Mishima Yukio summary

Written and fact-checked by The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica

Below is the article summary. For the full article, see Mishima Yukio.

Mishima Yukio, orig. Hiraoka Kimitake, (born Jan. 14, 1925, Tokyo, Japan—died Nov. 25, 1970, Tokyo), Japanese writer. Having failed to qualify physically for military service in World War II, Mishima worked in a Tokyo factory and after the war studied law. He won acclaim with his first novel, Confessions of a Mask (1949). Many of his characters are obsessed with unattainable ideals and erotic desires, as in The Temple of the Golden Pavilion (1956). His epic The Sea of Fertility, 4 vol. (1965–70), is perhaps his most lasting achievement. He strongly opposed Japan’s close ties to the West in the postwar era (notably the new constitution that forbade rearmament) and yearned to preserve Japan’s martial spirit and reverence for the emperor. In a symbolic gesture of these beliefs, he died by committing seppuku (ritual disembowelment) after seizing a military headquarters. He is often considered one of Japan’s most important 20th-century novelists.

Noh theatre Summary

Noh theatre, traditional Japanese theatrical form and one of the oldest extant theatrical forms in the world. Noh—its name derived from nō, meaning “talent” or “skill”—is unlike Western narrative drama. Rather than being actors or “representers” in the Western sense, Noh performers are simply

Analyze short fiction elements evidenced in “The Gift of the Magi,” “The Necklace,” and “The Magic Shop”

short story Summary

Short story, brief fictional prose narrative that is shorter than a novel and that usually deals with only a few characters. The short story is usually concerned with a single effect conveyed in only one or a few significant episodes or scenes. The form encourages economy of setting, concise

novel Summary

Novel, an invented prose narrative of considerable length and a certain complexity that deals imaginatively with human experience, usually through a connected sequence of events involving a group of persons in a specific setting. Within its broad framework, the genre of the novel has encompassed an