high state of refinement prevailed in that narrow circle which surrounded the Mikado and his court.

The Heian period is the classical age of Japanese literature. Its poetry may not quite reach the standard of the Manyōshiu, but it contains much that is of admirable quality, while in the abundance and excellence of its prose writings it leaves the Nara period far behind. The language had now attained to its full development. With its rich system of terminations and particles, it was a pliant instrument in the writer's hands, and the vocabulary was varied and copious to a degree which is astonishing when we remember that it was drawn almost exclusively from native sources. The few words of Chinese origin which it contains seem to have found their way in through the spoken language, and are not taken straight from Chinese books, as at a later stage when Japanese authors loaded their periods with alien vocables to an extent for which our most Johnsonian English affords a feeble parallel.

The literature of the Heian period reflects the pleasure-loving and effeminate, but cultured and refined character of the class of Japanese who produced it. It has no serious, masculine qualities. History, theology, science, law—in short, all learned and thoughtful works were composed in the Chinese language, and were of poor literary quality. The native literature may be described in one word as belles-lettres. It consists of poetry, fiction, diaries, and essays of a desultory kind, called by the Japanese Zuihitsu, or "following the pen," the only exceptions being a few works of a more