Introduction

The summer grasses!
All that is left of the warrior's dream!
Basho

Introduction

There is an inexplicable and dominant quality in human nature which desires to know and understand the other, the thing which we are not. Women and men, in ideal situations, try to understand each other. Peoples of different cultures, religions, and politics, in open environments conducive to discussion, hopefully do the same. It would seem that there is something hard-wired in the human heart and mind which seeks to understand its own identity through attempting to understand what appears to be his opposite. Within the last century, there have been staggering technological changes which have made distant countries as close as mere hours away by airplane, seconds away by computer. This sense of immediacy has brought with it the ability of members of both East and West cultures to examine the other with intense scrutiny. Through newer methods of investigation we are able to have easy access to many different sources of information about other cultures, philosophies, and world views. The histories and lore of other countries and cultures are easily available to anyone. The profound differences and similarities ought to be more obvious to modern investigation than in any other time in human civilization. This thesis does not proclaim to be an authoritative voice in unraveling the differences between the East and West. What this text provides is an exploration into the commonalities and differences of warrior-identity revealed in two literary texts produced by two historical feudal civilizations separated by thousands of kilometers, each oblivious of the existence of the other.

In exploring medieval themes in a comparative framework we need to legitimize the premises of our inquiry so that our conclusions are not based on arbitrary selection. Although there has been a tremendous amount of scholarship done on both the European knight and the Japanese samurai, there has been relatively very little comparative work done in the areas between them besides the passing nods of acknowledgement by authors who then tend to focus on either one or the other. This thesis focuses on two significant medieval texts as representative works of their respective cultures and feudal systems. They are Chretien de Troyes' The Knight of the Lion and the Japanese war epic Heike Monogatari, otherwise known in English as the Tale of the Heike. This thesis is concerned with identifying the links and commonalities, as well as some of the differences between the European knight and the Japanese samurai by examining medieval texts which reflect each respective feudal civilization.

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