Dawn of the Warrior Age

The war between the Heike and Genji clans in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries is among the most compelling and significant moments in Japan’s history, immortalized in The Tale of the Heike. Beyond the events recorded in this canonical text, the conflicts of the surrounding years are crucial to medieval Japanese culture and history. In 1156, power began to slip away from the court nobility in Kyoto. A shogunate was later founded in Kamakura, and in 1221, it won a decisive victory over the court.The three war tales translated in this book tell the story of these critical decades, vividly recording stages in the passage from rule by the imperial court in Kyoto to rule by the warrior government in Kamakura. “The Tale of the Hōgen Years” recounts a deposed emperor’s disastrous attempt to regain the throne in 1156. “The Tale of the Heiji Years” narrates a bloody clash between rival courtier factions in 1159. “An Account of the Jōkyū Years” records Kamakura’s victory over the imperial attempt to overthrow it in 1221. These works do not simply complete the story of The Tale of the Heike—they are classics of Japanese literature in their own right. Royall Tyler’s lively translation masterfully conveys the nature of medieval Japanese warfare, rendering aristocratic power politics and the brutal realities of violence with equal aplomb. The Dawn of the Warrior Age is an essential book for readers interested in premodern Japanese history and literature.

Tyler is the most eminent translator of premodern Japanese literature, and his translations render all three tales vividly and with his trademark accuracy. This volume is an important contribution for scholars and teachers of Japanese literature, culture, and history., Royall Tyler’s exquisite renderings of these three essential texts of Japan’s medieval past not only offer English-language readers a compelling introduction to the struggles that ushered in the age of the samurai: they also help explain the enduring power and fascination of this tumultuous period of history for the centuries of people who lived in its wake. Bridging the gap between our world and that of medieval Japan with an ease that comes only with the deepest of erudition, Tyler’s mastery of both prose and poetry allows us to feel the pathos (and contemporary resonances) of a time, when, as the oracle predicted, human folly and ambition led the world to turn over “like the palm of a hand.” Replete with helpful maps, notes and glossaries, the volume is ideal for classroom use and a perfect companion to Tyler’s magnificent, The Tale of the Heike., Indispensable. The world of twelfth and thirteenth century warriors comes alive in Royall Tyler’s powerful work, showcasing dramatic battles, and illuminating a rich cast of characters, ranging from wily emperors and powerful generals to fleeing widows and defeated young men. Tyler’s translation, the first in English of the oldest versions of these three tales, reveals a refreshingly balanced portrait of some, such as the oft-maligned Taira Kiyomori. This volume is essential for understanding how Japan became destabilized by its aggressive sovereigns, and how their untrammeled power was checked by the 1221 victory of Kamakura, Japan’s new warrior government., The field owes a debt of gratitude to Professor Tyler for bringing together in one accessible place three works crucial for understanding the genesis of the cultural and historical memories pertaining to the transformational rise to political power of the Eastern warrior class from the late twelfth century. Making use of the advances of scholarship and textual study of the past several decades and providing helpful reference matter (the maps are most welcome), Professor Tyler’s elegant translations bring the warrior worlds alive.

Royall Tyler is the award-winning translator of The Tale of the Heike and The Tale of Genji. His Columbia University Press books include The Miracles of the Kasuga Deity (2016) and Joy, Despair, Illusion, Dreams: Twenty Plays from the Nō Tradition (2024). After teaching at Ohio State University, the University of Wisconsin–Madison, and the University of Oslo, Tyler retired from the Australian National University.