Europeans and Japanese, a treatise on contradictions and differences in morals.
Chandeigne| N° d'inventaire | 25694 |
| Format | 12 x 17.5 |
| Détails | 192 p., some illustrations, paperback. |
| Publication | Paris, 2012. |
| Etat | Nine |
| ISBN | 9782915540543 |
"Magellane" collection.
In 1543, the Portuguese were the first Europeans to discover Japan, where they immediately established commercial ties. Francis Xavier established a Jesuit mission there in 1549. In 1597, the first persecutions began. The "Christian century" ended in the 1640s and 1650s: the country then closed in on itself, and its territory was closed to all foreign presence until 1853.
Father Luís Fróis, SJ (1532-1597), who lived in the Japanese archipelago for more than thirty years, made a comparative description of Japanese and European customs in 1585. A series of ethnological snapshots that brilliantly and humorously describe the main aspects of daily life, it is also a literary exercise of great modernity – not without evoking Georges Perec – where an unexpected discourse on us and others develops, throughout notes assembled in chapters on men, women, horses, children, religion, weapons, diseases, music, ships, etc.
The manuscript of this singular text, a small volume composed of 40 sheets of Japanese paper measuring 16 x 22 cm, was only found in 1946 by Josef Franz Schütte in the Madrid archives. In 1993, the Magellane collection published the French translation, signed by Xavier de Castro, accompanied by a very extensive critical apparatus (the first edition in a European country). We have reprinted this translation, revised, in a pocket format accessible to a wider audience, and with a preface that Claude Lévi-Strauss wrote in 2003 – but stripped of its critical apparatus. The notes have been reduced to the essentials.
"Magellane" collection.
In 1543, the Portuguese were the first Europeans to discover Japan, where they immediately established commercial ties. Francis Xavier established a Jesuit mission there in 1549. In 1597, the first persecutions began. The "Christian century" ended in the 1640s and 1650s: the country then closed in on itself, and its territory was closed to all foreign presence until 1853.
Father Luís Fróis, SJ (1532-1597), who lived in the Japanese archipelago for more than thirty years, made a comparative description of Japanese and European customs in 1585. A series of ethnological snapshots that brilliantly and humorously describe the main aspects of daily life, it is also a literary exercise of great modernity – not without evoking Georges Perec – where an unexpected discourse on us and others develops, throughout notes assembled in chapters on men, women, horses, children, religion, weapons, diseases, music, ships, etc.
The manuscript of this singular text, a small volume composed of 40 sheets of Japanese paper measuring 16 x 22 cm, was only found in 1946 by Josef Franz Schütte in the Madrid archives. In 1993, the Magellane collection published the French translation, signed by Xavier de Castro, accompanied by a very extensive critical apparatus (the first edition in a European country). We have reprinted this translation, revised, in a pocket format accessible to a wider audience, and with a preface that Claude Lévi-Strauss wrote in 2003 – but stripped of its critical apparatus. The notes have been reduced to the essentials.