Ugetsu Monogatari

Ugetsu Monogatari (雨月物語, Tales of Moonlight and Rain^?) is a collection of nine supernatural tales by the Japanese author Ueda Akinari, first published in 1776.

Largely taken from traditional Japanese and Chinese ghost stories, the collection is among most important works of Japanese fiction of the 18th century, the middle of the Edo period. Edo literary achievements are normally associated with the fiction of Ihara Saikaku and drama of Chikamatsu Monzaemon in the Genroku period and the popular literature of Takizawa Bakin in the later Bunka Bunsei period. Ugetsu Monogatari, then, occupies an important yet often overlooked position between these two moments in Edo literary history. The collection is the author's best known work. He had previously written two ukiyo zoshi in 1766-7 and a second collection Harusame Monogatari was not printed until 1907.

The term "monogatari" reflects a refined form of narrative fiction, for example the earlier "court romances" like Genji monogatari and Saigyō monogatari. Ugetsu is a compound; u means "rain", while getsu translates to "moon". It derives from a passage in the book's preface describing "a night with a misty moon after the rains", and references a noh play also called Ugetsu, which likewise employs the common contemporary symbols of rain and moon. These images evoked the supernatural and mysterious in East Asian literature; Qu You's "Mudan ting ji", one of Ueda's major sources, indicates that a rainy night or a morning moon may presage the coming of supernatural beings.Tales of Moonlight and Rain is the most common English translation; other translations include Tales of a Clouded Moon and Tales of Rain and the Moon.

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