Japan’s Gempei wars of 1180-85, which had…

Japan’s Gempei wars of 1180-85, which had brought an end to the comfortable, aesthetic life of courtier-poets and court ladies writing in the capital, become the subject of the epic Tale of the Heike, a work of complex mixed oral and written origins that reaches its final form in 1371.

Collections of short tales, some religious, some secular in nature, enjoy continuing popularity among Japanese readers of the age.