I know the textbook only has space for a truncated account of Japanese history, but I was still a bit disappointed to see it skimmed over the Heian era. Even though there isn't as much evidence to study for Ancient Japan as there is for the premodern period, I'm super invested in the folklore and traditions of that time. Maybe I'm invested because there isn't as much evidence. It makes what we do know all the more mysterious. I'm especially interested in early Japanese literature. Ono no Komachi, a female poet later alluded to in Noh plays and by writers such as Ihara Seikaku Unfortunately, not a lot of it survives because paper is so delicate, but I learned in Professor Brownstein's Japanese Classics course that poetry was a top priority for the Heian court. Not only were the rules incredibly minute, but it was steeped in word play which is specific to the Japanese language. The most common example would be analogies of words being like seeds which sprout i...