The Book of Tea by Okakura Kakuzō (black female authors .txt) 📕
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The Book of Tea, one of the great English tea classics, is a long essay about the connection between teaism, Taoism, and the aesthetics of Japanese culture. It was written by Okakura Kakuzō in English and was published in the United States in 1906.
The essay targets a Western audience and seeks to explain the importance of tea in Japanese culture, not just as a beverage, but as a form of art expressed in different aspects. After a brief introduction of the Western attitude towards tea, Okakura demystifies the admiration of the Japanese people for this green plant by presenting the different schools of tea, its connection to Zen philosophy, and how it has affected the arts. The famous tea ceremony and its rigid formalities are explained, together with the contributions of the great tea-masters.
The Book of Tea is considered by many to be one of the first books to introduce Eastern culture and philosophy to the Western world. This was possible due to Okakura’s early contact with the English language and Western thought, but also due to his later involvement in the Asian art division of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, which he came to head in 1910.
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- Author: Okakura Kakuzō
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The ceremony is over; the guests with difficulty restraining their tears, take their last farewell and leave the room. One only, the nearest and dearest, is requested to remain and witness the end. Rikiu then removes his tea-gown and carefully folds it upon the mat, thereby disclosing the immaculate white death robe which it had hitherto concealed. Tenderly he gazes on the shining blade of the fatal dagger, and in exquisite verse thus addresses it:
“Welcome to thee,
O sword of eternity!
Through Buddha
And through Dharuma alike
Thou hast cleft thy way.”
With a smile upon his face Rikiu passed forth into the unknown.
EndnotesPaul Kransel, Dissertations, Berlin, 1902. ↩
Mercurius Politicus, 1638. ↩
The Chinese Elysium. ↩
We should like to call attention to Dr. Paul Carus’s admirable translation of the Tao Te Ching. The Open Court Publishing Company, Chicago, 1898. ↩
The precious jewels formed in the bodies of Buddhas after cremation. ↩
We refer to Ralph N. Cram’s Impressions of Japanese Architecture and the Allied Arts. The Baker & Taylor Co., New York, 1905. ↩
The Dragon Gorge of Honan. ↩
“Pingtse,” by Yuenchunlang. ↩
Sumadera, near Kobe. ↩
All celebrated Chinese poets and philosophers. ↩
ColophonThe Book of Tea
was published in 1906 by
Okakura Kakuzō.
This ebook was produced for
Standard Ebooks
by
Tassos Natsakis,
and is based on a transcription produced in 1997 by
Matthew, Gabrielle Harbowy, and David Widger
for
Project Gutenberg
and on digital scans available at the
Internet Archive.
The cover page is adapted from
Bridge Over a Pond of Water Lilies,
a painting completed in 1899 by
Claude Monet.
The cover and title pages feature the
League Spartan and Sorts Mill Goudy
typefaces created in 2014 and 2009 by
The League of Moveable Type.
The first edition of this ebook was released on
January 24, 2019, 5:02 p.m.
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