The Rise of the Japanese Novel
Towards a neo-Darwinian approach to literary history

Michael J. Scanlon

PMJS Version 1.0

The Rise of the Japanese Novel
Towards a neo-Darwinian approach to literary history

Michael J. Scanlon

PMJS Version 1.0

For distribution free of charge via
the Pre-Modern Japanese Studies website
hosted by Meiji Gakuin University

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The rise of the Japanese Novel:
Towards a neo-Darwinian approach to literary history

PMJS Version 1.0© Michael J. Scanlon, 2005
All Rights Reserved

To Mom and Dad; Kate, Andy, and Fritz; and Aeri.

The Rise of the Japanese Novel:
Towards a neo-Darwinian approach to literary history

My work can be divided into six major parts. The introduction serves to lay out
the theoretical issues that my text will engage as well as to introduce the dualist system ofliterary development outlined by Franco Moretti (literary history is the interweaving of
two wholly independent paths: un-oriented variation as well as directed and directing
selection) and appropriate the semiotic rectangle (used by Frederick Jameson as anengine of literary production) as the most basic mechanism of selection for long-form
narrative. A prologue then uses these methodological insights to analyze an early version
of a famous piece of late medieval fiction showing both that the central problematicwithin which texts of this type were written was one predicated on the divestment ofenergy from legitimate order in Muromachi times as well as that late medieval fiction
typically resolves this problem by revitalizing the aristo-imperial order of the classicalHeian period.
The first chapter focuses on developments in narrative literature and thecommercial print industry over the first fifty years of the seventeenth century. This
chapter argues that, although development happens within structures, fortuitous events do
occur and can lead to great structural change. It also shows how the texts engaged in thechapter evolve out of the late medieval paradigm but not necessarily into an early modern
one, something important to a Darwinian theory of literary development because itemphasizes the facts that evolution is not a goal-oriented phenomenon as well as thatstructures have the ability to assume new functions as historical and ideologicalenvironments change. In addition, the chapter looks into the birth of the commercialiMichael J. Scanlon

print industry at the turn of the seventeenth century and explains the chief factors that
affected the outcome of the competition between xylography and typography which
occurred over the second quarter of that century, but it steadfastly refuses to draw any
connection between print and literature because the two phenomena were basicallycompletely independent entities over this period.
The second chapter is centered on the latter half of the seventeenth century, aperiod during which xylographic print reproduction first came to assert an important
influence on literary evolution because it was only at this point that it became typical for
texts of literary fiction to be written for the press. It shows that history and print are but
negative pressures which can select against certain forms but not proactively produce
them and posits that text and genre are the agents of evolution. Its most importantfunction, however, is to show the limits of the selectionist rectangle as an analytic tool.
The negative pressures mapped out by the selectionist rectangle do help shape long-form
narrative but do not necessarily affect the development of micro-narratives, short stories,
thread narratives or extended dialogues.
The third chapter discusses the human feelings (ninjō)-correct principles (giri)
dynamic that served as the basic mechanism of selection for long-form fiction during
Japan’s early modern period and uses the selectionist rectangle to overcome (or, at least,
relativize) the epistemological limits of modernity in order to make possible a more
purely historicist understanding of Edo-period literature than has previously beenfeasible. The analytic tool is employed to orient several close readings of famous andtypical texts of early modern long-form fiction and is used to account for the long periodof relative stasis within Tokugawa fiction. It also argues that, because it was a conflictii

Michael J. Scanlon

born of circumstantial factors as opposed to logical irreconcilability, the quality ofcompromise that marks the modern novel is not typically found within early modern
Japanese long-form fiction and shows that, within the Tokugawa era, long-form fiction
continued to evolve within the parameters of the ninjō-giri problematic and not towards aseparate paradigm that presaged the modern Japanese novel.
An extended epilogue closes the text by putting forward a theory linking the riseof the compromised and compromising hero typical of the novel form with the emergenceof a categorical conflict between individuality and socialization that forms the most major
fault line within bourgeois capitalist ideology. In other words, the rise of the Japanesenovel was not the result of some long-term, incremental change towards a predeterminedend. Rather, it is the product of a burst of formal development that occurred after a greatchange in the larger ideological environment was set off by the catastrophe that was the
Meiji Restoration, and the formal elements typically seen as being characteristic of themodern novel in both Japan and the wider bourgeois world are most definitely notindications of intellectual or aesthetic superiority, but simply adaptations to a certain
ideological situation shared by the modern world.
This is not a text meant to be read only by experts in the field of Japanese studies.
Like all histories, it is composed of three main elements: primary source materials, anarrative, and a theoretical apparatus. In my text, the primary source materials arecompletely orthodox. Each and every one of the texts analyzed in detail is known to thefield, and most are pieces of fiction that have long been recognized as being absolutely
central to Japanese literature. Likewise, the narrative is not innovative. To the contrary,
it is quite similar to the standard one that has been produced and re-produced numerousiii

Michael J. Scanlon

times over the past fifty years in mainstream scholarship. It is theory that is the focus of
my text, for this is an attempt to explain, in a new way, the already known facts andtrends of Japanese literary history with equal attention paid to those texts and phenomenathat fit neatly into the structures of the traditionally accepted understanding as well as tothose that have long been seen as lying outside its explanatory framework. Thus, it is ascholarly text that may be read profitably by anyone with an interest in literary
historiography. As for any specialists in the field of Japanese literature or history who
might have interest in my work, I ask that you keep the following three-part question inmind when reading this piece: When it comes to commercially successful, plot-based
long-form fiction, how many texts belonging to genres first evolved in the greater
bourgeois world can you name that do not fit into the logical limits of a conflict between
individuality and socialization? How many texts belonging to genres first evolved inearly modern Japan can you name that do not fit into the logical limits of a conflict
between human feelings (ninjō) and correct principles (giri)? How many texts belonging
to genres first evolved in early modern Japan can you name that fit better into the logicallimits of a conflict between individuality and socialization than into those of one between
human feelings (ninjō) and correct principles (giri)?

iv

Michael J. Scanlon

The Rise of the Japanese Novel:
Towards a neo-Darwinian approach to literary history

Synopsis …………………………………………………………………............ i
Table of Contents …………………………………………………………........... v
List of Charts, Graphs and Tables………………………………………......... vi

Introduction: Literary Darwinism …………………………………………......... 1
Prologue: The Medieval World and its Literature …………………………........ 27
Chapter I: The End of an Era ……………………………………………….......
The more things change… ……………………………………………...........
Revolution? ……………………………………………………………….......
A fish out of water ……….……………………………………………….........
Counterrevolution! ……………………………………………………….........

44
48
63
86
115

Chapter II: Groping for a Form ……………………………………....................
The matrix ………………………………………………………………........
The man …………………………………………………………………........
Sons of the man …………………………………………………………........
The woman ……………………………………………………………….......

141
144
174
200
215

Chapter III: The Fruits of Feudalism ……………………………...………........
An organizational conflict ……………………………………………….......
A tragic void .......………..………………………………………...................
Connecting the dots …………………………………………………….........
Books from Edo; Books from Nanjing …………………………………..........

233
236
274
301
321

Epilogue: The Modern World and its Literature ……………………………...... 346
Bibliography ………………………………………………………………........ 380

v

Michael J. Scanlon

List of Charts, Tables and Graphs

1. Semiotic Rectangle as Codified by A.J. Greimas …………………………...... 19
2. Selectionist Rectangle for Kani kōsen…………………………………....... 23

3. Selectionist Rectangle for the Ōyama shuten dōji ……………………………... 39
4. Selectionist Rectangle for the Ōsaka monogatari ……………………………... 57
5. Editions per Literature Title in Movable-Type Production ………………........... 66
6. Prices of Late Movable-Type Editions…………………………………....... 70

7. Early Modern Booksellers …………………………………………................... 71
8. Intra-Print Competition……………………………………………………... 116

9. Growth in Commercial Publishing I……………………………...……… 145

10. Growth in Commercial Publishing II…………………………………....... 155

11. Selectionist Rectangle for Ninjō-Giri Problematic within Confucian Philosophy………………………………………………………………………........... 248
12. Fiction Publication over the First Half of the Eighteenth Century ………....... 305
13. Meiji Fiction Production …………………………………………................... 357

vi

Michael J. Scanlon

Introduction

1
Introduction

Literary Darwinism
As for literary criticism, it is divided equitably
between creationist faith (the text is a complete andperfect world, and the author is a watchmaker who
foresees everything) and deconstructionist gnosis(at the slightest contradiction, the text collapses into
total chaos).
Modern Epic
Franco Moretti
In 1929, a short novel entitled Kani kōsen (Crab Packing Ship 蟹工船) was
published in the May and June issues of Senki (Battle Flag 戦旗), the flagship journal of
the All-Japan Proletarian Artists’ Federation. The story follows the travails of a group of
workers subjected to inhumane labor conditions aboard a crab cannery ship working thewaters off the coast of communist Russia, and the novel is very much engaged with
Marxist social and political theory. The workers, who are never referred to by name in
the text while alive, form a cross section of society’s disenfranchised that is unmistakably
the lumpenproletariat, a group that Karl Marx considered to have no positive importancein terms of potential for creating socialism. Early in the text they are introduced asfollows:
Among the fishermen, there were those who were sold by “octopus” work gangs
for the building of railroads and the opening of Hokkaidō’s interior. Others were
drifters who had reached the end of the line in other locals, or people who werefine with anything so long as they had alcohol to drink. Mixed into these werehonest farmers, elected by the good village heads around Aomori, who were“know nothings” and “like tree stumps.”
To those employing them, there was nothing better than collecting a group of
motley and dissimilar men of these types and others. (The labor unions in
Hakodate were frenziedly attempting to place organizers among the fishermen on
cannery ships headed for Kamchatka. Contacts in the unions in Aomori andMichael J. Scanlon

Introduction

2

Akita—this they feared this more than anything else!)
漁夫の仲間には、北海道の奥地の開墾地や、鉄道の敷設、各地の土工部屋へ「蛸」に売られたことのあるのや、各地を食いつめた「渡り者」や、酒だけ飲め
ば何もかもなく、ただそれでいいものなどがいた。青森辺の善良な村長さんに選ばれてきた「何も知らない」「木の根ッこのように」正直な百姓もその中に校っている。
――そして、こういうてんでんばらばらものの等を集めることが、雇うものにとって、この上なく具合のいいことだった。
（函館の労働組合は蟹工船、カムサツ
カ行の漁夫のなかに組合者を入れることに死物狂いになっていた。青森、秋田の1組合などとも連絡をとって。それを何よりも恐れていた。

Yet even this group is spurred to action by the extremely callous behavior of the ship’s
superintendent, Asakawa, whose reckless attempts to maximize profits for the unnamed
and faceless owners of the company put the lives of the laborers at risk. After several
work slowdowns from which the men gain confidence, they hold a full-scale strike after
the death of a comrade and take hostage the superintendent and his cronies. When adestroyer from the imperial navy approaches, they rejoice thinking that they will be givena chance to plead their case. The navy, however, shuts down the strike and removes its
leaders. Afterwards, the men recover from their dismay, realize that the capitalists andimperialists are in cahoots, and vow to fight again. The narrative proper ends with therousing phrase: “One more time!”
The text, however, continues. What follows is labeled a postscript, but it is closer
to the mark to call it an alternative or supplementary ending:Let’s add a couple of notes about subsequent matters.
1.) The second complete work stoppage succeeded without a hitch. “No way!”thought the bewildered superintendent. In a stupor, he took cover in thewireless room, but ended up surrendering in front of the door.
2.) When the ships returned to the harbor at Hakodate upon the conclusion of thefishing season, the Hakkō Maru was not the only ship on which work
1

Kobayashi Takiji, Kani kōsen, Kobayashi Takiji zenshū, vol.4 (Tokyo: Shin Nihon
Shuppansha, 1968), pp.11-12.

Michael J. Scanlon

Introduction

3

stoppages or strikes had occurred. Communist propaganda literature cropped
up on two or three other ships.
3.) On the grounds that the superintendent and the foreman had permitted
something as inauspicious as a strike, which had a great effect on production,
to occur, the company fired those loyal dogs “unmercifully” without one redcent in severance pay—something more wretched than [the treatment of] thefishermen. The most interesting thing is that the superintendent had shrieked,“Arhg! How disappointing! I was taken in like a dumb animal the wholetime!”
4.) Thereupon, organization and struggle—having born this great experienceduring which they learned these for the first time, the fishermen and the young
factory hands went into various sectors of labor [once outside] the police gate.
This story is a page from the history of the infiltration of capitalism into thecolonies.
この後のことについて、二、三附け参えて置こう。
イ、 二度目の、完全な「サボ」は、マンマと成功したということ。「まさか」と思っていた、面喰った監督は、夢の中になって無電室にかけ込んだが、ドアーの前で立ち往生してしまったこと、どうしていかが分からなくなって。
ロ、 漁期が終わって、函館へ帰港したとき、「サボ」をやったりストライキをやった船は、博光丸だけではなかったこと。二、三の船から「赤化宣伝」のパンフレットが出たこと。
ハ、 それから監督や雑夫長等が、漁期中にストライキのごとき不祥事を惹起させ、製品高に多大の影響を与えたという理由のもとに、会社があの忠実な犬を「無慈悲」に涙銭一文くれず、（漁夫達よりも惨めに！）首を切ってしまっ
たということ。面白いことは、「あーあ、口惜しかった！俺ゃ今迄、畜生、だまされていた！」と、あの監督が叫んだということ。
ニ、 そして、「組合」「闘争」―― この初めて知った偉大な経験を担って、漁夫、
年若い雑夫等が、警察の門から色々な労働の層へ、それぞれ入り込んで行ったということ。
2―― この一篇は、「植民地に於ける資本主義侵入史」の一頁である。

To twenty-first-century eyes, this is not simply a happy ending that can be seen throughbut still enjoyed; it is naïve and fantastic. Depending on one’s political stance, it would
either undercut the well-meaning (if heavy-handed) narrative that preceded it or be theculmination of a ridiculous text. This can be traced to the ultimate failure of this device
within the domain of “serious literature.” However, in its day, the Kani kōsen was both

2

Kobayashi Takiji, Kani kōsen, pp.88-89.

Michael J. Scanlon

Introduction

4highly successful and taken extremely seriously. The text was made into a book that
seems to have sold a good number of copies in short order, and adaptations soon appearedin the theater world. Marxist critics immediately deemed it a classic, and its popularity
was such that even non-believers had to engage it, though they often took a considerably
more skeptical view. To the central government, it was threatening, and the book version
was soon banned—only a highly abridged edition was allowed to be sold on the open
market until after the conclusion of the Second World War. The text even transcended the
linguistic boundaries of Japanese when an English translation of the revised text wasmade available in 1933, and Kobayashi was considered an important enough literary
figure that an author study appeared in Russian that same year.
There is no way to proactively account for this conclusion in its specific form,
but the state of affairs that helped condition it is made fairly clear in the beginning of aletter Kobayashi sent to the publisher who was going to put out the book version of thetext:
I have sent my second work in a separate letter.
1.) There is no “protagonist” in this work. Neither is there a protagonist of the“individualized life” type. The protagonist is a group of laborers. In this way, I
think I have progressed some since “March 15, 1928.” There have been some
depictions of groups in short stories, but surely this is the first time it has been
done in something of this length. On various points, it was a risk, and there
were problems. Anyway, I believe that a depiction of “the group” is somethingthat proletarian literature must pioneer, it is our mission. If this work is a
strategic sacrifice [towards that goal], I will be happy.
2.) Thus, individual character and psychology, which I attempted in “March 15,
1928” and other writings, are not to be found in this work. Detailed
descriptions of character and psychology have begun to disappear graduallyfrom proletarian literature. I think this has to happen because proletarian
literature is the literature of the group. But I have made precautions to avoid
the boredom and deformedness that often results from this.

Michael J. Scanlon

Introduction

5

別便で、第二作を送りしました。
一、この作には、「主人公」と云うものがない。
「銘銘伝式」の主人公、人物もない。労働の「集団（グループ）」が、主人公になっている。その意味で、「一九二八・三・一五」よりも一歩前進していると思っている。
短編で集団を書いたものはありますが、この位の長さのものでは恐らく始めてであり、色々な点で冒険であり、困難があった。とにかく、「集団」を描くことは、プロレタリア文学の開拓しなければならない、道であると思っています。その一つの捨石にこの作がなれれば、幸福です。
二、で、当然、この作では、「一九二八・三・一五」などで試みたような、各個人の性格、心理が全然なくなっている。
細々しい個人の性格、心理の描写が、プロレタリア文学からはだんだん無くな
りかけている。このことは、プロ文学が集団の文学であることから、そうならなければならないと思っている。然し、そのためによくある片輪な、それから退屈
3
さを出さないために、考顧した筈である。

The text grew directly out of a form evolved within capitalist culture, and it had tofunction within a literary environment dominated by the traditional bourgeois novel. At
the same time, within the circumscribed environment into which the text was written, theoutsized role of the individual and his relationship with society in bourgeois culture wasanathema. Having the happier ending done in summary form after the leaders of theunsuccessful strike are taken away avoids the taint of individual heroism—something thatwould have been a danger had the successful strike been carried out in the main body ofthe narrative where the workers, though known only by sobriquets, could still be seen as
separable or individualizible characters. The ending, in other words, is a survival strategy,
something which—though imperfect—functioned in its day.
This book, in many ways, is supposed to follow a similar path. At its heart it is a
study that combines the methodologies of literary history and the history of the book.
Both are established and accepted scholarly approaches, and there is no need to argue for3

Kobayashi Takiji, Kobayashi Takiji zenshū, vol.14 (Tokyo: Shin Nihon Shuppansha,1969), p.49.

Michael J. Scanlon

Introduction

6

the validity of either at this point. In the West, these have traditionally been subdisciplines of literature and history, respectively, and there has been a long history of nonengagement between the two. However, over the past decade or so, one of the main fociof scholarly energy in the European-language human sciences has been in building
bridges to span this divide. In Japan, where the criteria for separating the study of history
and literature are quite different, scholarship linking literary and book history has had amuch longer tradition, for the pioneers of book history where specialists in the national
literature. If the combination of these two methodologies is to a great degree
conventional, the scope of this study is not. The vast majority of English-language
monographs on Japanese literature are studies of a single text, an author’s oeuvre, or agenre. Even those with wider ranges in time are either histories of produced literaturethat span a century or so at most or investigations of a highly circumscribed object—be ita symbol, a text, or a literary figure—through a vast expanse of time. Here, however,though focusing on the early modern period (1600-1868), I will be considering thevernacular narrative literature produced from the fourteenth to the twenty-first centuries
in an attempt to contextualize the rise of the modern Japanese novel at the end of thenineteenth century and its subsequent domination of all narrative art.4
4The use of the term “literature” in this text when referring to pre-twentieth-century texts
might be seen as being anachronistic because the Japanese word now used to designate
this type of writing—bungaku (文学)—only took on such a meaning in the twentiethcentury. The rise of bungaku—something crucial for the study of the study of literature—
is not as important for the study of literature as it might first appear. Only on
extraordinarily rare occasions can discourse be thought of as initiating practice; nor is it
even often the case that the two are coeval. Rather, practice almost always precedes
discourse. Thus, instead of seeing bungaku as somehow “inventing” literature towards the
beginning of Japan’s modern period, it would be better to argue that the success the term
was able to enjoy at that time was conditioned by the existence of a number of textualMichael J. Scanlon

Introduction

7

Such an investigation needs a metaphor to help structure its narrative, and inmany ways the metaphor has become the center of the study. The theoretical nature ofthis study sets it apart from the vast majority of scholarship on literature carried out by
academics active in Japan. There, the study of the national literature is a highly
populated and segmented field, and scholarly training focuses on philological andbibliographical skills. Scholarly reputation is achieved through the publication of articlelength studies, and the vast majority of academic books by a single author arecompilations of previously published articles. The general narrative of literary history
has not changed radically since the first generation of postwar scholars rose toprominence, and new scholarship tends to focus either on finding undiscovered primarysource materials that will gird or undermine this long-established and well-accepted
understanding or on offering revisionist explanations of the way in which well-known
groupings organized into genres and sub-genres that were already being read “literarily.”In order to justify the frequent use of the terms literature or literary, I will show that thenarratives engaged in this study were being read in this way by means of such evidence
as the form they took as books, their organization into categories and sub-categories inperiod booksellers’ catalogues, and so on.
On a related note, I will not define my terms at length in the main body of the text. Thisis my policy for one simple reason. Having entered college in the late 1980s whenpoststructuralism was the commonsense of academia, I do not believe that absolutely
direct and transparent communication is possible and, consequently, am deeply skepticalof the type of “proper” and “careful” scholarship that defines terms explicitly and in
depth—a type of scholarship most often described using architectural metaphors. To me,
definitional foundations and the strenuous efforts many scholars make to shore them up
are part of a vain attempt to “restore” the ideal of pure communication that was disrupted
by the insights of poststructuralism. Unfortunately, such exertions only serve toexacerbate the problem. Thus, I would rather envision my work functioning like a fishingnet, which, in order to fulfill its task well, needs to be able to move fluidly. Tethering it to
the sea floor in many places or trying to close its eyes would not make it sturdier or more
efficient. In fact, such actions would only assure its quick destruction and complete nonfunctionality. Thus, this book will entail a good deal of readerly effort, something forwhich I apologize in advance.

Michael J. Scanlon

Introduction

8

period texts fit into its parameters. These factors have led to a situation in which thescope of scholarship has narrowed severely. My decision to write a long-form, narrativebased and theoretical monograph is not a condemnation of the archive-centric and highly
focused approach. To the contrary, because much of this scholarship is so good, it
became necessary for me to take an alternative approach in order to add any new insightor stimulation to the global field. The dominant academic approach to literary studies inJapan is also what made this study possible. The continued importance of textual
scholarship has created an environment conducive to the publication of compendia basedon genre and even publisher that has come to supplement those organized around themasterpiece and the genius author, thus making the Japanese literary archive one of themost accessible in world literature. Furthermore, the historio-sociological approachprevalent among scholars of Japan’s national literature has made available a wide variety
of materials related to the reception of major pieces of literature, the institutions of theliterary world, and biographical details about famous (and not so famous) authors. Thisbody of scholarship based on rigorous archival research helped me to orient my studies
and made it easier to situate the close readings that are such an important part of Englishlanguage scholarship. More important, I do not attempt to use an established literary
theory as a means to attack or rewrite the accepted literary historical narrative. Instead, I
recognize that the work of my scholarly predecessors—both those who created andrefined the dominant narrative as well as those who have tried to relativize or undermine
it—is careful and generally correct, and my scholarly contribution lies in trying to explain,in a new way, the already known facts and trends of Japanese literary history by

Michael J. Scanlon

Introduction

9

forwarding a theory able to account both for those texts that fit neatly within theconceptual framework of the heretofore dominant paradigm as well as for those wellknown ones that cannot be fit into its intellectual parameters and, thus, have alreadyweakened that model.
The metaphor that lies at the center of this book is evolution. In a Darwiniansystem, literature is always constrained by its past, and its evolution is a two-step processof undirected innovation as well as directed and directing selection. Thus, there exists a
good deal of literary “imperfection,” which Franco Moretti takes as being central to anunderstanding of the relationship between literature and the world:[W]hy is it that literary forms are never quite as ‘functional’ as social history leads
us to expect—why are they always somehow off the mark, unbalanced, opaque? It
has become fashionable to believe that this is so because of some intrinsic
anarchic vocation of literature, but I would rather suggest a more prosaic answer:
such sociological ‘imperfection’ is due to the fact that social pressures (hence alsopressures of the dominant block) are active only in half of literary history. In
Darwinian fashion, the context can select forms—but it cannot generate them.
Ruling forms, then, like ruling ideas, are not quite the forms of the ruling class:they are the forms the ruling class has selected—without having produced them,
however. No one is omnipotent. 5
Moretti’s work led me to that of Stephen Jay Gould, a paleontologist who played aleading role in what could be termed a Darwinian reformation that occurred over thesecond half of the twentieth century. In his The Structure of Evolutionary Theory, Gould
characterized his life’s work as a revision of three central features of Darwinian theory:
scope, efficacy, and agency. Gould’s insights as well as their applicability to the study ofliterature can be summarized as follows:

5

Franco Moretti, “On Literary Evolution,” Signs Taken for Wonders (New York: Verso,1988), p.266.

Michael J. Scanlon

Introduction

10

Scope
Traditional Darwinism claimed that “microevolutionary modes and processes can, byextrapolation, through the vastness of geological time, explain the full panoply of
life’s changes in form and diversity.” 6 Gould, though not specifically denying slow,
incremental development, says that evolution can also occur via punctuatedequilibrium—long periods of relative stasis interrupted by short bursts of rapidchange, wherein change is not a linear movement from Point A to Point B, but aprocess of diversification followed by selection. This, of course, should be nothing
new to students of art or history. In fact, this adjustment of Darwinian theory does
more to make the model suitable for the study of the human sciences rather than yield
new insights into artistic or historical development.
Efficacy
To the claim that “selection acts as the primary creative force in building new
evolutionary novelties,” Gould has added that developmental constraint also exists“as a positive, structuralist, and internal force” 7 and that exaptation—“evolution bycooption of structures already present for other reasons (often non-adaptive in their
origin), rather than by direct adaptation for current function via natural selection” 8 —also plays an important role. This, too, is not new to the study of literature. The ideaof refunctionalization played a large role in the Russian Formalist theories of literary
evolution. 9
6

Stephen Jay Gould, The Structure of Evolutionary Theory (Cambridge: Harvard
University Press, 2002), p.20.

7

Op. cit., p.82.

8

Op. cit., p.85.

9

Jurij Tynjanov writes:
If we agree that evolution is the change in interrelationships between the elementsof a system—between functions and formal elements—then evolution may beseen as “mutations” of systems. These changes vary from epoch to epoch,occurring sometimes slowly, sometimes rapidly. They do not entail the sudden
and complete renovation or the replacement of formal elements, but rather the
new functions of these formal elements. Thus the very comparison of certain
Michael J. Scanlon

Introduction

11

AgencyClassical Darwinism focused mainly on the organism, whereas Gould supplements
this with species. This, too, can be translated easily from biological evolution. In
literature, the two agents of evolution are text and genre. The concept of genre as
species is probably self explanatory, but the relation between text and organism is amatter that probably needs to be clarified. As Yuri Lotman pointed out, literary
evolution can not be approached by lining up texts according the order in which they
were written; texts being read at a given time and place are at least as important as
those being written, and these can be ignored only at great peril.10 This issue can be
resolved by measuring a textual population with a method that counts a text as anindividual unit each time it is produced, reproduced, or enacted (read, listen to,
performed, and so on). The focus is kept on literary production by means of theconcept of genre, the appearance of a variety of similar but different texts over time.
If this neo-Darwinian theory forms the backbone of this thesis, I should warn the reader
that it was never supposed to. Originally, this piece was to be a study of the seventeenthcentury context in which the famous author Ihara Saikaku (井原西鶴, 1642-1693) became
active, and it was to employ an Annales school model to show that, because there was no
distinct break between the Muromachi and Edo periods, the prose literary output of
Saikaku should be seen as an anomaly. When the deep structural paradigm proved
inadequate to contain the historical materials, I abandoned it and, following Moretti’slead, turned to the work of Gould. 11 However, since biological evolution and literary

literary phenomena must be made on the basis of function, not only forms.
Seemingly dissimilar phenomena may be similar in function, and vice versa.
Jurij Tynjanov, “On Literary Evolution,” Readings in Russian Poetics (Chicago: The
Dalkey Archive Press, 2002), pp.76-77.
10

Yuri Lotman, Universe of the Mind (New York: I.B. Tauris, 2001), p.127.

11

Moretti’s early work, which can be found in his Signs taken for Wonders collection ofMichael J. Scanlon

Introduction

12

evolution are different phenomena, Gould’s propositions will be adjusted or abandoned
where necessary. I would hope that this scholarly piece will not be judged on the basis of
its faithfulness to Gould’s paradigm, much less the ability of his theory to explain
biological evolution.
My goal in writing this book is to offer a model and method capable ofcompeting with those established theoretical paradigms that have underwritten much
English-language scholarship of the past decade or two. Thus, my work does not use arecognized literary theory to explain Japanese literature, but is itself a piece of literary
theory that adapts a metaphor taken from the natural sciences to fit the facts of Japanese
literary history, and it is my hope that the approach taken in this text might prove usefulas a general Darwinian model for the study of literary history applicable to the narrative
art of other traditions. The neo-Darwinian metaphor is used because it serves two highly
important functions in this work. The Darwinian framework provides a vocabulary andconceptual structure that helps make a new way of organizing unfamiliar materials moreaccessible to the worldview of most twenty-first-century academic readers. At the sametime, because the evolutionary model was superintended as a means of explaining
materials so obviously dissimilar to narrative literature, foregrounding the Darwinian

essays, was also based on the deep structural model of Braudel and the Annales School ofhistory. However, in the last essay of the book (which was also the most recently
composed piece), he turns from this to the neo-Darwinism of Gould.
Also, the order in which the dissertation from which this text has evolved was written
might be instructive to the reader. This introduction was written after basically all
research for the book was finished and the prologue as well as the first two body chapterswere already complete. In other words, what you are reading first was done after the
dissertation was already well past its midway point.

Michael J. Scanlon

Introduction

13

framework emphasizes the fact that this is a constructed history, not an objective ortransparent window onto how things actually were in Japan from the fourteenth century
onwards. Like all the theories with which it will compete, literary evolution is, at its
most basic level, nothing more than an extended metaphor, a way of encouraging futurescholarship of the same basic type as well as a means of revealing new insights that also
leads to new blind spots. Developing the metaphor into a theory is a worthwhile
scholarly activity because to do so is a way of laying bare the devices, procedures andassumptions of literary scholarship so these very devices, procedures and assumptions
may be brought into question. At the same time, since the narrative of literary history andthe theory which orients it are mutually dependent, should this neo-Darwinian paradigm
find success, it is certain that, in future scholarship, the accepted account of Japanese
literary history will change, and this work will soon be superseded. In short, thismonograph represents not an effort to present a final understanding of the phenomena
with which it engages, but an attempt to serve as a stimulus for future scholarship thatwill use its conceptual framework to modify our understanding of the facts of literary
history and, thereby, refine the theoretical paradigm itself.
In deference to the “one long argument” of Charles Darwin’s The Origin ofSpecies, detailed expositions of the theory will, for the most part, be carried out in themain body of the book. Before entering that portion of the text, however, it would be best
to look closely at the applicability of natural selection—the basis of all Darwinian
theory—to literary evolution. In biology, the mechanics of natural selection are based on

Michael J. Scanlon

Introduction

14

three concepts: “overproduction of offspring, variation, and heritability.” 12 This iseminently translatable to the field of literature: more texts (and books) are produced thanthe market will bear; in order to find a market, newly written texts must be somehow
different than their predecessors; success breeds imitation. 13 According to Moretti, theselection process that winnows the possible routes of evolution works as follows:
In Darwin… history is the interweaving of two wholly independent paths: randomvariations, and necessary selection. In our case: rhetorical innovations, which are
the result of chance; and a social selection, which by contrast is the daughter ofnecessity. 14
There is, of course, a problem with this, an issue that Moretti himself would probably
never deny. It is not simply “history” that decides the success and failure of individual
texts. Texts survive and flourish only if they are able to find a readership willing toinvest in their reproduction. There are many cases in which texts that seemingly shouldhave succeeded did not because of localized and highly contingent factors. For instance,a prestigious compendia of classical Japanese literature contains, as its first selection in a
volume on pre-1682 Edo-period fiction, a text entitled the Tsuyudono monogatari (The
Narrative of Lord Dew 露殿物語). 15 This piece of fiction was written in the early
decades of the seventeenth century, and its plot follows a monk who, having lost his zeal
12

Gould, p.13.

13

Here I use the term “market” to refer to both the commercial one as well as the artistic
one. Texts being read by a great number of popular readers or by a restricted number of
elite readers are still being read in a market, it is simply that there are qualitative
differences both between the markets and among the texts fit for each environment.

14

Franco Moretti, Modern Epic (New York: Verso, 1996), p.6.

15

Tsuyudono monogatari, Kana-zōshi Ukiyo-zōshi, Nihon koten bungaku zenshū 37(Tokyo: Shōgakkan, 1971) pp.47-116.

Michael J. Scanlon

Introduction

15

for the religious life, consecutively falls in love with two courtesans and eventuallycommits suicide with one of his paramours when passion’s fulfillment is thwarted by
obligation. This would seem to be a nearly perfect bridge between Japan’s literary
medieval and early modern eras. The lackadaisical monk seeking religious reinvigoration
was a common figure in medieval literature, and the text features two formal elements—
the faithful prostitute and a love suicide—that would come to play central roles ineighteenth-century fiction. As can be seen in the philosophical writings of Fujiwara
Seika (藤原惺窩, 1561-1619) and Hayashi Razan (林羅山, 1583-1657), the intellectual
apparatus that could have made this narrative legible had already formed by the time of
the text’s genesis. Nevertheless, the Tsuyudono monogatari went basically unread during
the early modern period and only comes down to the present because a single manuscript
happened to survive. 16
One of the chief reasons for this fallibility of selection is the two-way circuit

16

Contingency plays an even greater role in literary evolution once print becomes thecustomary means of textual dissemination. This might at first seem counterintuitive
because the number of copies of a given text struck in an initial print run means that texts
which fail to find an immediate market have a greater chance of being “re-discovered.”
There are many examples over the past four centuries of evolutionary “mistakes” being
corrected—books (or films) languishing during their initial release only to flourish at aslightly later but still contemporary date. That said, it must always be remembered thatthe rise of print culture is almost always accompanied by a rise in literacy, which, in turn,means that many more literary texts are produced than had been the case previously. The
expense necessary to turn a single manuscript into a printed edition means that it is morethan likely that a huge number of texts are selected against before making it to press, andthe vast majority of these are simply lost to history. There is absolutely no reason tobelieve that, because publishers are infallible readers, all texts capable of success make it
to print. In fact, it could be argued that more potentially successful texts are selectedagainst “unfairly” during times in which print culture is dominant than had been the caseduring pre-print manuscript culture. Those texts “re-discovered” in their day are but the
exception that proves the rule, an example of imperfection within the literary system.

Michael J. Scanlon

Introduction

16

linking author to publisher to consumer that Noma Kōshin talked about in the 1950s. 17
There is a hierarchy to this readership, and personal taste and intuition play a large part inlimiting what is put in a position to succeed on a larger scale. This may seem like aquibbling point, but it emphasizes the contingency of success that is vital to a proper
understanding of Darwinian logic. In Moretti’s scholarship, there is a belief in theexistence of intrinsic quality in literary texts. Consequently, he would seem to argue thatthose texts which flourished did so deservedly. This is, in many ways, correct. Readers
read one text as opposed to another because they like it more, because it has a greater
aesthetic appeal to a given audience. However, I would simply say that, from theperspective of the text, this is a matter of being fit or unfit to a given environment, rather
than one relatable to greater or lesser natural worth. This keeps my work from becominga Spenserian version of evolution, as opposed to a Darwinian one. The general failure
within the humanistic scholarly community to distinguish between these two models of
evolution has undermined evolutionary paradigms as a whole for reasons laid out clearlyby Frank Kermode:
If the value of an opinion is to be tested only by its success in the world, thepropositions of dementia can become as valuable as any other fictions. The
validity of one’s opinions of the Jews can be proved by killing six million Jews. 18
In a Darwinian literary history, success happens because it can and does, not because it
has to, much less because it should. On the other hand, though here I stress chance, it isalso clear that success is not completely random. What does succeed may be decidedly
17

Noma Kōshin, “Ukiyo-zōshi no dokusha zō,” Bungaku 26:5 (May, 1958), p.619.

18Frank Kermode, The Sense of an Ending (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000),
p.38.

Michael J. Scanlon

Introduction

17

contingent, but what can succeed is far less so because the readers who determine thesuccess or failure of individual texts are themselves conditioned by historical andideological circumstance in a highly directed manner.
Ideology—the means by which the experience of the world is mademeaningful—is both complex and imperfect. As Moretti mentioned earlier, ideology isan evolved form that can only be related indirectly to history. It is also not a unified or
homogenous phenomenon. Rather, ideology should be thought of as an intricate overlayof competing dominant and recessive structures organized into a meta-structure. Thus,
there are always tensions and inconsistencies that derive from either intra-ideologicalcontradiction or the imperfect fit between ideology and experience. Imperfections inworld and worldview are, of course, universal and always present in large numbers, butthere is a clear hierarchy to these breakdowns, 19 and this can be clearly tied to specifiable
times and places. Moreover, though these highly complex organizations are constantly
shifting, many—maybe most—of the competing structures within a given meta-structure
seem to share a set or sets of related value groupings. The specific content and meaningof these are always being contested, but their importance is generally recognized, and it
might very well be that these core values are that which helps to organize a given metastructure by providing a context for the interaction of its constituent elements and perhaps
even orienting this always ongoing process. It is also important to note that, though themeta-structures and the value groupings that help to hold them together can reorganize
19

Obviously enough, conflicts that involve only dominant structures, which serve toorganize the meta-structure, are of greater importance than those that involve lesser
structures.

Michael J. Scanlon

Introduction

18

radically with changes in epoch, there is a good deal of stability within a given epoch,and the overarching structure remains relatively steady despite the waxing and waning of
its individual components. 20 In short, cultures and epochs are recognizable anddifferentiable because values clash within a given culture and epoch as well as differently
among different cultures and epochs.
Areas of value contestation are an environment in which narrative literature
thrives, especially in its longer, better integrated forms, and the problems engaged byliterature remain fairly constant within an epoch or shared culture. As Geoffrey
Winthrop-Young points out in a review of Moretti’s scholarly oeuvre, the seeming
complexity of bourgeois long-form narrative literature “may ultimately be reduced to abasic set of elements and the interactions that take place between them.” 21 As reductive
as this might first appear, there is an extremely good reason for it. The very function of
long-form, plot-based literary fiction in the greater ideological environment is to reducecomplexity. The world of a text—no matter how large it may be—is always going to beless populated, less intricate, and less resistant to meaningfulness than extra-literary
reality. Long-form narratives seem to engage societal problems; those ending inclosure—the vast majority of fiction texts at any given time—tend to resolve these issues,and even those that are open-ended at least serve to isolate conflicts. Further, thelanguage used in Winthrop-Young’s description of Moretti’s work on the European novel
20

This ideological consistency, after all, is often what makes an epoch identifiable as anepoch.
21

Geoffrey Winthrop-Young, “How the Mule Got Its Tale: Moretti’s DarwinianBricolage,” Diacritics 29:2 (Summer 1999), p.36.

Michael J. Scanlon

Introduction

19

is strikingly similar to that which was employed by A.J. Greimas in his reworking of themedieval semiotic rectangle:
Perhaps out of a desire for intelligibility, we can imagine that the human mind, inorder to achieve the construction of cultural objects (literary, mythical, picture,etc.) starts with simple elements and follows a complex course, encountering on
its way constraints to which it must submit, as well as choices it can make. 22
The semiotic rectangle is composed of two opposed terms as well as their simple
negations, or contraries, and forms a graphic representation of the logical limits of agiven dialectic.
Figure 1: Semiotic Rectangle as Codified by A.J. Greimas 23
A

oppositionB

implication

contrariety

implication

not B

opposition

not A

The vertical borders of this dialectical space are bounded by slots for one term in absenceof the other (A and not B, B and not A), while its horizontal boundaries are made up of
the “complex term,” which is the synthesis of the original opposition (A and B), and the“neutral term,” which is the absence of both original terms (neither A nor B). 24 When
Fredric Jameson appropriated this analytic tool for a Marxist criticism of narrative, he
22

A.J. Greimas and Francois Rastier, “The Interaction of Semiotic Constraints,” Yale
French Studies 0:41 (1968), pp.86-87.
23

Based on a figure in Hayden White’s The Content of the Form.

24

Fredrick Jameson, The Political Unconscious (Ithica, NY: Cornell University Press,
1981), p.166.

Michael J. Scanlon

Introduction

20

replaced what had been “purely logical or analytic negations”25 with social contradictions,which are formulated “in terms of an antimony for the reading mind.” 26 The semiotic
rectangle becomes “the very locus of ideological closure… [that] maps the limits of a
specific ideological consciousness and marks the conceptual points beyond which that
consciousness cannot go, and between which it is condemned to oscillate.” 27 The slots
surrounding the semiotic rectangle generate characters as the dialectical conflict produces
a literary narrative, so a re-mapping the dramatis personae of a given piece of fiction
onto a semiotic rectangle allows insight into the political unconscious of the text inquestion.
This analytic tool will be adapted in several ways within this study. In both
Jameson’s work and my own, the rectangle is used to delineate the conceptual limits ofspecific examples of dialectic problematics. However, whereas my predecessor placedalmost all emphasis on the outer limits that demarcate this epistemological space as awhole, I posit that the actions taken by characters in narrative texts and, consequently, thecharacters themselves can be charted both within in the interiors of each of the four
triangular sections that make up the rectangle as well as on the inner and outer borders ofeach of these parts. Thus, my version of this mapping device is able to account for amore complex structure of relationships among characters and actions than had beenpossible previously. More important, in Jameson’s work, the semiotic rectangle is used to25

Jameson, p.48.

26

Jameson, p.166.

27

Jameson, p.47.

Michael J. Scanlon

Introduction

21

diagram an engine of production; here, however, it will be appropriated to visually
represent the most basic mechanism of selection. If the characters of texts can be plotted
onto a given version of the rectangle in such a way that the narrative seems meaningful,the text will not be actively selected against, though this is in no way a guarantee ofsuccess.
An example might make things clearer. In his The Political Unconscious,
Jameson uses a semiotic rectangle based on a conflict between activity and value toanalyze Joseph Conrad’s Lord Jim. This is indeed a conflict within the ideology ofbourgeois capitalism. That capitalists earn money on the work of labor is the very point
upon which Karl Marx seized in his attempt to rally the workers of the (bourgeois) world.
It is also possible to fit Conrad’s novel into a selectionist rectangle based on thisproblematic. Yet it disappoints the reader who does so. Jameson claims that the second
half is a romance, “a degraded narrative precisely by its claim to have ‘resolved’ thecontradiction and generated the impossible hero, who, remaining problematical in the
Pantra section of the book as the Lukács of The Theory of the Novel told us the hero of agenuine novel must do, now solicits that lowering of our reality principle necessary toaccredit this final burst of legend.” 28 There is something amiss with Jameson’s reading
because, after all, Lord Jim does not have a happy ending. Jim dies, his life a failure.
The final downfall of the protagonist becomes much clearer if the text is analyzed within
the conflict between individuality and socialization—the irresolvable struggle that
Moretti puts at the heart of the bildungsroman and a conflict which constitutes a much
28

Jameson, pp.255-256.

Michael J. Scanlon

Introduction

22

more central contradiction within bourgeois society. 29 The young Jim wants to be a hero,someone recognized in isolation of his peers for socially sanctioned behavior. However,he falls when he selfishly abandons ship in order to save himself and is brought to trial
with the rest of the crew. In other words, though less lacking in proper bourgeois
socialization than other members of the group, he is recognized by the world at large as
an individual for an asocial act. This haunts his movements throughout the novel. He
wanders from place to place, leaving whenever he fears the secret of his past will become
known, until he finally settles in as a leader of a remote outpost and, as a paragon of bothsocial and individual values, brings order to the community. In the end, however, he isundone yet again by a shade of his past, this time in the form of Gentleman Brown, aprivateer who the epitome of an individual who lacks all (proper) socialization. Though
the novel’s fit into this problematic in such a way that reinforces the stability of bourgeois
society probably accounts better for its success in the capitalist world, Jameson’s
application of the value-activity contradiction is important. It shows that the same text
can fit into multiple problematics and, therefore, can be read in very different times andplaces as a text capable of engaging the world meaningfully. 30 Thus, the selectionist

29

Though I use the terms individuality and socialization throughout this text, the basic
conflict has been designated with other terms as well: Georg Lukàcs uses soul and world;
other scholars use self and society or bourgeois subject and bourgeois system; and so on.
I will not argue that individuality and socialization are better terms than those used byother scholars and strongly define these terms in an attempt to circumscribe the signifiedof these particular signifiers. Instead, this study will use these terms as abstractly andinclusively as possible while maintaining meaningfulness.
30

This, of course, hardly exhausts the possible reasons for a text to maintain or gain areadership over vast chronological or geographic expanses.

Michael J. Scanlon

Introduction

23

rectangle, though in many ways weaker than the semiotic one, is also more flexible
because it allows for the fact that texts can perform a multiplicity of functions andsteadfastly avoids arguing for a single “correct” reading based upon the historical andideological conditions of the time and place of its genesis.
Figure 2: Selectionist Rectangle for Kani kōsen
Superintendent Asakawa
activity
workers

value
capitalists

no-valueno-activity
Miyaguchi (short-lived stowaway)
If a historicist scholar did wish to apply the activity-value problematic in a waythat focused on the environment specific to a given text’s production, it would be better totake as the object of analysis a narrative text written within the proletariat movement
inside a capitalist society and largely consumed by those active in it. The Kani kōsen, forinstance, fits very well into just such a selectionist rectangle. That the basic conflict lies
between the workers and the capitalists is no secret. The text states this directly. What isof far more interest is the fact that the neutral section, which combines no work and novalue, is so weakly filled. The only character that fits the description is one worker who
tried to hide aboard ship, was quickly turned in by a fellow worker, and died within aweek of the six-month voyage. Furthermore, the text includes a scene illustrating that,even when Asakawa is pre-occupied, the workers do not slack off but simply enjoy theirlabor more. In a text meant to argue for an active role for the lumpenproletariat in the
Michael J. Scanlon

Introduction

24

Marxist cause, non-work is simply not a viable option. 31 The configuration of charactersin the rectangle also helps account for what can only be said to be the outsized level ofimportance granted to Asakawa, a man who provoked one worker to say: “The emperor
lives above the clouds, so he means nothing to guys like us. But this Asa[kawa]—he can’t
get away with this!” 32 The conflict between value and activity is not the central issue
within the bourgeois worldview because it can symbolically be solved rather easily. The
figure of the entrepreneur, who both owns and operates his company, is one such
solution; Asakawa is the embodiment of another. As can be seen in his poor handwriting
and frequent misspellings, he too came from society’s underclass, but was able to work
his way up through the ranks just like the hero of the movie shown to the workers by thecompany while they toiled at sea. To a pro-communist writer or reader living underbourgeois capitalism, Asakawa would be an intolerable lie, an exception that is used as
the rule in order to further an unjust way of life.
An awareness of rules and exceptions lies at the heart of this scholarly text and31

In fact, the lumpenproletariat may very well have maintained its negative valence
within much Marxist philosophy because of the way it fits into the activity-value
problematic. The lumpenproletariat, lacking both activity and value, lies outside thebourgeois worker (activity without value) and the bourgeois capitalist (value without
activity), and this denigrated social unit forms a good counterpoint to the communist
workers who will combine value and activity. In other words, the lumpenproletariat,
though most often portrayed as unimportant or detrimental to the communist cause,
fulfilled an important function within Marxist social theory because this social group andits members filled the neutral section of the selectionist rectangle so well. It could also beargued that, in the Kani kōsen, this crew loses its lumpenproletariat-ness and becomes
simply a group of exploited bourgeois workers.
32

天皇陸下は雲の上にいるから、俺達にゃどうでもいいんだけど、浅ってなれば、どっ
こいそうは行かないからな。

Kobayashi Takiji, Kani kōsen, p.17.

Michael J. Scanlon

Introduction

25

the literary theory forwarded within it. The novel is a product of bourgeois culture
wherein the activity-value problematic is recessive and the individuality-socialization one
is dominant, so the vast majority of novels are conditioned by the latter, not the former.
Yet it would be a grave error to assume that a selectionist rectangle based on theindividuality-socialization pairing will necessarily yield a more correct understanding of
all narrative texts. The individuality-socialization dynamic is neither universal nor
universally dominant. It exerts the strongest guiding influence only in certain cultures,and there are many times and places where alternative problematics dominate. Should
the objects of analysis be texts written in a non-modern, non-Western environment, theselfsame individuality-socialization problematic, which enabled a more accurate
understanding of the fit between the text of the novel Lord Jim and its original context,
would result in de-historicizing, perhaps orientalizing deformations. Again, there isnothing intrinsically wrong with this, no imperative to always historicize. Why would thevast majority of readers read texts if they did not speak to present circumstances? It isjust vital to realize both that the ideological conflicts which can be schematically
represented on selectionist rectangles are the lenses through which certain forms ofnarrative are understood as well as that everyone is ideologically nearsighted. One of thegreat benefits of the analytic tool that is the selectionist rectangle is its ability to function
as a corrective to the distorting epistemological structures of modernity. Furthermore,though this scholarly text will close with an account of the rise of the Japanese novel,
which is the dominant literary form of Japanese modernity and was conditioned by theindividuality-socialization dynamic, the vast majority of its discourse is taken up by aMichael J. Scanlon

Introduction

26

study of early modern Japanese literature, which was written within a different limiting
problematic. Thus, the theory forwarded within this scholarly piece is superintended to
fit the facts of a literature that is neither modern, nor Western. The importance of thisshould be obvious. Theories of the novel—literary theories in general—have
traditionally been written by specialists in European literature and then applied to thenarrative fiction of other parts of the globe. Yet it seems highly likely that what has long
been assumed to be the normative experience is, in fact, an exception, not the rule.
Perhaps it is now time for a theoretical paradigm to be written outside the domain of theEuropeanist, and the neo-Darwinian framework that is being forwarded systematically asa model for the study of literary history for the first time in The Rise of the Japanese
Novel might be able to fulfill exactly such a role.

Michael J. Scanlon

Prologue

27
Prologue

The Medieval World and Its Literature
In all things I yearn for the past. Modern fashions
seem to keep growing more and more debased. I
find that, even among the splendid pieces offurniture built with the great skill of thosewoodworkers, those in the old forms are the mostpleasing. And as for writing letters, surviving scraps
from the past reveal how superb the phrasing used
to be.
Tsurezuregusa
Kenkō (1283-1352)
In Japan, the origins of vernacular narrative and the first documentable use of
print technology can both be traced to the eighth century.

Yet almost a millennium

would pass before the first time this kind of text made it to press. 1

Japanese-language

narrative would, of course, flourish in the intervening centuries, especially after thesudden evolution of the hiragana and katakana syllabaries towards the end of the ninth
century.

Print, too, survived, but its domain was much more restricted. For the first

three centuries of print in Japan, the technology was used by Buddhist institutions fordevotional purposes, not to produce texts for reading.

From the eleventh century, thesereligious organizations would also come to use print for the dissemination of knowledge,
and a great majority of the texts reproduced before the Edo period were Buddhist ones,
though there is a sizable minority of Confucian texts, too. Print was by default

1

The first example of a text that can be classified as a Japanese-language narrative was
the Kojiki (古事記), a mythic history of Japan and the imperial house presented to thecourt in 712; the first extant printed matter are the slips of paper on which invocations(dhāranī) had been struck then placed inside miniature pagodas between 764 and 770.

Michael J. Scanlon

Prologue28

xylography, for this was the only available technology, and there is no evidence
indicating that blocks were carved to put out books for their commercial appeal.

By theend of the sixteenth century, when the movable-type press was introduced to Japan as aspoil of war from Toyotomi Hideyoshi’s invasions of the Korean peninsula, theenvironment was set for the secularization and commercialization of print.

Buddhist

temples, of course, made use of both this new technology as well as the established one toprint texts, but so did other constituencies including emperors and military leaders, themedical community and the merchant elite. It was two merchants—Hon’ami Kōetsu (本阿弥光悦, 1558-1637) and Suminokura Soan (角倉素案, 1571-1632)—who first put out

typographically produced copies of Japanese-language narratives in gorgeous imitation ofmanuscript practice, books that are now referred to as Sagabon.

Though these weremade for private distribution, booksellers soon began to set up print shops to produce
books for profit, and vernacular narrative would play a role of some importance within
the establishment of commercial print as a viable industry.
Before this, vernacular narrative texts circulated in manuscript form.

Much

scribal reproduction of these texts would be described as private since the books
produced were for the use of the individual or group that invested the time and money intheir production.

By the close of the Muromachi period, however, scribal publication

seems to have been a lively business unto itself as book merchants were producing
manuscripts for the marketplace.

Though many copies of the Ise monogatari and digest

versions of the Genji monogatari were written out and sold, the most important genre forthis type of commercial publishing was what is now known as Muromachi (or lateMichael J. Scanlon

Prologue

29

medieval) fiction, a modern term of literary criticism used to organize a corpus of about
five hundred or so literary narratives produced from the fall of the Kamakura shogunate
to the first half-century of the Edo period. This type of literature was by no means
canonical, so texts were re-worked and re-written as they were copied and re-copied bothcommercially and privately.

The textual drift is such that, even though the stories,

characters and plots of these texts are seen as products of the late medieval period,
historical linguists do not use the vast majority of books copied out in the Edo period assource documents for the study of the Muromachi-era Japanese language.

Academics

specializing in late medieval fiction must make do with the materials available to them;
however, book history plays a central role in this study, and its focus lies elsewhere, so
only those texts that have manuscripts dating back to the Muromachi period itself will beconsidered in detail.
There are a handful of manuscripts of late medieval fiction that survive from theearly part of the Muromachi period.

One of these is a two-roll picture scroll of thefamous shuten dōji (sake drinking youth) story. This scroll is thought to date fromaround or before the turn of the fourteenth century and was once owned by the
Katori-jingū, a shrine to a tutelary deity of warriors in Shimousa Province.

The scroll’s

images are all intact, but its text is missing large sections, including the portion preceding
the first image.

The content of this section can, however, be reconstructed fairly reliably

from a twelve-page partial manuscript probably made at the end of the Muromachi period
by Konoe Sakihisa (1536-1611).

At the close of the tenth century, something has been

carrying off men and women of all walks of life from the capital and its environs, and theMichael J. Scanlon

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30

people up to the highest levels of society are suffering.

Since this was certainly not thework of an ordinary human, eminent priests and monks try to exorcise the troublemaker
but fail to make it appear. Finally, a yin-yang diviner is able to discover that the demon
king responsible for this is living on Ōe Mountain to the northwest of the capital.

Theemperor orders a group of soldiers to vanquish the demon, but they beg off the mission.
Next, the emperor makes the same request to Minamoto Raikō and Fujiwara Hōshō, who
accept.

After going to pray at the shrines of Hie, Sumiyoshi, Kumano and Iwashimizu

Hachiman for help in their mission, Raikō and Hōshō along with Hōshō’s servant andRaikō’s four closest retainers head off for Ōe Mountain in full armor.

While on the road,

Raikō and his men encounter four mysterious mountain ascetics, who advise the group to
take on the garb of pilgrims, give Raikō some sake and a shield, and join them on theirtrek to Ōe Mountain. Once an old woman says that the demon king is known as “thesake loving youth” and points the way to his fortress, they enter the demon’s stronghold
and meet him.

The demon king, who appears as a handsome and intelligent youth, tells

the story behind his name and says that he only came to live on Ōe Mountain in 849
because Saichō evicted him from Mount Hiei as he was founding his monastery there andEmperor Kammu had him removed from the Mother Mountain (Kaka Yama) of Ōmi
Prefecture. 2

The demon has a feast readied, and the group offers up the sake they werecarrying.

2

Saichō (767-822) was the priest who founded the main temple of the powerful Tendai
school of Buddhism on Mount Hiei to the northeast of the area now known as Kyoto in
788. Kanmu (737-806, r.781-806) was the emperor when the imperial capital wasestablished there in 794.

Michael J. Scanlon

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31

The second roll begins with a description of the inside of the demon’s lair, which
includes many bones as well as captives from China and India in addition to those fromJapan.

Some of the lesser demons then take the form of beautiful women to see if Raikōand his men are really ascetics.

They pass the test, and the demons proceed to change

shape and dance about in order to beguile the newcomers until beams of light emanatefrom Raikō’s eyes causing the demons take refuge. The four men met along the way
remove a boulder blocking access to the demons’ escape route, and the warriors enter to
see the demon king in his true form.

The mysterious ascetics hold down the demon

king’s limbs, and Raikō and his men behead it, whereupon the severed head begins todance about until Raikō is able to subdue it. The text of the second roll of the Katorimanuscript ends here, which in some ways seems appropriate. However, the scroll also
contains four images that do not seem to fit the narrative contained in its text. This copy
is obviously incomplete, and the textual line seemingly lost until 1887 when a text-only
manuscript with the title Ōe yama shuten dōji dating from sometime in the fifteenth
century was discovered. This version includes a narrative very similar to that of theearlier manuscript but also has an ending that would fit the remaining pictures.
group and the prisoners of the stronghold burn the bodies of the demons.
who had been kidnapped are sent back home.
king’s powers are broken, dies.

Raikō’s

The Chinese

The old woman, now that the demon

The four mysterious ascetics accompany the group as

far as the road leading back to the capital, whereupon they proclaim that the reigningemperor, the yin-yang diviner as well as Raikō and his men are all manifestations ofMichael J. Scanlon

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divine presences. 3

After both parties exchange gifts, the ascetics announce that they are

the gods of the Hie, Sumiyoshi, Kumano and Iwashimizu Hachiman shrines, thendisappear. When the group returns to the capital, Raikō and Hōshō are made into thegeneral of the west and the general of the east, respectively, and given great rewards.
Finally, Raikō makes a pilgrimage to a shrine to give thanks to the gods that helped them.
The close of this narrative might seem overly long, for almost a quarter of the
text’s discourse is taken up by what comes after the conclusion of the story (fabula)proper.

It would seem that, were the Shuten dōji simply a story about martial virtue, it

could have ended where the Katori manuscript breaks off.

Yet the long denouementcertainly had been part of the earliest manuscript, and a similarly structured (if muchtruncated) version can be found in all textual lines present during the Muromachi period.
Before making an argument about the function and importance of the ending in this text,
it might be best to investigate the larger generic and historical contexts. In modern
literary histories, Muromachi fiction is seen as taking the place of what is now called
courtly narrative fiction (ōchō monogatari 王朝物語). The two genres are indeed
dissimilar. Courtly fiction tends to be lengthy and have a focus on character or
psychology, an effect achieved because satellites (supplementary events) are moved to
the foreground, and kernels (hinge events) are of far less importance. 4

It is also a

3

The emperor is Maitreya Bodhisattva, Raikō and Hōshō are among the Five Heavenly
Kings, and Raikō’s four trusted retainers are the Diva Kings that guard the four
directions.

4

Seymour Chatman, Story and Discourse (Ithica, NY: Cornell University Press, 1978),pp.53-56.

Michael J. Scanlon

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33

literature of the aristocracy, for the aristocracy, and by the aristocracy. The authors andreaders of these texts belonged to that social class; the lives and loves of its members are
the story matter of these narratives; their settings are in spaces marked as aristocratic,
particularly mansions in and around the capital as well as familiar sights of pilgrimage.
By contrast, most texts of Muromachi fiction are shorter—texts average about thirty or
forty pages—and plot-driven. 5

Moreover, though it seems more than likely that in its

written form the genre had an elite audience, pieces of late medieval fiction contained amuch wider range of possible story types, characters and settings than courtly fiction.
The worlds of these texts are, for the most part, outside normal time and space.

Thisotherworldliness avoids the complexity of quotidian existence and allows for heightened
symbolic closure.
Courtly narrative fiction is normally associated with the later Heian period.
There are two good reasons for this. First, the dominant texts of the genre—those thatwere read and copied the most—are a product of the period from the second half of thetenth century through the middle of the twelfth. Second, this same period marks the
highpoint of aristocratic political power, a time when elite members of the Fujiwara clan
ruled without any real opposition. A historicist approach to literature that takes
reflection as its central metaphor would almost have to look to this period as the
highpoint of this genre. However, as Ichiko Teiji points out, this is untrue:
The stream of literary fiction, which was born from the world of the Heian-period
aristocracy and reached its zenith with the Genji monogatari, did not disappear
once the Kamakura period had been entered. Rather, the number of works written
5

Ichiko Teiji, “Chūsei no shōsetsu,” Otogi-zōshi, Nihon bungaku kenkyū shiryō sōsho(Tokyo: Yūsedō, 1985), p.28.

Michael J. Scanlon

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34

was much greater than in the previous age. The Kamakura period was an age inwhich a shogunate was established in the eastern city of Kamakura far from
Kyoto, and military government was practiced for the first time. As a reflection ofthis, military narratives like the Heike monogatari, the Hōgen monogatari, theHeiji monogatari and the Shōmonki were created for the first time, and exempla
collections, which were related to recollections of the past age as well as to thepreaching and dissemination of new religious sects, were variously produced.
However, in Kyoto, the court government of before continued unchanged;
alongside the new literature, courtly fiction was created as ever by aristocratic
hands in amounts that reach the level of almost two hundred titles. The majorityof these have been lost; no more than one tenth or so survive to the present. With
the start of the period of northern and southern courts, however, courtly fiction,
which depicted the world of the aristocracy and is thought to have had people ofthat class as its readers and writers, pretty much disappears. After the turbulenceof the Nanbokuchō period, the power of the aristocracy fell to earth, so this[literary phenomenon] corresponds to the fate of the aristocrats. 6
The break is over-emphasized.

As many modern literary historians have pointed out,some pieces of courtly fiction—a group that includes, among others, the Sumiyoshi
monogatari, the Sagoromo monogatari, the Ochikubo monogatari, the Yowa no nezame,and the Torikaebaya monogatari—continued to evolve over the late medieval period tothe point that they gave rise to texts included within the corpus of Muromachi fiction.
The narratives gathered under the rubric Muromachi fiction actually derive from diverse
sources such as courtly fiction, exempla literature, and military narrative. 7

Originallyquite different in form, these converged structurally due to historical and ideologicalpressures as they were re-produced over time.
6

Ichiko Teiji, “Muromachi monogatari to sono shūhen,” Muromachi monogatari shū(Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1989), p.471.
7

I use the term exempla because it is scholarly protocol. Japanese academics working onsuch texts as the Gesta Romanorum translate exemplum into Japanese as setsuwa (説話),a term that did not come into scholarly use in Japan until the modern period. In
pre-modern times, this type of writing, like most all narrative, was simply referred to as
monogatari (narrative), though a wealth of evidence shows that this particular type ofmonogatari formed its own genre.

Michael J. Scanlon

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35

The later medieval is most often referred to as the Muromachi period because
the headquarters of the military government, the dominant political power of the time,
was located in the Muromachi section of the city of Kyoto, the traditional imperial capital.
The Muromachi bakufu, the second such military government of Japan, was in many
ways different from the first, which immediately preceded it. The Kamakura bakufu had
its capital in the city of that name far to the east of Kyoto and was, in reality, anotherlayer of governmental administration added to an already complex system.

To thepre-existing civil versions of the judicial and legislative systems as well as the provincial
and estate administration organizations, an analogous military version was added.
These provided very real competition to the aristo-imperial system when it came tosecular authority.

However, in the realm of symbolic authority—those centralizing

ideological formations that allow rule by consent as much as force—the Kamakura
military government was highly dependent on traditional means, especially religious
ritual and the recognition of the imperial court.

When a rebellion led by the retired

emperor GoToba (1180-1239, r.1183-1198) failed in 1221, the traditional authority
system was not only maintained, but the complaints of the longstanding aristocratic andclerical landholders were given redress. It would, however, be another imperial
revolt—this one by a sitting emperor, GoDaigo (1288-1339, r.1318-1339)—that would
bring about the end of this system.
GoDaigo’s attempt to turn the symbolic capital of his position into secular power
and authority ended in absolute failure. Not only did his revolt fail to restore direct
imperial rule, it also destroyed much of the political and financial strength of the imperial

Michael J. Scanlon

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36

court and the civil aristocracy.

Ashikaga Takauji, one of the emperor’s own generals,

having routed the Kamakura forces, turned against the emperor, seized power, andestablished a second military government which, unlike the previous regime, laid claim to
all worldly authority.

However, the act of making assertions as to the possession of

authority and the ability to exercise that authority are separate matters, and the Ashikaga
shogunate lacked the means to enforce their claims. 8

Long-term trends towards the

localization of rule and the relative military weakness of the Ashikaga undoubtedly
played a role in this, but part of the problem lay in the way their rule was justified. The
new government and its ideological allies did not eradicate the traditions of the past andput forward a bold new way of seeing the world and the role of government in it.
Instead, their mandate was pragmatic: they could restore peace, law, and order.

On amore symbolic level, it was announced that the Ashikaga were the inheritors of the
Kamakura system and head of the military estate.

Yet the Kamakura bakufu was a

military regime that had recently lost on the battlefield, and military families were more
likely to be fierce rivals rather than members of a unified and oriented class.

Thestrongest justification for their rule lay elsewhere. “No matter how powerful a military
hegemon,” writes John Whitney Hall, “if he aspired to recognition as a ruler of the entire
country, he needed more than a conquering army.

He needed also a sufficiently highcourt status to demonstrate publicly his right to rule.” 9

In other words, the Muromachi

8

John Whitney Hall, “The Muromachi Bakufu,” Cambridge History of Japan (NewYork: Cambridge University Press, 1990), p.175.
9Op. cit., p.191.

Michael J. Scanlon

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37

government was as dependent upon the sanction of the imperial court as the previous
aristocratic and military governments had been. Yet the imperial institution and its
centralizing force had been tremendously weakened in the Ashikaga rise to power. In
his bid for secular power, GoDaigo had wrapped himself in the Buddhist, Shinto andConfucian symbols of kingship, so the Ashikaga attack on him was in some ways also an
assault upon “the notion of a legitimate central authority.” 10

Of even greater harm,

however, was the fact that, at the same time the Ashikaga were setting up theirgovernment, GoDaigo had absconded with the imperial regalia, taken refuge in Mount
Yoshino to the south of Kyoto, and set up a separate imperial court there that rivaled theone located in Kyoto.

From 1336 until 1392, there co-existed two imperial courts, one

in the north and one in the south, both of which enlisted supporters to back their cause by
bestowing legitimacy and prestige on powers involved in local disputes. The
centralizing efficacy of the imperial order had been undermined, but it, nevertheless,remained the ideal, and would continue to be so until a new order formed towards the
beginning of the seventeenth century.
It was not only the political order that was weakened by these disputes andactions.

In the aftermath of GoDaigo’s rebellion, the Tendai school, which had long

been seen as the most orthodox type of Buddhism due to its close ties with the state,began to lose its dominant position, and the salvationist sects that had evolved out of it
during the early medieval period started to gain strength.

Institutions of these so-called

10

Andrew Goble, Kenmu: Go-Daigo’s Revolution (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press, 1996), p.253.

Michael J. Scanlon

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38

Kamakura sects often served as centripetal nodes for autonomous villages or religious
communities, but they did not take on the large-scale and wide-ranging centralizing role
typical of the dominant religious organizations that had preceded them.

The energy ofthe late medieval world lay outside the traditional elites and their institutions.

This led

to a society with “greater fluidity, movement, and potential for change” than had
previously been the norm. 11

Modern scholars of Muromachi period literature andhistory tend to see this freedom as a good thing, and it is common for them to look forreflections of it in Muromachi fiction that can be tied to such things as the rise ofindividualism or the growing financial and political might of those outside the traditionalaristocratic and clerical elites.

Yet the shuten dōji narrative laid out above does not revelin freedom or the glory of an individual.

In fact, the exact opposite would be closer tothe truth. Hamanaka Osamu states:
The narrative Ōyama shuten dōji is not something limited to the praise of thebravery of Minamoto [Raikō] as an individual warrior. It is a story in which he,after receiving imperial sanction and divine blessing, is able to put down a rebel
powerful enough to attack the emperor’s authority. Its significance lies in the factthat it tells of the feeling of political and religious tension in order to show the
auspiciousness of the recovery of order. 12
To the people who were living through this period, especially those who possessed the
combination of literacy and financial resources necessary to be part of the reading public
for late medieval fiction, the divestment of energy from order was a problem, one which
the shuten dōji both engages and resolves. The shuten dōji can easily be fit onto a

11Goble, p.xix.

12

Hamanaka Osamu, “Ibuki dōji kō,” Okinawa kokusai daigaku bungakubu kiyō 19:1
(Aug., 1990), p.59.

Michael J. Scanlon

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39

selectionist rectangle that schematically represents the logical limits of the irresolvableconflict between these two positive values.
Figure 3: Selectionist Rectangle for the Ōyama shuten dōji
Raikō
order

energyimperial court

demon kingno energy

no ordercaptives

The basic conflict of the narrative becomes clear.

Though Raikō is the one whofights the demon king, the true clash lies between the weak political order of Kyoto andthe unruly denizens of Ōyama Mountain.

Nowhere is this clearer than in the demon

king’s self introduction:
At times of a sage king like this one, our powers are at our full disposal. For thisreason, at times of a poor king—when the strength of his people wane because
kingly authority is lax, and when the protectors of the realm lose vigor because
the blessings of the gods and buddhas are weak—my desires come to naught.
When we meet with a sage king and his reign, we have magical powers. I will tell
you quietly some stories of the past. But, first, I will offer a drink of sake.
かかる賢王にあひたてまつりて侍る時、我等が威勢も心にまかせ侍る也。其故は王威ゆるければ民の力衰へ、神仏の加護うすければ国士衰弊する事にて、愚王にあふ時は、童が心もいふ甲斐なくなり、賢王、賢王の代にあふ時は、我等が通力も侍るなり。昔物語はしづかに申てきかせまいらせん、先一献とて酒をすすむ。13This is a serious violation of readerly expectations, for Muromachi common sense would

13Ōyama shuten dōji (Itsuō bijutsukan-zō ko-emaki), Muromachi jidai monogatari taisei,
vol.3 (Tokyo: Kadokawa Shoten, 1975), p.130.

Michael J. Scanlon

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40

be that natural, human and supernatural disasters were signs of imperial weakness andunfitness to rule, not strength and worthiness.
the text itself.

The statement is also undermined within

The demon king, who is forced to live deep in the wilderness among thebones of his victims, is powerless before a strong central order.

He has already been

forced to move twice, both times by men who played fundamental roles in theestablishment of an imperial order with a fixed capital in the city of Kyoto. The sitting
emperor, on the other hand, cannot even command his own troops at will.

His initialorders are rebuffed by his soldiers. The captives are present for accounting purposes.
They, who lack both order and energy, are nothing more than a way of keeping score.
Raikō might seem to be the perfect hero because he functions as “the ideal
synthesis which would ‘resolve’ the initial binary opposition by subsuming it under asingle unity.” 14

In this narrative, however, Raikō plays a more ambivalent role.

As asoldier capable of vanquishing the demon, he also possesses the power to overthrow theimperial order.

In order to disallow this possibility, he is bound to this traditional

system throughout the text.

Without the divine intervention of a group of deities who

were part of a pantheon that guaranteed imperial ascendancy, Raikō’s mission would haveended in failure.

Raikō, after all, does next to nothing on his own; it is the gods who

advise him on strategy, give him the tools necessary to carry out the mission, and evenphysically assist him in slaying the demon. The hero himself is made to acknowledge
this in the closing section of the text:
Afterwards, Raikō, realizing that his rise in the world was not due to his own
14

Fredrick Jameson, The Political Unconscious (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press,
1981), p.168.

Michael J. Scanlon

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41

powers but because of imperial virtue and the power of the Shinto deities,
undertook a fast and made a pilgrimage to the [Iwashimuzu] Hachiman Shrine.
其後、頼光、今度の高みやうは、全、我等か威勢にあらす、且は、皇徳の盛なる
故、且は、神威のいたす所也とて、精進して、八幡宮へ参詣せられける。 15

Raikō—and every other main character—is also said to be an avatar of a Buddhist deity
who protects the realm, and these martial heroes accept positions within the imperial
system upon their return to Kyoto.

Therefore, all potentially revolutionary energy is

assimilated into the traditional order. Herein lies the importance and function of theshuten dōji’s long denouement: it binds potential revolutionaries to the traditional order.
Because an engagement with the order-energy problematic resulting in a restoration of
traditional norms is typical of Muromachi fiction, similarly structured integrative endings
can be found in texts throughout the genre.

In stories of lost love both heterosexual andhomosexual, the passionate energy of the affair is channeled into the protection of thelovers’ community, with the person left behind often being reborn as a tutelary deity.
Successful love stories tend to involve extraordinary or otherworldly males who cause a
bit of mischief before they are subsumed into the system when they marry into
aristocratic families. There are also stories of religious awakenings in which
protagonists take their zeal for transgression and put it towards the cause of Buddhism,
one of the chief producers of ideology for the aristo-imperial system.
This irresolvable conflict between energy and order was the dominantmechanism of selection within the Muromachi period as a whole, though the very weakideological integration of the age insured that there were others, some surviving from past
15

Ōyama shuten dōji (Itsuō bijutsukan-zō ko-emaki), Muromachi jidai monogatari taisei,
vol.3, p.140.

Michael J. Scanlon

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42

ages, others also original to the late medieval period.

So long as the order-energy

problematic was able to give meaning to the world, even what would seem likecatastrophic events had little influence upon it. For instance, the near total destructionof the imperial capital and a subsequent century and a half of warfare that can be related
to the Ōnin war of the late 1460s could be accommodated by this problematic, and theonly discernable effect this disaster and its aftermath had upon Muromachi fiction was arise in the number of texts with non-Buddhist themes.

At the same time, as an

instrument of selection, this paradigm is much weaker than a productive force.

This canperhaps best be seen in a mutation at the end of the most popular version of shuten dōjinarrative of the early modern period. In the first few decades of the eighteenth century,
an Osaka publisher put out the Otogi bunko, a collection of twenty-three pieces of latemedieval fiction which closes with the shuten dōji.

In this story, Raikō is sent to rescue

a specific person (the daughter of an aristocrat), and the text ends as follows:
From the time the affair was heard of in the capital, people were milling about
trying to see Raikō’s return to the capital. Among these were Middle Captain
Ikeda and his wife who had had their daughter stolen away. They set off thinking
that they would go as far as it would take in order to meet with them. Catchingsight of Raikō, they called out. Their daughter found them quickly and cried out
through her tears, “Mother!” Seeing this, the mother ran up to her, grabbed holdof her, and—wondering if it were a dream or reality—cried like someone about topass away. The middle captain also heard of this and rushed her back home
thinking how happy he was to meet once more the daughter who was once lost.
Raikō went to the palace. There is no way to describe the emperor’s meetingwith him. His praise was endless. From that point forward, the reign became one
in which the protector of the realm ruled peacefully for a long time. The exploitsof Raikō are rare among those who take up arms. From the first in the realm down
to the masses, there was not a single person who was not impressed.
都にはこの事を聞くよりも、頼光の御上りを見物せんとて、ざざめきわたりて控へたり。その中に、姫をとられし池田中納言夫婦の人も出で給ひ、いづくまでも逢ひ次第と迎ひに出でさせ給ひしが、頼光を見付けつつ、「すはや是へ」とのたま

Michael J. Scanlon

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43

へば、はや姫君も御覧じて、「母上様」とて泣き給ふ。母上此よし御覧じて、する
すると走り寄り、姫君に取り付きて、是は夢かや現かと、消える人やうに泣き給へば、中納言も聞きしめし、「一度別れしわが姫に、二度逢ふこそうれしけれ」と、急ぎ宿所に帰らせ給ふ。
頼光は参内有り、みかど叡覧ましまして御感は申すはかりなし。御褒美限りなかりける。それよりも国士安全長久に治まる御代とぞなりにける。かの頼光の御手柄、ためし少なき弓取とて、上一人より下万民に至るまで、感ぜに者はなかりける。 16The ending of this version has a far weaker centripetal pull than the earlier one. Raikōis praised, but he is not given a higher position within the imperial order, nor is hemarried into the aristocracy.

It would be impossible to say that this ending wasproactively caused by historical and ideological changes. Many reworked versions of
the shuten dōji were being produced during the seventeenth century, and the majority
retain more assimilative endings, as do most of the twenty-two other narratives collectedin the Otogi bunko.

It would also seem hard to believe that such an ending became

possible for the first time with the advent of the early modern age.

Surely, there wereoccasions during the Muromachi period itself when the story ended with the defeat of thedemon king.

It is more that, with the change in epoch, such a narrative with such aclose could survive and flourish because the pressures that would have selected against it
in late medieval times were themselves weakened.

It is an examination of the historicaland ideological changes that occurred with the rise of Japan’s early modern age that will
form the center of this study.

16“Shuten dōji,” Otogi-zōshi shū, Nihon koten bungaku zenshū, vol.36 (Tokyo:
Shōgakukan, 1974), pp.473-474.
Michael J. ScanlonChapter 1

44
Chapter I

The End of an Era

There emerged in literary histories written in Japan over the first decades of thetwentieth century a curious genre of early modern fiction known as kana-zōshi.

While itwas only in the modern period that the term “kana-zōshi” has come to refer to the entire
body of Japanese-language prose literature written between 1600 and 1682, it had long
been part of the discourse surrounding the book in Japan, with documentary evidence
tracing use of the term as far back as 1468.

In the late medieval and early modern

periods, however, the word simply denoted all Japanese-language books with noconnotation of literariness.

In fact, it was not until an essay by Ebara Taizō (1894-1948)

published in 1933 that the literary prerequisite was combined with the chronologicalparameters, and the modern critical term kana-zōshi assumed its current form. 1

The two

immediately recognizable dates that construct this genre’s borders highlight the often
vexed relationship between literature and history. The first is from the realm of political
history because 1600—the year in which forces under Tokugawa Ieyasu defeated all real
opposition to his rule at the battle of Sekigahara—is typically seen as the start of the Edo(or Tokugawa) period. The second is internal to literary history because it was in 1682
that Ihara Saikaku published the Kōshoku ichidai otoko (The Erotic Life of a Man 好色一代男), the text that is now almost universally considered to be the first example of a“wholly early modern” piece of Edo-period fiction.

In historical hindsight, the1

Ebara Taizō, Kana-zōshi, Iwanami kōza Nihon bungaku (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten,1933).

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 1

45

chronological neatness might seem forced, even arbitrary. Two of the basic tenets ofrecent literary scholarship are that political change does not always, or even often,
directly determine developments in literary form and that the “masterpiece” should not be
overvalued in the study of literature. It must also be noted that the term was neversupposed to have anything more than heuristic value, for the very same Ebara article that
helped set the term’s definition includes a warning that kana-zōshi is nothing more than aterm of convenience.
Nearly a century of scholarly use, however, has lead to a reification of the
kana-zōshi genre, and those academics studying the literature of the early seventeenth
century accept it as a given.

Nakajima Takashi has recently called for an approach tothis body of texts that concentrates on elucidating the distinguishing features of thecategory—what he calls their “kana-zōshi-ness” (仮名草子性). 2

The intent is good, forthe thrust of the argument is that, over the past several decades, the scope of literary study
has gotten too narrow, with the focus of the vast majority of articles limited to single texts
or individual authors. Yet to base this call for broad-based scholarship on what was
originally a provisional and catchall grouping is a mistake, especially since there is little
in the way of obvious familial resemblances shared by these texts.

This becomes clear

in the ambitious attempts of the postwar generation of scholars to create a classification
system to tame the formal amorphousness of kana-zōshi.

Some of the more noteworthy

academics who tried are Teruoka Yasutaka (who breaks kana-zōshi into three distinct

2

Nakajima Takashi, “Joshō,” Shoki ukiyo-zōshi no tenkai (Tokyo: Wakagusa Shobō,
1996), p.11.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 1

46

kinds), Nakamura Yukihiko (who finds seven kinds and subdivides these into eleven
categories), Noda Hisao (three kinds in thirteen categories), Tanaka Noboru (six kinds),
Fuji Akio (five kinds in nine categories), and Nakamura again (five kinds in sixteen
categories). It is as if a strain of the “particularly virulent form of taxonomic disease”
that Michael McKeon notes once afflicted the study of seventeenth-century European
fiction in the West had reached pandemic proportions in postwar Japan. 3

Yet all theabove classificatory schemas were unable to fully systematize the materials, and none
became the universally accepted theory.
There is little hope of ever finding a way to systematize the artistic prose
production of the first three quarters of the seventeenth century.

A centripetal

kana-zōshi-ness simply does not exist, and the genre designation distracts more than it
clarifies.

Therefore, the term will be avoided as much as possible for the remainder ofthis study. This does not mean that a retreat to the smallest literary denominator—be it
text or author—is the only recourse.

Watanabe Morikuni, as one of the co-editors of the

kana-zōshi volume in a prestigious compendium of classical Japanese literature, observes
that the vernacular prose literature written and published on the early movable-type press
does not participate in the chaotic morphological diversity typical of the so-calledkana-zōshi of the second half of the century.4

Instead, these texts are closely related to afew popular forms of literature directly inherited from the preceding age. Thus, while
3

Michael McKeon, The Origins of the English Novel 1600-1740 (Baltimore: The Johns
Hopkins University Press, 1987) p.25.
4

Watanabe Morikuni, “Kana-zōshi: kinsei shoki no shuppan to bungaku,” Kana-zōshishū, Nihon koten bungaku taikei 74 (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1991), pp.490-491.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 1

47

the texts analyzed in this chapter are some of the first pieces of contemporary literature tobe published via the commercial press, they should not be thought of as the first fruits ofprint culture.

Rather, they are some of the last famous prose narratives to stem frommanuscript culture, mutated forms of late medieval literature that survived because thepressures that would have selected against them during the Muromachi period itself werethemselves weakened with the Pax Tokugawa.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 1

48

The more things change…
Military writings,
Which even the shop boys
Try reading breathlessly
Shimuja no me (1806)
Tekifū (active, nineteenth century)
A study looking into the relationship between the histories of literature and print
culture in Japan would do well to begin with the Ōsaka monogatari (The Osaka
Narrative 大坂物語). In most of its many versions, the text is separated into twovolumes: the first detailing the crippling of Osaka Castle’s defenses during the WinterCampaign of the eleventh month of 1614 and the second relating the final annihilation of
the Toyotomi family in the Summer Campaign of the fifth month of 1615. Yet the threeearliest extant movable-type editions contain only the first, suggesting that the text was
written in stages, with the original being composed soon after the conclusion of theWinter Campaign.

Since each of these exists in a unique copy, they alone would beinsufficient evidence on which to base a theory of a two-step process of composition.
However, towards the beginning of the twentieth century, a bookbinder’s ledger was
discovered on the inverse of a printed sheet of a movable-type edition of the Nihon shoki(The Chronicles of Japan 日本書紀, 720) by the path-breaking book historian Kawase
Kazuma.

An entry within it reveals that a text entitled the Ōsaka monogatari was incirculation as of the first month of 1615, several months before the second battle took
place.

From this, Kawase concludes that the Ōsaka monogatari—unlike othervernacular narratives produced at the beginning of the seventeenth century all of which
had greater or lesser social lives in their manuscript form before finding their way to theMichael J. ScanlonChapter 1

49

press—was printed almost immediately upon being written. 5

Nakamura Yukihiko, thepreeminent modern scholar of Tokugawa-period literature, has stated that the Ōsaka
monogatari was “the most quickly published text [of its genre].” 6

It would even seem

quite possible that the Ōsaka monogatari was the first vernacular prose text written
expressly to be published via the press.
If the Ōsaka monogatari were indeed the first text composed specifically to beprinted, it would be a spectacularly serendipitous occurrence.

It sold well from the start,

going through a minimum of nine movable-type printings during the first two decades of
its existence. Moreover, it remained in demand for nearly three centuries.

By themiddle of the eighteenth century, seven woodblock versions of the text had been carved.
Books made from these continued to sell in numbers great enough that a total of eighteen
xylographic editions can be identified as later publishers purchased or re-carved theoriginal blocks. These blocks, which could continue to produce new copies many years
after being made, were used to keep the Ōsaka monogatari in circulation well into thenineteenth century.

A copy of the text could be found in the holdings of the Daisō

lending library, a large commercial institution that flourished in nineteenth-century
Nagoya, and the Ōsaka monogatari was considered important enough to be included in

5

Kawase Kazuma, (Zōho) Kokatsujiban no kenkyū, vol. 1 (Tokyo: The Antiquarian
Booksellers Association of Japan, 1967), pp.609-623.
Similarly, an allusion thought to refer to Ieyasu at the end of the second volume leads
Kawase to speculate that it was written between the end of the Summer Campaign andthe death of Tokugawa Ieyasu in the fourth month of 1616.
6

Nakamura Yukihiko, “Ōsaka monogatari shohon no hen’i,” Nakamura Yukihikochojutsushū, vol.5 (Tokyo: Chūō Kōronsha, 1982), p.80.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 1

50

the 1911 collection of Edo histories put out by the Shūbunkan publishing house.

A

bestseller and a longseller, the Ōsaka monogatari was able to answer the symbolic needsof a reading public for the entire period that is now considered to have had an earlymodern worldview.
In some ways, the Ōsaka monogatari is strikingly different from the fiction of
the late medieval period.

Unlike the majority of Muromachi fiction, the Ōsaka

monogatari has an almost journalistic focus on the contemporary world. 7

Recognizable

names and dates from history appear throughout the story, and the narrative is specificallyplaced spatially.

The most striking example of this may be the detailed description of

the Osaka Castle that can be found near the beginning of the original moveable-type
edition:As for that castle of Osaka, on its west is the sea; to its north, the Great River;from its east, swamp land. Though all to its south is solid ground, the land slopes
downwards away from the castle. To look up at the cloud-like castle is to knowthat it is a famous one not likely to fall easily no matter what god or demonshould attack. They dug moats around the perimeter, set up stockades at their base,and constructed high earthen walls. They built a wall with eight-inch posts,
covered that thickly in plaster, and fortified it with five-inch stakes. In it, they cut
many an opening for archers and erected a turret every twenty yards. At every
six-foot interval, they wrote the surnames of three samurai. Cannons andgunpowder were prepared. The castle was the most famous in all Japan. The
soldiers battened down within it were men each of whom had time and time again
shown himself to have the merit of a thousand men. They all thought it to bereliable.
大坂の城と申は、西は海、北は大河、東はふけ、南一方陸地なれども地下がりにして、城一片の雲のごとくに見上げたれば、いかなる天魔鬼神が寄せたりともた
7

Indeed, the ties between the printing of news and the sieges of Osaka Castle go far
beyond the Ōsaka monogatari. It had long been thought that print journalism got its startin Japan with broadsheets (kawara-ban 瓦版) telling of the fall of the castle in 1615, but
a recently discovered document shows that print journalism’s origins in Japan can be
pushed back at least to the Winter Campaign of 1614.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 1

51

やすく落つまじき名城たるうへに、外側に堀を掘り、底に柵を結ひ、土手を高く築き上げ、八寸角を柱として塀を強く塗り上げ、塀裏に五寸角の木を打つけ、矢狭間を繁く切り、十間に一づつ櫓を立て、一間に侍三人づつの名字を書き付、大筒小筒、玉薬を添へて渡されける。城は日本一の名城也。たて籠もる兵は、一任8当選の手柄をかねてあらはしたる者共也。いづれも頼しくぞ覚へける。

A map was even added to later editions to further help the reader locate the story. Yet
the world depicted is not a disinterested, objective one.

The perspective—as can beseen in the use of honorary language towards the Tokugawa leadership and theoverwhelming praise of Ieyasu—is that of the Tokugawa victors.

Nakamura Yukihiko,taking into account the anti-Tokugawa feelings of the Kyoto aristocracy and the
difficulties involved with printing such a text had it displeased the Tokugawa government,
speculates that the Ōsaka monogatari was written by a member of the shogunal
government as a piece of pro-Tokugawa propaganda. 9

Moreover, the text—especiallythe longer version that appeared after the final Tokugawa victory—would seem to be
consciously heralding the arrival of a new age.

The opening of the original text:

Though it is not a rare statement, it is true that a person who tries to order the realm,
protect the land or maintain household peace without depending wholly on the civil
and military arts is doomed to failure. In peacetime, one makes use of the civil arts;
in chaotic times, one uses the military arts. Many recent incidences of this, Tai
Gongwang’s teaching, come immediately to mind.
珍しからぬ事なれ共、天下を治め、国を保ち、家を安くすることは、文武を専にせずんば有べからず。静かなる世は文をもつて、乱れたる国を武を以すと、太公望が10教へ、目の当たりに思ひあはする事多かりき。

8Ōsaka monogatari, Kana-zōshi shū, Shin Nihon koten bungaku taikei 74, Watanabe
Morikuni and Watanabe Kenji, eds. (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1991) p.8.
Emphasis added.
9

Nakamura Yukihiko, “Ōsaka monogatari shohon no hen’i,” p.86.

10Ōsaka monogatari, p.5.
Emphasis added.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 1

52

as well as the closing of the added volume:
Meanwhile, the august pair [of Ieyasu and his son] searched out the remnants of the
Osaka forces and killed each and every soldier. In order to govern the realm, theyremained in Kyoto and Fushimi and set the regulations for punishment and reward.
In front of Osaka Castle, they heard appeals and made judgments. To those who
were loyal, they gave monetary rewards beyond all their dreams or granted fiefs.
As for those who were disloyal and not correct, some had their stipends cut off,
others were crucified on scorched branches. Loyal retainers advanced, sycophants
retreated. It was a world so at peace that the waves of the four seas around Japanbegan to quiet. As for the protector of this realm, none like him existed even in theancient past, and most likely the future will have none like him. Let us pray that thelife of this lord stretches into eternity.
去ほどに、両御所は、尚大坂の余党尋さぐつて、ことごとく打ちはたし、天下を治められんがため、京伏見に御逗留有て、賞罰厳重の法度を定め、今度大坂表にての、忠不忠を聞こし召し明め、忠有輩には、望に優る金銀、領知を下され、不忠不義の輩、銀を切り、枝を枯らして刑戮に行はれしかば、忠臣は進み、佞者は退きて、いよいよ四つの海八州の外も波静かなる世なれば、かかるめでたき天下の守護は、上古にも未だなし、末代とてもありがたし。ただこの君の御寿命、万歳々々万々歳と11祝したてまつる。

are statements that both directly oppose the project of rejuvenating the lapsed aristocratic
regime, which would seem to have been the symbolic purpose of Muromachi fiction, as
well as approximate extra-literary reality (or at least the official government
interpretation of recent events).
declared over.

The warfare of the fifteenth and sixteenth century is

The Tokugawa government, under the watchful eye of Ieyasu, announces

the imposition of a new form of peace on the realm. The regulations mentioned in the
final text’s closing were probably understood to be in reference to those promulgated in
extra-literary reality in 1615 that defanged the clergy, removed the aristocracy frompolitical involvement, and transformed the samurai class from active soldiers tobureaucrats with military pretensions. Unlike the failed attempts at pacification of the11Ōsaka monogatari, p.51.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 1

53

previous military powers, Ieyasu would form a peace that would not be forced into fatal
compromises with other military powers or the court and religious institutions that had
held so much power in previous ages.
While it is tempting to read the Ōsaka monogatari as an accurate historicalaccount of the dawn of the Tokugawa period and, with it, the early modern age, the text is
also a product of, and a participant in, the culture of the previous age. Despite its
martial theme, the text’s original reading public included the dominant audience of muchof the past millennium: the Kyoto-based aristocracy.

It is not simply that the aristocracy

provided by far the highest number of potential customers for books in the city where thetext was published.

Note, too, the explanation that follows a depiction of the hysterical

widow of Toyotomi Hideyoshi fretting over the fate of her beloved son when the fortunesof battle are going poorly:
When she looked out and saw the inestimable enemy troops, the wretchedness of her
womanly heart caused her to worry over the fate of her son, Hideyori. Her
appearance was frenzied, and she lost all strength of character. How touching toknow that what they say is true—be one noble or base, all “wander on the road ofworry for their children.” In the poetry critiques [in the “six poetry immortals”
section of his preface to the Kokin wakashū], Tsurayuki criticized the poetry of Ono
no Komachi, writing: “Her poetry is moving but lacks vigor. This is because they are
the poems of a woman.” Their conditions differ, but their essences are the same!
女心の浅ましさは、目に余る敵を御覧じて、秀頼の御身上思しめしわづらはせ給ひ、
あやめもわかぬ御有様にて、ひたすら御心弱り給ふにぞ。高きも賎しきも子を思ふ
道に迷ふとは、思ひ知られてあはれ也。これや和歌の褒貶に小町が歌を難じて、「あはれなるやうにて強からず、強からぬはおうなの歌なればなり」と古今の序に、貫12之が書きおきしも、品こそ変れ、心は等しかるべしや。

Had this text been aimed at a purely military readership, the unseemliness of the widow’s
outburst would have been obvious and the commentary unnecessary.
12Here, not only isŌsaka monogatari, p.25.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 1

54

an explanation added, but it is one that naturalizes the materials by referring to one of themost famous poems in the waka canon as well as to the most central poetic document in
the entire tradition, the Vernacular Preface (Kanajo 仮名序) to the Kokin wakashū(Collection of New and Old Poetry 古今和歌集, 914).
is literally contained by the medieval.

Moreover, the Ōsaka monogatari

The italicized phrases in the combined text’s

opening and closing cited earlier in this section are direct quotations from the Taiheiki(The Chronicle of Great Peace 太平記), a fourteenth-century war tale. Even the overall
style and rhetoric of the text is said to approximate those of this medieval genre. 13
Many of the formal elements of the text can also be traced back to medieval
narrative practice.

A clear example of this is the description of the fictional Ieyasu’s

journey to Osaka. Ieyasu, first introduced in the text as a warrior from the eastern
provinces who was able to put down a treasonous rebellion (muhon 謀反) 14 at the battleof Sekigahara, advances westward from Edo as follows:
One hundred leagues lie between Edo and Fushimi, and the roads are so filled withmen and horses that no one can advance more than a mile or two a day. As they maketheir way on mountain roads sleeping the traveler’s sleep, dreams soon turned tohometowns and loved ones left behind. Looking up at the peak of Mount Fuji, thesmoke rising from the snow was caught in the wind and carried off—those whostared at it thought it looked like [the smoke from a cremated] body. In the reality of
the Utsu Mountains, one thinks only of those who cannot be seen even in dreams.
Trysts are as numerous as the Ōse rapids on the Ōi River. Like the waves constantly
13

Watanabe Morikuni, “Ōsaka monogatari no buntai,” Musashino Bungaku 38 (January,1991), p.20.

14

The use of this term shows Ieyasu was in service of legitimate rule, which means he
was fighting in the name of the emperor. This is important because the imperial
institution will not be named—or even alluded to—again in this text, and the rhetoric of“pacifying the realm”, “ruling the realm”, and so on that appears again and again
throughout the text are the phrases used in Chinese histories when writing of the exploitsof the founders of new dynasties.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 1

55rolling in, all must push on, even at night. In darkness they climb through themountains. Thinking that they will never get past them, they lament their fate… They
cross the long bridge at Seta, and the sound of hoofsteps is constant. They pass overthe “meeting pass” of Ōsaka, and this is it. Just where both friends and strangers part,
they have arrived in Kyoto and Fushimi.
江戸と伏見其間百二十里の程は、只人馬さながら満ち満ちて、一日の其内にも、二里や三里も行やらで、山路暮らして旅寝する、夢もいつしか故郷の、慣れこし人の名残のみ。富士の高峰を見上ぐれば、雪の中より立つ煙、風をいたみて片寄るも、身のたぐいぞと打眺め、宇津の山辺のうつつにも、夢にも知らぬ人のみ、あふ瀬の数も大井河、波のよるさへ道行の、小夜の中山わけ上り、また超ゆべしと思はねば、あはれなりける我身かは … 勢田の長橋打渡る、駒の足おとひまもなく、往来の人に逢坂の、関を越ゆればこれやこの、知る知らぬも別れては、京や伏見に着きにけ15り。

This rhetorical device, known as a michiyuki (道行), is more than a description of apassage through space. The places described had long been incorporated into thesymbolic landscape of Japanese poetry, so the movement described is actuallyparticipation in the Way of Poetry, which since time immemorial had been associatedwith kingship in Japan. This connection transforms the traveler by endowing him withthe aura of legitimacy associated with the literary tradition. Thus, the fictional Ieyasu,
though never depicted as directly participating in any cultural or scholarly activity, is able
to join civil (or cultural) merit (bun 文) to his military prowess (bu 武) and becomes
worthy to rule the land. Moreover, the basic problematic within which the Ōsaka
monogatari was written remains the same as that dealt with by much fiction of the later
medieval period: the rupture of order and energy. This can perhaps be seen most clearlyin Noda Hisao’s attempt to refute Nakamura’s hypothesis of a Tokugawa sponsorship of
the text:
There is the explanation that the Ōsaka monogatari, in order to justify the Osaka
Campaigns, was created as pro-Tokugawa propaganda. However, this is going a15Ōsaka monogatari, p.9.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 1

56

bit too far. Truly, in Kyoto and Osaka, there was still an inclination to glorify the
Regent [Toyotomi] Hideyoshi, and there was strong opposition to Ieyasu’s turning
his back on obligations to the Toyotomi family and leading them into a trap. The
Tokugawa side might even have actually wanted to correct any such
misconceptions. But it is hard to believe that the creation of this work was based
solely on such an intention. As I stated earlier, even though there is strong praiseof Ieyasu and [his son and the current shogun] Hidetada, the spirited fighting of
the Toyotomi side is narrated and assessed impartially in the narrative. There is no
obvious attempt to promote virtue and chastise vice (kanzen chōaku 勧善懲悪)…
As for the fall of the Toyotomi, it is simply described as “moving” or as a casewhere “all who rise must fall.” 16
Without a doubt, Noda is correct. Within the world of the Ōsaka monogatari, theToyotomi are imperfect, but decidedly not criminal or evil. At very worst, the text
portrays their leader, Toyotomi Hideyori, as ineffective, the immature son of a doting andfrantic mother who, though capable of mouthing clichés that momentarily energize hisallies, lacks judgment and is easily tricked by Ieyasu into crippling his own defenses.
More than Hideyori or any members of his family, it is the masterless samurai summonedby the Toyotomi call to arms who want to fight to the bitter end and refuse to obey orders
to disband. These rōnin—perfect symbols of unattached energy—must be subdued inorder to bring lasting peace and stability to the land, but they, far from being purely evil
villains, are respected for their tenacity and bravery within the text.
Noda’s critique, nevertheless, misses its mark because the sympathy for the
Toyotomi in the Ōsaka monogatari in no way damages Nakamura’s thesis.

Nakamura

himself stated elsewhere that one would be hard pressed to find any powerful and entirely
evil villains within all of Japanese literature prior to the eighteenth century. 17

This

16

Noda Hisao, Nihon kinsei shōsetsu shi, Kana-zōshi (Tokyo: Benseisha, 1986),
pp.114-115.
17

Nakamura Yukihiko, “Tsūzoku-mono zatsudan,” Nakamura Yukihiko chojutsushū, vol.7(Tokyo: Chūō Kōronsha, 1984), pp.310-311.
Michael J. ScanlonChapter 1

57

dearth of pure villainy is one of the most striking points of all late medieval narrative, be
it the late medieval fiction analyzed earlier or the war tales that preceded them.

Manycritics have pointed out the sympathetic way in which the demon of the shuten dōjinarrative is depicted. He, when drunk, is destructive and must be killed by a surrogate
power of the center, but empathy for the character ran deep enough that, in the latter halfof the Muromachi period, there developed a prequel, the Ibuki dōji, which describes thedemon as an abandoned child forced to move from place to place.

This lack of powerfulpure villainy can perhaps be best explained by returning to the selectionist rectangle used
to analyze the Shuten dōji in the previous chapter.
Figure 4: Selectionist Rectangle for the Ōsaka monogatari
Tokugawa Ieyasu
orderenergy(emperor)rōnin

no energy

no orderToyotomi Hideyori

The structural placement of the characters of the Ōsaka monogatari reveals why true
villainhood was not present in the text.

Villains and heroes are less mutually exclusive

opposites than two sides of the same coin.

In the above formulation, a perfect hero is

one who—like Raikō or Ieyasu—can reinvigorate, create, revive, or sustain a benevolent
social order. Likewise, a pure villain must be a character able to create a new,malevolent social order. Hideyori, though he occupies the worst location in the

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 1

58

selectionist rectangle, is capable of nothing and, like the kidnapped victims in the earlyversion of the shuten dōji narrative analyzed in the prologue to this scholarly text, is more
an object of pity (or derision) than anything else. Even the masterless samurai are to be
awed (or feared), not vilified. It is structurally impossible for them, as embodiments ofchaos and energy, to create any social order whatsoever. The old order remains, thoughin vestigial form, in references confirming obedience to the emperor. The aristocratic
court, on the other hand, is simply ignored.
mentioned even once in the text.

Neither it nor a single one of its members is

Never confronted, the old order is simply written outof the plot.
The traditional forms are, nevertheless, performing a new function.

The

Tokugawa victory is not—as it well could have been—narrated as an attempt toreinvigorate any previous system, be it aristocratic or purely imperial.

To the contrary,

the text clearly announces the arrival of a new regime that supersedes everything thatcame before, even the ages of the Sage Kings in China on which all previous
governments had claimed to have been modeled, and its ending effectively forecloses
upon all possibility of an aristocratic revival. Given this change in function, it would
seem probable that there would also be some alteration in form.

One candidate for thiswould be a slight spatial shift at the conclusion of the narrative.

The action of the Ōsaka

monogatari’s story (its fabula) is set in space as otherworldly as any within the corpus of
Muromachi fiction: the battlefield. This is a place home to the soldier, the heroic, andthe exceptional.

Norms of behavior, much less literacy and culture, are actively

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 1
rejected. 18

59

Though, like the fiction of the previous centuries, the Ōsaka monogataricloses in Kyoto, the ending space of this seventeenth-century text is quite different.

Thedenouement of late medieval fiction tends to effect a return to the familiar places of thelapsed aristocratic world, and these traditional spaces provide a channel through which
the energy of the outsider can be incorporated to the aristocratic body. 19

The Ōsaka

monogatari ends where it began: castles, specifically those located in the Nijō section of
Kyoto and Fushimi to the immediate south of the imperial capital.

These areas, which

are not described in any detail within the Ōsaka monogatari, are spaces thatsimultaneously lie both inside and outside the ancient capital.

By being physicallywithin the aristocratic center, it serves as an unmistakable reminder that the new regime
will consist of a single center. Had the text ended with Ieyasu’s return to Edo, where inhistorical reality the shogunal capital was located, it would have been possible to mistakethe new system for a revival of the old elliptical one of the Kamakura period (1192-1333)
18

The one true instance of comic relief in the Ōsaka monogatari is a peculiar anecdoteconcerning Furuta Oribe, a general on the Tokugawa side, who is mocked by his fellow
soldiers for being shot in the face while attempting to conduct a tea ceremony at an
encampment within gun range of the castle.
As would have been well known to the original audience of the Ōsaka monogatari,
the historical Furuta Oribe (1543-1615), a famous general and tea practitioner, was later
discovered to have conspired with the Toyotomi and condemned to death. However, eventhe possibility of treason would undermine the sageliness of the Tokugawa rule, and thisis never brought up in the narrative.
19

Watanabe Kenji also talks of the cultural pull of pre-Ieyasu Kyoto. However, he sees
the marriage of male outsiders to female aristocrats as a reflection of the historical factthat military strongmen were entering, occupying and basically taking over thearisto-imperial capital. I would have to argue that, in this case, gender roles are lesspowerful than status ones and the male outsiders were being depicted in fiction as
submitting to the aristocratic order.
Watanabe Kenji, “‘Toshi’ to Uraminosuke zengo,” Bungaku ni okeru toshi (Tokyo:
Kasama Shoin, 1988), pp.89-106.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 1

60

in which the civil capital of Kyoto competed for power and authority with a military
capital in the east.

At the same time, by lying outside the symbolic world of aristocratic

Kyoto, the new regime can be heralded without ever directly attacking the previous one.
Thus, the narrative remains somewhat amenable to a contemporary audience, despite its
violation of the contemporary horizon of expectations and its attack on the ideologicalworld of a good deal of its potential readers.
That the structures of medieval narrative could function for ends different fromthat for which they were originally superintended is not surprising in the least.

Literary

structures are able to survive and sometimes even thrive despite great deformations in theliterary system caused by changes in other, larger symbolic systems.

In this case, astructure evolved to reinvigorate a lapsed political system could, with the slightest ofchanges, be well suited to announce a new regime.

The magnitude of this deviation in

ideological function, however, led to a divergence between the Ōsaka monogatari and thenarrative tradition from which it was born.
process are available in the archive.

In a rare stroke of fortune, the traces of thisThe earliest extant booksellers’ catalogue, whichsurvives in a unique manuscript dated 1659, lists the Ōsaka monogatari at its end alongwith a catchall of Japanese-language prose texts not associated with the high poetic
tradition including all late medieval fiction, contemporary narrative, some exempla
collections, and military epics such as the Heike monogatari and the Taiheiki.

But theliterary field would get more complicated over the Edo period, and new genres began totake form.

One of the earliest and most important of these to branch off was one known

as “military writings” (gunsho 軍書), which exists as a textual grouping in the 1659

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 1

61

catalogue. But the genre was still in the process of forming and semi-permeable—the
Heike monogatari (The Heike Narrative 平家物語, thirteenth century), the Soga
monogatari (The Soga Narrative 曽我物語, Kamakura period), the Gikeiki (The Chronicleof Yoshitsune 義経記, fourteenth century), the Hōgen monogatari (The Hōgen Narrative
保元物語, thirteenth century) and the Shinchōkōki (The Chronicle of Lord Nobunaga 信長
公記, 1622) are actually listed in both sections.

In all subsequent seventeenth-century

booksellers’ catalogues, however, the two genres are mutually exclusive, and the Ōsaka
monogatari is listed in the military writings section.
Not all writings on martial themes were fit to be part of this new genre of militarywritings. According to Nagatomo Chiyoji, the textual grouping was restricted to those
texts possessing “a framework with an air that would allow them to be taken as official
histories (seishi 正史),” which he divides into the following two categories:
There were two kinds of military writings published during the Edo period.
Specifically, one is medieval war tales… As a rule, these are written in Chinesecharacters and the hiragana syllabary and are illustrated; most often they were
published with an inscription asserting that attention had been paid to textual
scholarship (honbun kōtei/kyōgō 本文校訂・校合). The other is military writings
produced and printed after the founding of the Edo period… These for the most partare written using Chinese characters and the katakana syllabary, at first had noillustrations, and come with prefaces (or the occasional postscript) which state that
great attention had been paid to the historical accuracy of the narrative. 20
Texts of the second category were written after the genre had precipitated and fit
comfortably into the category of history. Whether or not it was actually so, thediscourse surrounding them assured the factual precision of these texts, and they were
written in a script reserved for solemn, dignified material such as Buddhist vernacular
20

Nagatomo Chiyoji, Kinsei kashihon’ya no kenkyū (Tokyo: Tōkyōdō Shuppan, 1982),
pp.196, 189.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 1

62

writings. The medieval war tales—a category to which the Ōsaka monogatari belongs
despite its date of composition—had recognizably artistic qualities about them that led toa very disconcerting realization.

It was well known to the people of the Edo period thatthe medieval war tales contained fictional elements.

The preface to the Kamakura

jitsuroku (The True Record of the Kamakura 鎌倉実録, 1717) makes this clear: “The
ancient narratives (monogatari 物語) are a mirror for today… In these, there are lies andmistakes, so it is difficult for them to be mirrors… Thus, [their stories] should beverified.” 21This attempt to factually correct the war tales was but a minor movement.

For the most part, their literariness was not denied, as can be seen in the physical form
they took as books. For these to be considered history (as opposed to fiction), it would
have to be a type of history subtly different from histories that depend on factual accuracy.
They transformed into symbolic histories, better known as myth.

Within this framework,

the lifecycle of the Ōsaka monogatari becomes clear. It became a bestseller as a pieceof literature. As time passed, it also became a foundation myth of the Tokugawa regime
and a longseller for as long as the early modern worldview predominated.

When aspecifically an anti-feudal, anti-Tokugawa ideology gained hegemonic status around theturn of the twentieth century, the Ōsaka monogatari eventually lost its elite position and,as a naïve story of the past posing as history, eventually faded from consciousness.

21

Quoted in Nagatomo, op. cit., p.195.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 1

63

Revolution?
As for the one-volume Tang Wencui, thetwo-volume Taiping yulan, and the sixteen-volume
Gangmu jilan, for each of these there was not
sufficient books. For the imperially printed books,
those possessing the necessary things were ordered
to present them, and subsequently the Qin xipu was
newly made before his majesty. Next I received acomplete copy of the new printed edition of the
Shiji. For many a year, I could not get those that I
wanted due to a lack of means. Now I am being
given each and every one of those that had been
missing. Fantastic, fantastic!
Entry for 1596.11.27
Keichō nikkenroku
Funabashi Hidekata (1575-1614)
It is striking how little is known about Japan’s early print culture.

The first

commercial publishers were merchants as opposed to the religious organizations that had
all but monopolized the world of private printing, and commercial print did not
immediately drive manuscript publishing to extinction.

Shops specializing in scribal

reproduction survived, producing books both in bulk as well as for individual order, andearly booksellers often offered manuscripts side by side with printed books.
Movable-type technology dominated the first few decades of commercial publishing,despite the fact that woodblock printing had a long history in Japan.

However, basicallyno diaries, letters, or other materials have survived that would give insight into the daily
activities of these early print shops, so detailed contemporary explanations for the riseand fall of early movable type are simply unavailable to modern scholars.

More

important, the array of texts first produced by print technology and brought to market can
only be reconstructed based on evidence that is partial at best. Booksellers’ catalogues

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 1

64

and guild registers would not develop until many decades had passed, so any endeavor tocapture the book market as a whole must be based more or less completely on an analysisof books that have survived being read and stored for almost three hundred years.

There

is no way of telling with certainty whether or not the books that have been passed down
to modern times are absolutely representative of contemporary print production. It isthought that few texts were struck per edition, and pre-modern Japanese books are madeout of paper, thread, and rice glue. These are materials very susceptible to damage byfire, water and vermin, and books made from them are fragile enough to literally be read
into oblivion.

It could very well be that numerous titles or editions have simply

disappeared from the historical record. 22

Nevertheless, these surviving books are almost

the only evidence available to modern scholars, and it is better to make use of them topoint to general trends within the overall book market than to simply dismiss themaltogether due to their lack of complete reliability.
Given these inherent limitations, the best overarching view of the earlycommercial book trade remains Kazuma Kawase’s magisterial study of the early
movable-type book in Japan, especially a chart included as an appendix that lists all
extant datable editions published between 1591 and 1650. 23

Based on his data, it would

seem that the start of commercial print in Japan is very similar to the birth of print in
22

For instance, contemporary diaries and court records refer to titles of imperiallysponsored printed books that are no longer extant.

23

Undoubtedly, the chart includes some texts published on private presses and excludes
many commercially published books, but the loose connection between the presence of acolophon and commercial intent means that it is probably the best method available, even
if it is not all that good unto itself.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 1

65

Europe. In both instances, incipient print is basically “a new process designed to
duplicate old products,” 24 and the majority of books first produced by it are in a purely
written language that transcended state boundaries.

In the case of Japan, that language

is classical Chinese. Titles of Chinese-language books far outnumber those of Japanese.
Among these, well-established Buddhist books seem to have ruled the day as the numberof Buddhism-related titles outstrip the combined total of those for the amalgamation ofConfucian classics, Chinese and Japanese histories, and Chinese poetry that make up the
non-Buddhist Chinese-language grouping. 25

Among both the Buddhist andnon-Buddhist books, it was those with histories of being read long before the successful
birth of commercial print publishing industry and the founding of the Tokugawa regime
that made it to market first and most often.

In the domain of Japanese-language books,

the largest sector by far seems to have been literary texts. Here, too, time-honored texts
dominated. Of the several hundred titles that Kawase lists, only fifteen are of what isnow considered to be contemporary prose literature.

Also outstanding is the unevennessof the early book market, especially in the field of vernacular literature. Some24

The above quotation comes from Elizabeth Eisenstein’s path-breaking study of earlymodern European print culture. It is interesting to note that even a scholar whose work is
dedicated to emphasizing the revolutionary impact of print warns of a time lag of fifty
and one hundred years, respectively, between the invention of the Gutenberg’s press and“striking evidence of cultural change” and the emergence of “outlines of new world
pictures.”Elizabeth Eisenstein, The Printing Press as an Agent of Change (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1979), pp.33, 34.
25

It is unclear how many of these Chinese-language books—particularly the Buddhist
ones—were produced for the commercial market, but the distinction itself is a bit
artificial. Even books of noncommercial origin—such as the privately printed
Sagabon—did leak into the for-profit book market and affected that environment.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 1

66

texts—particularly the Ōsaka monogatari, Tsurezuregusa, Ise monogatari, Taiheiki, andHeike monogatari—were reprinted time and time again.

Others—such as the Ōkagami

and other court-centered vernacular histories of the twelfth century which weretangentially associated with the high poetic canon—seem to have been printed only once.
And the vast majority of texts that were (and had been) circulating as part of manuscriptor performance culture simply never made it to press.

Nevertheless, the number andvariety of printed books produced over the first fifty years of commercial print far
exceeds those created over the near millennium of pre-commercial print in Japan.
Chart 1: Editions per Literature Title in Movable-Type Production
Genre

TitlesMuromachi fiction

22
Jōruri monogatari
Akinoyo nagamonogatari
Hachizukai
Shaka no honji
Yoshitune Azuma kudari
15
Kinō wa kyō monogatariŌsaka monogatari
Isoho monogatari
Shinchōkōki
Tenshōki
Uraminosuke
Jokunshō
Chikusai
Usuyuki monogatari
Gigen yokishu
Shichinin bikuni
Juraku monogatari
Inu makuraContemporary prose

Editions
41
3
3
2
2
1
54
11
9
8
7
4
3
3
2
2
2
1
1
1

Editions per title
1.86

3.6

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 1

Genre

67

Titles11
Ise monogatari
Yamato monogatari
Genji monogatari
SenjūshōDiaries & Miscellanies
3
Tsurezuregusa
Hōjōki
War Tales
7
Taiheiki
Heike monogatari
Hōgen monogatari
Soga monogatari
GikeikiVernacular Histories
4ŌkagamiMizukagami
Poetry & Poetics
21
Hyakunin isshu
Ruiji meisho wakashū
Shihōshō
HokkujoDrama
6
Nō drama & theory
Jōruri
Military drama (mai no hon)
Courtly Fiction

Editions
73
18
10
12
7
30
26
3
82
24
18
12
8
6
4
1
1
60
5
5
5
5
37
31
1
5

Editions per title
6.64

10

11.71

1

2.86

6.17

(Based on the work of Kawase Kazuma.) 26

It is possible to romanticize this era. “The printed material prior to the Kan’ei
period (1624-44), in terms quality and quantity, focused on the classics of China,
Buddhism, medicine, and Japan,” writes Taniwaki Masachika, “These were products
printed and disseminated after [publishers] took up the rich and excellent cultural legacyof Asia prior to the sixteenth century and made selections from it.

It was a situation

26

Kawase Kazuma, (Zōho) Kokatsujiban no kenkyū, vols. 1 and 2 (Tokyo: The
Antiquarian Booksellers Association of Japan, 1967).

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 1

68such that book merchants of that time were able to do work that was truly enviable andworthwhile.” 27

Taniwaki’s statement is interesting because it stands received wisdom

on its head. The rise of print capitalism and a mass-market literature is normallyassociated with a decline in aesthetic or intellectual standards. These prejudices are
echoed by even Antonio Gramsci as he argues that the commercial literature section of anational-popular literature is worthy of critical attention:
The ‘commercial’ aspect comes from the fact that the ‘interesting’ element is not‘naïve’, ‘spontaneous’, intimately fused with artistic conception, but is soughtfrom without, mechanically, and is doled out industrially, as a sure element ofimmediate ‘success’. Yet this means that even commercial literature must not bedisregarded in the history of culture. Indeed it has enormous value precisely inthis respect because the success of a work of commercial literature indicates (andis often the only indication available) the ‘philosophy of the age’, that is, the massof feelings and conceptions of the world predominant among the ‘silent’majority. 28
However, in evolution, judgments of intrinsic aesthetic worth are extremely dangerous,
and it is best to keep a rigorously Darwinian perspective that links success to a fortuitous
fit with circumstance. Thus, in the final analysis, a text’s success is always dependent
on its being selected by a suitable readership. The disparity between commercial
literary forms and highbrow literature is simply due to the fact that each evolved to fit
different readerships. It is crucial to remember that these differences are simply
qualitative, not matters of greater or lesser worth.

Thus, the importance of canonicaltexts at the start of commercial print is probably better explained by Lucien Febvre and27

Taniwaki Masachika, “Shuppan bunka no seiritsu to kana-zōshi,” Kana-zōshi shū,Shinpen Nihon bungaku zenshū 64 (Tokyo: Shōgakkan, 1999), p.629.
28

Antonio Gramsci, Selections from Cultural Writings (Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press, 1985), p.348.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 1

69

Henri-Jean Martin:
The printer and the bookseller worked above all and from the beginning for profit…
[P]ublishers only financed the kind of book they felt sure would sell enough copies
to show profit in a reasonable time. We should not therefore be surprised to find thatthe immediate effect of printing was merely to further increase the circulation of
those works which had already enjoyed success in manuscript, and often to consign
other less popular texts to oblivion. By multiplying books by the hundreds and thenthousands, the press achieved both increased volume and at the same time more
rigorous selection. 29
The Darwinian language is justified. The first commercial publishers in Japan werefighting not so much for maximum profits as for sheer survival.

Due to the large fontsizes necessary to print texts in Asian languages, startup costs for movable-type presses
throughout East Asia had to have been astronomical, and all evidence points to an
extremely high cost of paper.

A single failed speculative venture probably meantbankruptcy.
Early publishers did have one very important environmental factor in their favor.
There was little competition, either from other publishers or from books already incirculation. Because of the tremendous outlay of personal time or expense necessary toobtain manuscript texts, pre-print reading communities tend to copy out the texts mostbasic to their groups’ traditions as well as those for which individuals feel personalaffection.

Most books, however, are shared, with one owner loaning it out to multiple

readers with whom he is affiliated. The market for almost all texts at the turn of theseventeenth century was, therefore, completely unsaturated, and the demand for personal
copies of even the most well-known texts was extremely high.

At the same time, while

29

Lucien Febvre and Henri-Jean Martin, The Coming of the Book (New York: Verso,1997), p.249.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 1

70

the increased productive capacity of print did make texts more available, the first printed
books were hardly inexpensive. A recent piece of evidence unearthed by Watanabe
Kenji in the cover of a printed book bound around 1631 gives a glimpse into the price ofbooks at the end of the age of early commercial typography.
Chart 2: Prices of Late Movable-Type Editions 30
Title

Price (in momme)

Number of volumes

Number of printed sheets

Nasu no Yoichi

1

11

0.4

Miraiki

1

12

0.4

Jūbangiri

1

30

0.8

Mongaku

1

31

0.8

Wada

1

35

0.9

Manjū

1

43

1.2

Eboshi ori

2

50

1.3

Taishokuwan

2

52

1.4

Youchi Soga

1

54

1.4

Kagekiyo

2

57

1.5

To put these prices in perspective, the cost of the amount of rice considered to be enoughto feed an adult male for one year (one koku [about 5.14 bushels]) was around 24 momme,
and these texts—the libretto of military dramas (mai no hon 舞の本) written in thesixteenth century—were all relatively short texts.

Since the price of paper was a chief

factor in the price of books, the exorbitantly high cost of larger texts, such as the Genjimonogatari as well as the “bestselling” Taiheiki and Heike monogatari, all of which took
up hundreds and hundreds of printed sheets, becomes clear.

Given the high initialinvestment in typesets in combination with the fact that the productivity of the
movable-type press probably differed from that of mass-produced scribal workshops in

30

Watanabe Morikuni, “Kan’ei jidai no shuppan jijō,” Bungaku 51-4 (April, 1983),
pp.14-29.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 1

71

degree as much as kind, it is impossible to say whether early printed books were any lessexpensive than manuscripts.

The number of texts in print expanded as quickly and as

widely as the market would allow.

However, the high cost of books meant that

consumers would gravitate towards books that were already proven commodities, texts
that were already highly successful in manuscript form before the age of print.

This, in

turn, made these texts the most advantageous investment for publishers until enough ofthese were sold to inundate the market and force booksellers to look for new (or simply
not-yet-printed) texts to publish.

The danger, of course, lay in the fact that the limits ofthe market had to be determined largely by educated guesses as well as trial and error.
Chart 3: Early Modern Booksellers 31
Kyoto

Osaka

Edo

Other

Unknown

Year title

start ups

failuresstart ups

failuresstart ups

failuresstart ups

failuresstart ups

failures

Bunroku

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

1

0

9

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

2

0

8

0

1

0

0

0

2

0

3

0

70

1

4

0

1

0

0

0

23

0

7

3

0

0

1

0

0

0

3

1

21

2

1

0

2

0

0

0

13

0

17

4

0

0

0

0

0

0

1

0

12

1

0

0

5

0

1

0

3

1

15

2

1

0

8

0

0

0

14

1

1592-1596
Keichō
1596-1615
Genna
1615-1624
Kan’ei
1624-1644
Shōho
1644-1648
Keian
1648-1652
Shōō
1652-1655
Meireki
1655-1658
Manji
1658-1661

31

Suzuki Toshio, Edo no hon’ya, vol.1 (Tokyo: Chūō Kōronsha, 1980), p.55

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 1

72

Kyoto

Osaka

Edo

Other

Unknown

Year title

start ups

failuresstart ups

failuresstart ups

failuresstart ups

failuresstart ups

failuresKanbun

58

7

3

0

18

0

3

0

48

1

43

16

12

0

25

1

3

0

34

0

17

11

4

1

7

2

1

0

11

1

32

2

10

0

27

2

3

0

21

0

115

3

62

1

80

3

10

0

67

1

31

37

16

6

15

20

2

1

19

3

37

8

23

4

12

3

3

0

10

4

80

7

81

4

48

5

12

1

70

1

19

31

28

7

9

12

4

0

15

3

5

6

10

7

2

3

2

1

7

2

12

1

12

2

15

2

3

1

4

2

16

2

17

6

20

2

0

0

15

0

49

3

69

4

50

6

7

1

59

2

42

21

37

21

38

16

11

1

30

2

59

13

45

20

19

5

28

0

22

2

44

19

45

14

18

14

14

2

28

4

71

17

62

13

47

12

19

1

39

1

21

29

17

32

11

13

6

1

8

6

43

12

52

11

85

1

18

0

68

1

24

49

36

30

29

28

24

3

23

5

1661-1673
Enpō
1673-1681
Tenna
1681-1684
Jōkyō
1684-1688
Genroku
1688-1704
Hōei
1704-1711
Shōtoku
1716-1736
Kyōhō
1716-1736
Genbun1736-1741
Kanpō
1741-1744
Enkyō
1744-1748
Kan’en1748-1751
Hōreki
1751-1764
Meiwa
1674-1772
An’ei
1772-1781
Tenmei
1781-1789
Kansei
1789-1801
Kyōwa
1801-1804
Bunka
1804-1818
Bunsei1818-1830

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 1

73

Kyoto

Osaka

Edo

Other

Unknown

Year title

start ups

failuresstart ups

failuresstart ups

failuresstart ups

failuresstart ups

failures

Tenpō

31

15

39

18

50

34

22

9

25

4

8

24

11

25

14

26

7

10

10

1

16

5

22

2

34

11

33

1

31

0

4

4

3

11

11

13

25

15

8

3

1

2

1

7

1

7

2

14

1

1

11

1

2

2

8

0

1

0

2

2

1

7

0

3

4

6

1

4

2

0

7

2

4

0

6

2

8

2

4

0

The geographic spread of commercial print was limited to the extreme.

For at1830-1844
Kōka
1844-1848
Kaei
1848-1854
Ansei
1854-1860
Man’en1860-1861
Bunkyū
1861-1864
Genji
1864-1865
Keiō
1865-1868

least the first half century of its existence, the only viable center for the print publishingindustry was Kyoto.

This does not preclude the possibility that commercial bookstoressprung up in sizable numbers elsewhere in Japan during the first decades of theseventeenth century. However, even if such stores did open, few survived long enoughto leave a mark on the historical record. Further, books could and did travel beyond thelimits of the imperial capital during this period. But this was unsystematic, basicallydone on an ad hoc basis by individual speculative colporteurs.

The assumed readership,

the reading public, for almost all books published during these decades was a citizen of
Kyoto or those with the financial resources to visit the ancient capital.

The reason forthis is simple: Kyoto, in addition to being the political capital, had also been theeconomic and cultural center of Japan for the preceding eight centuries. Thus, for much

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 1

74of the first half of the seventeenth century, it was the only area on the entire archipelagothat combined literacy and wealth in high enough concentrations to be a viable habitat fora substantial print publishing industry. 32

If the book market was geographically limited

by certain economic realities, these books were commodities, and there were realpressures for expansion.

The profit (or survival) principal meant that as many books

would be sold to as many people as possible.

This motivation is readily apparent in thegeographical location of booksellers within Kyoto, which the economist Wakimura
Yoshitarō details as follows:
Looking at the location of the bookstores in Kyoto [during the first fifty years of theseventeenth century], over half were located on Nijō Avenue, with the second largest
grouping at Sanjō Avenue. Nijō Avenue—the road that ran from the Nijō Castle on
the west to Kiyamachi-chō and the house of [the wealthy merchant and private
publisher] Suminokura Ryōi on the east—was the most important thoroughfare incontemporary Kyoto. As a rule of thumb, the roads that ran out of Kyoto to thecountryside were measured from the gate to the castle. Next to the castle lay themansion of the military magistrate of Kyoto, and many daimyō mansions were in theimmediate area. To the north of Nijō Avenue—in the area around the imperial
palace—lay the homes of aristocrats, wealthy commoners, and mid-ranking military
bureaucrats. These people were the contemporary intelligentsia and had great
economic power. They probably made up the base of book-buying consumers. 33
Despite the fact that the intended audience of movable-type books went beyond the
traditional reading classes of the court and clergy, it certainly was not a case where newreaders were demanding new texts or bringing new readings to old ones. In fact, the32

Through much of the later medieval period, there were isolated incidents in the city of
Sakai of books being printed outside the monastery, often by merchants involved in the
China trade. These books, which were most often of Buddhist texts, were probably done
in imitation of the printed books from China that were part of the Sakai-centered China
trade. However, a commercial print industry was never able to flourish there, despite thefact that it was trade-dominated city, probably because the city did not have a large
enough base of possible consumers for the published book.
33

Wakimura Yoshitarō, Tōzai shoshigai kō (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1979), p.6.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 1

75

exact opposite seems to be closer to the truth. Alongside the list of well-establishedtitles of Japanese literature were texts—conventional commentaries and handbooks forthe appreciation and composition of classical linked verse (renga) as well as the libretti ofnō plays 34 —that formed an apparatus to help all readers orient themselves according totraditional patterns of reception. In other words, it was largely new traditional readersthat were forming alongside the commercial book trade, and the earlyseventeenth-century reader was basically as aristocratic as he had been in the previous,
pre-print age, the only difference being that aristocrats of the blood and the surplice(often combined in the same individual) were being joined by increasing numbers of men
with aristocratic aspirations who were being admitted to this company despite their birth
statuses due to their prowess with the sword or the purse.
Class-based analysis of the literary system, however, must be done with great care.
The cultural historian Roger Chartier in a recent essay on reading in early modern Europe
uses the work of Sara T. Nalle to argue against vulgar applications of class analysis on
two fronts:
First, cultural divisions are neither necessarily or even in the majority of cases
determined by socio-professional status. Age, marital status and schooling(elsewhere, a shared religious affiliation, membership in a group, residence in thesame locality) can define the specific identity more accurately than social condition,
strictly speaking. Second, Nalle shows that no reading matter was exclusive to any

34

These nō texts, which were read as digest forms of the classics, are the one type ofbook for which there is incontrovertible evidence of large-scale sales during this period,
for a note jotted on the inverse of a printed sheet of a movable-type edition of the play
Sagoromo from the 1620s is an order requesting between eighty and ninety copies eachof fourteen nō titles.
Watanabe Morikuni, “Kaihō no kiun,” Nihon bungakushi, vol. 7 (Tokyo: Iwanami
Shoten, 1996), pp.13-16.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 1

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one group. 35
This is borne out in what the preface to the Komago kagami (A Mirror for Sons andGrandsons, 1673), a book of advice on how to prolong the prosperity of urban merchant(chōnin 町人) families, has to say about martial virtues and the genre of military writings
talked about in the previous section:
Well, military protocol is to respect those above and feel for those below. One should
think of the various people as if they were one’s children. All phenomena have one
form and one principle (banbutsu ittai ichiri 万物一体一理); to man, everything ispropriety (rei れい). When it comes to ruling the people of the land, again this is thebasis—you win without fighting, and also win when you fight. Heavenly time is not
the same as earthly principle [profit], 36 and earthly principle [profit] is not the sameas harmony among men. As for the cases of the Four Books, the Five Classics andthe military regulations, these are a given, and there is benefit from reading thevernacular war tales (ikusa monogatari kana-gaki 軍ものがたりかながき).
夫、軍法は上を敬下輩をなづけ、諸民を子のごとくにおもふべし。万物一体一理にして、ひとは万物のれい也。国民を治ること、かねて其もとにあり、不戦して勝、
たたかへばしかも勝也。天の時は地の理にしかず、地の理は人の和にしかじ。四書37
五経軍法などは勿論、軍ものがたりかながきを見るに得徳あり。

The presumed author is not a reader reading a martial text as an urban merchant andprotesting his low standing in the Tokugawa class system or resisting the feudal
Tokugawa ideology, for he was not simply a member of the chōnin class, but a successfulurban merchant whose interests lie in the maintenance of the current system.

And thishappens in the latter half of the century, after the four-part class system had time to take35

Roger Chartier, “Reading Matter and ‘Popular’ Reading,” A History of Reading in theWest (Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press, 1999), p.272.
36

An adapted quotation from the Mōshi (The Mencius). In the original, the ri is that ofprofit (利), while in the early modern Japanese text it is written with the character forprinciple (理).
37

Samukawa Masachika, Shison kagami, Kinsei chōnin shisō, Nihon shisō taikei 59(Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1975), p.43.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 1

77root as well as when the viable territory for the commercial book had spread beyond
Kyoto.

During the entire period of movable type ascendancy, the book market was still

restricted to Kyoto, and the class system was in its infancy.

The term for thissystem—shi-nō-kō-shō (士農工商 [samurai] gentlemen, farmers, artisans,merchants)—seems to have only gained widespread currency upon Hideyoshi’s sword
hunt of 1588, and the aforementioned regulations (hatto 法度)—lists of proscriptions andprescriptions for specific socio-professional groupings—did as much to create theiraudience as to speak to pre-existing organic communities. Yet if samurai, farmers,
craftsmen and merchants are social distinctions of little value for the study of earlyseventeenth-century literature, why is it that there is an “aristocracy” and how is possible
to describe something as “aristocratic”?

The reasons for this are simple. The

aristocracy was a venerable social category, and membership was (supposedly) predicatedon the materially verifiable basis of bloodline, though, of course, there was by the turn of
the seventeenth century an extensive history of elite merchants and warriors entering its
ranks.

On a more practical level, it was a group that had long been concentrated

geographically.

For almost a millennium, it was considered that, to be fully aristocratic,

an aristocrat had to live in or near the imperial capital. This high degree ofcentralization meant that the members of this social category participated in communities
that were almost by default in dialogue. Even though the smaller groupings that madeup the aristocracy often disagreed, like a Shakespearian band of brothers, they could
become a more united community when challenged from the outside.

By the dawn of

the seventeenth century, the Kyoto elites had for an extended period been an embattled

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 1

78

community, and its members often used the continentally coined term gekokujō (下克上)or “inferiors overthrowing superiors”—with the aristocracy being the “superiors”—tointerpret the long-term violence and impoverishment visited upon them over the latter
half of the Muromachi period.
The continued dominance of traditional texts and reading patterns despite thechange in government and technology of reproduction can probably be traced back to thegeography of the commercial book.

Within the world of late medieval fiction, Kyoto

had a cultural gravity that moved all who entered it towards traditional norms.

It had asimilar effect in extra-literary reality, too. Watanabe Kenji, in an essay on literature andurban space, explicitly draws a parallel between the taming of protagonists in Muromachi
fiction and the career of Oda Nobunaga, who entered the capital as a ferocious warrior
but was soon transformed into a serious military leader capable of pacifying the realm. 38
This power is related to the presence of institutions of long standing that can, in turn, belinked to the city’s time-honored role as the cultural, religious, economic and politicalcenter of Japan.

These institutions, which have their own structures and protocols thatare connected with the ideologies and practices of the times in which they formed androse to power, do not disappear instantaneously with revolutions in government or othergreat event-level changes.

They are not immune to structural change in society orideology and have to adapt to fit into changed systems or weaken.

Yet they remain

attractive allies for new powers and (at least initially) serve as a stabilizing factor thathelps ensure a good deal of cultural continuity despite catastrophic political or economic
38

Watanabe Kenji, “‘Toshi’ to Uraminosuke zengo,” pp.91-2.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 1transformation.

79

The predominance of Buddhist books and the Tokugawa funding oftemple rebuilding projects bespeaks the resiliency of these religious institutions despite
the sacking of Mount Hiei by Nobunaga and the Tokugawa emphasis on a
Confucian-based ideology.
The same holds true for the institutions of the semi-autonomous field of literature,
which were the salons that formed around members of the imperial family andhigh-ranking aristocrats of the capital.

Though participants in these cultural associations

would also recite poems belonging to the lesser literary pastimes of comic verse (kyōka
狂歌) and linked verse (haikai 俳諧), the basis of these organizations was thecomposition of traditional Japanese verse (waka 和歌) and classical linked verse (renga
連歌).

A party known as the Nijō School, which could trace its origins back threecenturies and was very proudly rooted in a traditional poetics, held sway. Rules forcomposition abounded, and poetic innovators like Kinoshita Chōshōshi (木下長嘯子,
1569-1649) were criticized heavily for their efforts.

These genres of high poetry seemto be exactly the type of literature to which Yuri Lotman was referring when he stated thatthe cultures of the center “become rigidly organized and self-regulating. But at the sametime they lose dynamism and having once exhausted their reserve of indeterminacy they
become inflexible and incapable of further development.” 39

Though in certain limited

ways Lotman’s thesis is undeniable, it completely ignores the flexibility and productive
capacities of these salons and associations.

These supposedly hidebound institutions

were able to serve as the matrix for a literary practice that remained so vibrant that its
39

Lotman, p.134.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 1

80

poetic harvest was on a scale modern scholars call unsurpassed in any point in Japanese
history. 40

Further, they had the ability to reproduce readers in great numbers and evenassimilate certain numbers of outsiders to their traditional standards without thesestandards themselves being jeopardized. The importance of the commercial press tothese salons is hard to assess.

Books continued to be borrowed and copied out by hand,and print never became the preferred media for the dissemination of traditional poetry
written by the members of the aristocratic elite of the imperial court. 41
print, however, these institutions were of fundamental importance.

To commercial

The salon members

coincided with the public that combined the levels of literacy and wealth necessary to bepotential customers of the book trade.

Therefore, during the first three decades or so ofcommercial print in Japan, one of the ways by which publishers managed to survive wasto supply some of the texts necessary to operate in the literary salons of Kyoto. 42

Themarket for the printed book was still limited in the extreme, yet anecdotal evidence showsthat, among the denizens of this restricted world, printing seems to have, for the first time,entered into the cultural imagination as a valuable means of reproducing and40

Among many, see Fujikawa Chūji, “Waka to kayō,” Shinpan Nihon bungakushi, vol. 4,
Kinsei 1, Hisamatsu Sen’ichi, ed. (Tokyo: Shibundō, 1971), pp.350-392.
41

The most obvious manifestation of this is the fact that waka poets of the higharistocracy made it a point to keep their poetry from being published via print technology
throughout the Edo period.

42This holds true despite the fact that titles of literary texts, especially ones of poetry,
constituted a relatively minor part of the overall market for the printed book during theage of early typography. The reason for this is simple: though the center of gravity forthese salons was waka and renga poetry, their overarching function was to provide aspace for social intercourse among members of intelligentsia groups, and to be educatedin early seventeenth-century Japan meant to have a familiarity with those Buddhist,
Confucian and medical texts being put out by period booksellers.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 1

81

disseminating knowledge and art. Perhaps the unknown diarist who wrote the Tōdaiki( A Contemporary Record 当代記) captures the situation best when he states: “1609: This
winter, for fifteen years now, something called the printed book has been being made.
Any and all types of writing are being printed in Kyoto. They call it a copy (han 判).
They will be treasures until the end of time.” 43That there would be great continuity at the center of literary production and thatthe early print market would be oriented towards the traditional are important points tokeep in mind.

Yet in no way does this mean that literary systems are unaffected byextra-literary factors or that the founding of the Tokugawa regime was not an event ofrevolutionary importance.

It is simply that literature forms a system which, like every

system, is structured. The forms of the center are well insulated and the leastsusceptible to change initiated by outside influence.

They can, and do, evolve, but thisis normally due to intrinsic stimulus, the appearance of formally divergent texts that gain
great popularity.

Literary change due to deformations in other systems can more easily

be found in peripheral genres.

In seventeenth-century Japan, that would mean haikai,

kyōka, and (perhaps most of all) fiction.

Few of these made it to print during the initial

age of moveable-type ascendancy in Japan because they were unnecessary at a time when
the classics were still selling and many more popular texts from the inherited tradition

43

慶長十四年、此冬、此五三個年、摺本と云事仕上出、何の書物をも、於京都摺之、当時是を判と云、末代の重宝なり。 The meaning of the term I have translated as “copy” isunknown. According to Nagatomo Chiyoji, however, it has to do with movable-type
printing and does not refer to the homonymous term for woodblock.
Nagatomo Chiyoji, Edo jidai no shomotu to dokusha (Tokyo: Tōkyōdō Shuppan, 2001),
p.15.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 1

82

were still waiting to be printed for the first time.

But literary change there was, for thepacification of the realm and the establishment of a new government brought about realand dramatic transformations.

One of the most palpable of these was that the country

was being rebuilt after the ravages of war.

This was happening throughout Japan, but it

was especially obvious in the ancient capital.

By the middle of the seventeenth century,

Kyoto, the city of traditions, had very little that was noticeably old in it. The Ōnin war,
which raged for a decade during the latter half of the fifteenth century, took the capital as
its battlefield.

Smaller objects such as statues, paintings and manuscripts survived, but

the destruction of the city’s buildings was almost complete.

The cessation of hostilities

towards the end of the sixteenth century helped catalyze a construction boom the scale ofwhich was unprecedented since the founding of the capital in the late eighth century.
The majority of these newly built buildings were financed by local money andconsisted of the homes and businesses of plebian Kyoto residents.

Though typicallyquotidian, this also included the pleasure quarters that, when temporarily routed because
the Nijō Castle was built on land it had occupied, quickly re-formed in the southern partof the city in the area of Muromachi and Rokujō Avenues.

More noticeable were thebuildings sponsored by the various military strongmen who rebuilt the capital as a sign of
their power and authority to govern. Some of this military-financed architecture wasoriginal.

Outside the eastern border of the city, Hideyoshi built a temple with a giant

Buddha statue created from swords confiscated from the peasantry and a shrine in which
he tried to establish himself as a god in an ill-fated attempt to ensure the continuance of
his line.

Likewise, the keep and towers of the Nijō Castle, the first large-scale pure

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 1

83

military installation built within the capital proper, soared high into the air, dominating
the Kyoto skyline and serving as an unmistakable reminder to the residents of theimperial capital that the world was a very different place. However, as would befit
Kyoto, the majority of the new political elite’s financial expenditure was put into
sponsoring or co-sponsoring the rebuilding of the destroyed monuments of the past,
particularly religious complexes and the imperial palace, using traditional architecturalforms.

By 1650, such important temples as the Chion-in, the Ninna-ji, theKiyomizu-dera and the Tō-ji had been rebuilt in such a way that the classical elements ofdomestic architecture (shinden-zukuri), stage construction (butai-zukuri) and palace style(kyūden-zukuri) were readily apparent.

Even some buildings erected for the first time,such as the Katsura Detached Palace, were neoclassical in form, blending thecontemporary tea ceremony style with the aristocratic “courtliness” (miyabi) aesthetic of
the Heian period. 44

Nevertheless, no classical or neo-classical style could hide the factthat these were very new buildings, and the denizens of Kyoto could not help but realizethat the world was changing all around them.
The city of Kyoto as it sprang back to life held an important place in the cultural
imagination of the time.

One manifestation of this is the rise in popularity of a genre ofscreen paintings known as the “views in and about the capital” (rakuchū rakugai-zu 洛中
洛外図).

These paintings, the first surviving examples of which date from the early

sixteenth century, select the most famous places of Kyoto and depict the buildings,
festivals, or seasonal imagery for which each was known.
44

Basically impressionistic

Noda, Nihon kinsei shōsetsu shi, Kana-zōshi, p.30.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 1

84

maps, they are not realistic in the modern sense. The spatial grid of the city is bent to fit
in places of interest, and time is completely conflated.

Festivals that occur in thesummer are depicted near scenes of autumn foliage, and temples which are quite far apartin reality are separated by nothing more than a thin gold cloud.

But, since it was mainly

events and places of recognized importance that made it to paper or silk, these depictions
can be thought of as accurate presentations of the symbolic geography of the city.

Thisrepresentational style became very popular and spread to many other genres of thepictorial arts, and outwardly similar developments even appeared in texts of completely
different media.

An example of this can be found in the Uraminosuke (Master

Resentment 恨の介), a fictional narrative believed to have been written before the fall of
Osaka castle and printed by, at latest, the early 1620s.

The eponymous hero of the story

first meets his love interest on the stage of the Kiyomizu Temple to the east of Kyoto as
she plays a samisen extraordinary enough to be described in great detail, part of whichruns:
The design of the samisen is difficult to describe… On a lacquer picture on the soundbox was inscribed an image of the capital. Gion, Kiyomizu, Kamo, Kasuga,
Rokuhara, Rokkaku, Ima-Kumano, the great deity of Toyokuni, the thirty-three bays,
the Great Buddha, the autumn foliage of Inari Mountain, Chōraku-ji Temple,
Tōfuku-ji Temple, Tō-ji Temple, Sai-ji Temple, the four mounds. The years pass, butthey do not get old. Rokuda-Kawara! Funaoka Mountain and Kurama! The Ono
Mansion, Fushimi, Chōdō-dera Temple, the shrine mound of Toba, and the fall
mountains. Further on, Hō-ji Temple of Yamasaki, the bridge at Uji, and the old
man’s straw. Putting oneself in danger on Temperance Island, a boat is barely visibleon the Yodo River. Here it is! The holy shrine of Yawata. The cloister of Sekido.
Prince Koretaka hunts, and the pheasant of the protected field worries about its
children. What will become of the village of Cormant Mansion with the woven fenceof Thread Field Town? Right up to Kubotsu-ji and Tennō-ji Temples as well as thestone gate [of Shitennō-ji Temple]. All these various and sundry places were taken up
and painted beautifully on it.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 1

85

さて三味線の結構には、心言葉も述べ難し…さてまた胴の蒔絵には、都の内を蒔きにける。祇園・清水・加茂・春日・六波羅・六角・今熊野・豊国の大明神、三十三間・大仏殿・稲荷山の薄紅葉、長楽寺・東福寺、東寺・西寺・四つ塚・年は行けども老ひもせず、六田川原や船岡山、愛宕・鞍馬や小野殿、伏見・深草・ちゃうどう
寺、鳥羽の恋塚・秋の山、さて山崎宝寺、宇治の橋本・扇の芝、槙の島にて晒しす
る、淀の河船ほの見ゆる、これぞ八幡の御社、関戸の院、惟高の親王の御狩せし、禁野の雉は子を思う、鵜殿に繁き籬垣の糸田が原やいかならん。窪津の王子・天王
45
寺、石の鳥居に至るまで、彼方此方をとりはたし、物の上手が蒔いたりける。

The representational mode is not equally fit to all media, and it does not work as well intext as it does in image.

The details get pared down to the point that places are listed

much more than described, but the object represented remains the same: the new andrenewed spaces of the contemporary city of Kyoto and its environs that would be wellknown (if not actually accessible) to its citizenry.

Familiar areas like these, as they

became incorporated into the more familiar genres of literature, would lead to great
departures from established norms.

45

Uraminosuke, Kana-zōshi shū, Maeda Kingorō, ed., Nihon koten bungaku taikei 90(Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1965) pp.55-6.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 1

86

A fish out of water
Now, now! What a magnificent age we live in!
Even a mere commoner such as myself can prosper,
and wondrous are the dazzling things we see andhear! This must be the time of Maitreya.
Keichō kenmonshū (ca.1620)
Miura Jōshin (1565-1644)
At some point in the past, historians confidently divided up history according todates.

Of the many competing proposals for the origin of Japan’s early modern period,

there are several that stand out: 1571 (Oda Nobunaga’s sacking of Mount Hiei), 1576
(Nobunaga’s entrance into Kyoto), 1588 (Toyotomi Hideyoshi’s disarming of thepeasantry), 1600 (Tokugawa Ieyasu’s victory at the battle of Sekigahara), 1603 (theestablishment of the Tokugawa shogunate), 1615 (the Tokugawa triumph over
Hideyoshi’s heir at the battles of Osaka castle). More recent historiography, however,has a marked distrust of datable events, which are thought to distract from the underlying
structures that either make discrete events possible in the first place or, at the very least,
guide the way such events are understood and assessed value. For well over a quarter
century, scholars, in an attempt to undermine the significance of so-called “epochal
events,” have been demonstrating that these episodes are surrounded by precursors fromthe previous period and survivals into the next. 46

Specific events have been placed

within larger ensembles of transformations, and their ability to effect change is relativized.
Some scholars have even gone so far as to suggest that individualized events are mere
epiphenomena of underlying structural change and, therefore, are a combination of46

Peter Kornicki, “The Survival of Tokugawa Fiction in the Meiji Period,” Harvard
Journal of Asiatic Studies 41:2 (Dec., 1981), p.466.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 1

87

inevitable and interchangeable—had Mount Hiei not been sacked in 1571, another event
capable of fulfilling the same function would have been discovered or “invented.”Yet the presence of survivals and precursors surrounding what has long been seen
as revolutionary events is not as meaningful as it might first appear.

A perceived (or, atleast, perceptible) gap between world and worldview, of course, normally serves as anenabling factor for great ideological change. However, only a caricaturized version of
event-based history would attribute to it an anagenetic model of historical progression
wherein epochal events immediately annihilate one age and produce the next incompleted form.

Precursors can be even more distracting because it must always be

kept in mind both that there are always a vast number of potential precursors present at
any given time and that an almost statistically insignificant few of these succeed.

Todraw too much attention to the exception is bad, but far worse is to promote whatamounts to a deterministic historiography based on results that by means of a
retrospective teleology ascribes to potentially emergent structures the power to cause thevery epochal events that fully activate them in the first place. Large-scale events canonly be seen as mere “symptoms” of underlying structural change if one were to positthat there is an inevitability and predictability to history, something that all contemporary
schools of historiography deny.

Great events play a significant role in historicaldevelopment, not because they create social change out of whole cloth, but for their very
real ability to trigger change by selecting against the status quo and opening up a range ofpre-existing possibilities for development. Thus, while it is perfectly correct to connect
Oda Nobunaga’s 1571 torching of Mount Hiei with a dual process of decentralization ofMichael J. ScanlonChapter 1

88

power and relativization of central authority that was happening over the longue durée
rather than simply seeing it as “a shocking act that sparked…the decline of establishedauthority and values beginning with Buddhism,” 47 it is also true that this very publicdefeat of the center of Buddhism by a secular power was an acutely perceived shock
which made an end (or, at least, a radical attenuation) of clerical power and authority far
more imaginable than it had been previously.

In turn, the Song Confucianism being

studied within Zen monasteries and espoused by itinerant scholars during the latemedieval period was given space to grow, and it eventually came to play a central role in
the Tokugawa ideology. Yet the long-term success of Confucianism in early modern
Japan was by no means immediate or inevitable. The association of the Confucian
scholar Fujiwara Seika with the warrior elite towards the end of the sixteenth century andhis recommendation of a politically ambitious student in Hayashi Razan to the new leaderof the realm played crucial yet completely non-predictable roles in this process, theeffects of which would only become clear after several decades had passed, and the formsof society and ideology settled upon at that time should never be thought of as theinevitable results of some structurally predetermined destiny.
A Darwinian model of history, because of its ability to deal with the relationshipbetween limiting structures and chance events, is suited to explain long-term historicaldevelopment, particularly in the domain of ideology.

Ideology—the means by which

experience is made meaningful—is not monolithic.

To the contrary, it is made up of a47

Watanabe Morikuni, “Keimō jidai no shi to shinjitsu,” Nihon bungaku shinshi, Kinsei,
Matsuda Osamu, ed. (Tokyo: Shibundō, 1986), p.26.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 1

89complex overlay of dominant and recessive structures that can only indirectly andimperfectly be tied to various social groups and practices. These ideological structures
are also structuring because, by making some events or event groupings meaningful (ormore meaningful), they make these events or event groupings more easily repeatable andothers less so.

At the same time, these ideological structures are largely dependent on

the continued occurrence of the events which they explain. Classical Darwinism, whichdeveloped out of a liberal model for social development, is well suited to explain societal
change that occurs due to small, incremental changes over time.

As small-scale eventsand event groupings associated with a social group slowly rise in importance, theassociated emergent ideological structures gradually displace some of the heretofore
dominant ones with a minimum amount of jostling to the rest of the meta-structure.
More recently, a Darwinian reformation, in which the work of Stephen Jay Gould has
played a central role, has occurred, and it offers a means for explaining revolutionarychange as well.

The theory, termed punctuated equilibrium, posits that evolution canalso occur via long periods of stasis being interrupted by short periods of immensechange. 48

Periods of ideological stasis, hegemonies, occur when the ideologicalmeta-structure can remain more or less stable because events either happen in such a waythat it is reinforced or are small enough that they can simply be ignored. Rapid change
occurs when events that can neither be explained nor ignored select against the dominant
structures as well as the preponderance of recessive ones, and a range of possible routes

48

Stephen Jay Gould, The Structure of Evolutionary Theory (Cambridge: Belknap
Harvard, 2002).

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 1of development are opened.

90

After a series of largely fortuitous events forecloses upon

the majority of these, the meta-structure begins to settle, and a new hegemony is born.
Specific dates were also becoming important as a formal element within Japanesenarrative literature at the turn of the seventeenth century.

One famous example of thiscan be found at the very opening of the aforementioned Uraminosuke:
Once upon a time—when was it?—it was the tenth day of the sixth month of 1606.
Thus, there was the truly charming sight of the showy outfits of all—be they
young or old, man or woman, rich or poor, urbane or countrified—gathering on
the bridges of Shijō and Gojō Avenues as the denizens of the capital lined up on
their way to the light festival at the Kiyomizu Temple.
そもそも比はいつぞの事なるに、慶長九年の末の夏、上の十日の事なれば、清水の万灯とて、袖を連ねて都人、四条五条の橋の上、老若男女貴賎都鄙、色めく花
49
衣、下におもろしき有様なり。

This method of laying out the time and place of the story represents an inordinate
expenditure of narrative energy. The specifics of the setting could have simply beenstated directly, yet they are not. Instead, an oral-formulaic opening, which tends toreinforce imprecision and universality and was de rigueur in the fiction of the latemedieval period, is invoked for the sole purpose of being rejected.

Ichiko Teiji, one of

the most respected scholars of Muromachi fiction, notes this and locates the beginningsof early modern fiction here.

To Ichiko, however, the evolutionary step rests on thelevel of formal element and transcends any individual text, for he makes clear that similar
configurations can be found in several other texts of the time so this is in no way theinvention of the author of the Uraminosuke. 50

Yet the tenth day of the sixth month of49

Uraminosuke, Nihon koten bungaku taikei 90, Maeda Kingorō, ed. (Tokyo: Iwanami
Shoten, 1977), p.51.

50

Uraminosuke, p.477.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 1

911606 has an importance specific to the Uraminosuke, and much attention is drawn to thisfact.

The date is, after all, wrong. In 1606, just like every other year, the lamp lighting

ceremony at the Kiyomizu-dera took place on the tenth day of the seventh month.

This

was no simple mistake, and it would have been immediately recognizable to the societal
elites that made up the Uraminosuke’s initial reading public. In the words of Watanabe
Kenji:The tenth day of the sixth month of 1606 was the [date on which] Tokugawa Ieyasu
left Fushimi Castle and entered Nijō Castle. In other words, on this day the
Tokugawa governing authority irreversibly spread to include control of Kyoto City
proper, and the people of the city registered that this power was going nowhere. For
those with connections to Hideyoshi, this must have been the day on which the
Kyoto of tradition collapsed. To those who were fed up with war and hoped for peace
under the new regime, this was undoubtedly a day on which liberation wasannounced. No matter what, this was an unforgettable day for Kyoto. It was the dayon which the bumpkin Tokugawa Ieyasu entered Kyoto. 51
Ieyasu did more than just enter the city. In an unmistakable affront to traditional
protocol, he also summoned the highest ranking members of the civil aristocracy to his
Nijō Castle for audiences with him.

These actions stand in stark contrast to his

predecessor Toyotomi Hideyoshi, who built his castle outside the imperial capital andeven had himself appointed to the regency, the highest position within the aristo-imperial
government.

Under Ieyasu, Kyoto had become an occupied city and the aristocratic age(or any hope of its revival) was over. To judge by the evidence that can be found inperiod diaries, aristocrats were painfully aware of this and reviled Ieyasu for it.
The Uraminosuke is one of the first literary narratives to be set in the period
following the establishment of the Tokugawa government.

Also, out of the various

51

Watanabe Kenji, “‘Toshi’ to ‘Uraminosuke’ zengo,” Bungaku ni okeru toshi (Tokyo:
Kasama Shoin, 1988), p.96.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 1

92

contenders for the title of the first “authentically” early modern shōsetsu, 52 it was by far
the biggest seller both in its time and across the period as a whole. Therefore, it hascome to be studied as the first piece of early modern fiction. Yet the text also clearlyborrows much from traditional narrative.

This has led to a cottage industry of sorts

within the study of seventeenth-century Japanese literature in which scholars debate
whether the Uraminosuke is a medieval or early modern text. The discussion, which ismost often couched in the terms of “newness” and “oldness,” is neatly pre-encapsulated
in the words of piece of scholarship published by Mizutani Futō (1858-1943):
The framework of the Uraminosuke is nothing more than an antiquated love story.
However, the subjects with which it deals are one and all realistic. The still vivid
anguish at the fall of the Jurakudai [the home of Toyotomi Hidetsugu who wasmurdered by his own father in a succession dispute] opens before our eyes; thecondition of the wandering of the orphans; kabuki, the shamisen, and wandering
minstrels—all these contemporary customs (tōse fūzoku 当世風俗), the narrativeskillfully weaves in and shows us newness. 53
To sum up, in the Uraminosuke, the content is new (early modern), and the form is old(medieval). The terms of the debate are also barely concealed value judgments.
Elements that can be found in Muromachi fiction are “hackneyed,” 54 and unprecedented

52

The meaning of the term shōsetsu when used in reference to pre-modern literary texts
is somewhat complex. Early modernists—who often emphasize the discontinuities
between the medieval and early modern eras as well as the continuities between the earlymodern and modern eras—tend to use it to mean “novel,” while modernists—who tend to
stress the break between modernity and early modernity—often use it to mean simply“fiction.”

53

Mizutani Futō, Retsudentai shōsetsu shi, Mizutani Futō chosakushū (Tokyo: Chūō
Kōronsha, 1974), p.30.
54

Donald Keene, World within Walls (New York: Columbia University Press, 1999),
p.150.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 1

93ones are attributed to a desire on the part of the author to “overcome” the medieval. 55
The presence of traditional elements should be neither surprising nor despised.
Evolution happens within established structures.

Athena only materializes in completed

form from Zeus’ brow in the world of myth, and any search for a similar phenomenon inliterature is predicated on the concept of Author as Creator. Moreover, whereas theidentity of the writer—much less his conscious and unconscious desires—will forever becompletely inaccessible, it is known that the text’s initial readership tended to bearistocratic in taste, if not in fact. It would seem hardly likely that the ideological
function of such a commercially successful text would have involved simply welcoming
and developing a new, post-aristocratic age.
The conflation of newness with early modernity and oldness with medieval-ness
also clouds the debate. On the level of content, this has led many scholars to focus
almost completely on events, places or customs described in the narrative that are original
to the seventeenth century.

Yet some of the text’s places and customs—such as theKiyomizu-dera and its lamp lighting ceremony mentioned in the quotation above—have
histories that date back centuries and are indicative of continuity within the cultural
tradition rather than rupture or innovation.
level of form.

The problems are even more apparent on the

Dissenting voices that see structural “newness” are not content todescribe them as mutations or deviations from received norms.
seen as innovations linked to future developments.

Instead, the changes areThus, the Uraminosuke becomes the55

Noda Hisao, Nihon kinsei shōsetsu shi, Kana-zōshi hen (Tokyo: Benseisha, 1986),
p.74.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 1

94

first example of “love for love’s sake” (ren’ai shijō shugi 恋愛至上主義), a value towhich the characters sacrifice their lives, and this love-centricism is protest against theinhumanness of the bushidō-inflected Confucianism of the Tokugawa ideology. 56

Suchdevelopments did evolve by the time of Chikamatsu Monzaemon’s eighteenth-century
love-suicide plays, which are dominated by a conflict between duty and passion, andperhaps the commonly held theme of frustrated passion leading to death might help to
explain the continued popularity of the xylographic edition of the Uraminosuke.
However, as will be discussed later, there is little objective evidence that the famed
inhumanity of the Tokugawa ideology was anything more than a byproduct ofeighteenth-century literature’s handling of the duty-passion dynamic, and passion isthwarted in the Uraminosuke for reasons that have nothing to do with duty. Any
similarities in ending between the Uraminosuke and later texts are superficial
convergences rather than structural homologies. It is, therefore, unsurprising thatscholarly consensus is that the love story in the Uraminosuke is much closer to those thatcan be found in such classics as the Ise monogatari or the Genji monogatari—the latterof which is mentioned within the Uraminosuke itself—than those in Chikamatsu’s
love-suicide plays. 57

It is also important to keep in mind that productive innovation is

not the only possible type of change.

In fact, unsuccessful mutations are the norm, andfuture productivity may be exactly the wrong criteria on which to base an examination of56

Suzuki Tōru, “Uraminosuke ni okeru ai to shi,” Kinsei bungei kō, no. 21 (December,1976).

57

Watanabe Kenji, “Kinsei shōsetsu e no mosaku,” Nihon bungaku shi, vol.7 (Tokyo:
Iwanami Shoten, 1996), p.201.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 1

95

the Uraminosuke, for this was a surprisingly barren text.

Though highly popular itself,

it did not spawn the immediate sequels and prequels typical of contemporary bestsellers.
If form and content are to remain separate, it would probably be best to assign
them the following descriptions.

The setting is rigorously contemporary to a

post-Ieyasu world, but includes items both novel and long established. The manner inwhich the raw materials of the story are told makes use of traditional forms, but does soin neither a pure nor orthodox manner.

This was immediately apparent to Ichiko, amedievalist by profession, who said the Uraminosuke “synthesizes several of the clichéd
methods of the medieval period and, further, inscribes them gaudily and in detail.” 58
The Uraminosuke would seem to combine two narrative paradigms from the domain oflate medieval fiction.

The outermost, which garners almost all scholarly attention andhas led the text to be almost universally categorized as a tragic love story, has a plot thatruns as follows.

The hero, Uraminosuke (who seems to be a soldier of some rank within

the Tokugawa army), 59 is convinced that the heroine, Yukinomae (an orphaned daughterof Kimura Hitachi [a high-ranking vassal of Toyotomi Hidetsugu who committed ritualsuicide upon the death of his lord] who had been adopted into the aristocratic Konoe
family), is rejecting him the morning after their first tryst, so he falls into a deep
58

Ichiko Teiji, “Kinsei shoki shōsetsu no ichi seikaku,” Chūsei shōsetsu to sono shūhen(Tokyo: Tokyo Daigaku Shuppankai, 1981), p.99.
59

It is never stated directly within the text that Uraminosuke is a Tokugawa soldier.
However, he is from the eastern part of the country, lives in an area heavily populated bymiddle-ranking direct vassals of the shogun, and has a connection to an underling of
Hosokawa Yūsai, a powerful military baron and head of the Nijō School of traditional
Japanese poetry.
Watanabe Kenji, “Kinsei shōsetsu no mosaku,” p.204.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 1

96

depression, returns home to Fukakusa, and begins to waste away.

His friends find out

about his condition just as he is about to die and, though forbidden to carry out their plan
to assault the members of the aristocratic house where the woman lives, deliver a lettercontaining Uraminosuke’s final words to an old widow who had been acting as his
go-between.

When the letter is passed on to Yukinomae, she immediately dies fromshock, and her ladies-in-waiting and the widow then commit suicide in order to serve
their mistress in the next world.
This does bear some resemblance to stories of lost love within the corpus of
Muromachi fiction.

However, traditional narratives of failed love normally close inways that allow the energy generated by passion and its loss to be reincorporated into the
Buddhist establishment which served as the center of late medieval ideologicalproduction. Specifically, they tend to have one of two endings: either a surviving maleprotagonist (the older male, in the case of homosexual love stories) undergoes a religious
revelation, enters the Buddhist priesthood, and brings glory and wealth to a specifictemple, or a long-suffering (and often female) lover is elevated through his or her pain
and reborn as a Buddha or bodhisattva who brings good fortune and protection to a
specific town or religious institution. Muromachi fiction does not typically end in thegroup suicides of women, and neither do later narratives. The formal element wasbasically stillborn, despite the ascendancy of a martial-Confucian ideology.

Yet it does

play several important roles within this text. The suicides parallel that of Yukinomae’sbirth father and other vassals of Toyotomi Hidestugu, and they draw readerly attention toan event described and condemned in great detail earlier in the text: Hideyoshi’s

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 1

97

murdering his adult adopted son in order to assure the place of his infant biological son,
Hideyori. The suicides also do not allow the story to be contained within the most
Buddhist of the traditional master narratives, for no character that either participated in
the love affair or even directly witnessed it is left to turn to a religious life.
The breakdowns in this particular plot structure should not be overemphasized,
because it is predicated on an even more central failure.

The majority of theUraminosuke is taken up by what is very clearly a different narrative paradigm, that of a
successful love story between an otherworldly and extraordinary hero and an aristocratic
heroine, which typically ends in marriage, great wealth and fecundity, and eventual
rebirth as a tutelary god who brings fortune and protection to a given place.
this inner section runs as follows.

The plot of

A character named Kuzu no Uraminosuke, a soldierof undefined rank famed for his erotic exploits, forlornly visits the Kiyomizu Temple andcatches sight of an incredibly beautiful woman.

Having been rebuffed in his attempt tolearn her name due to his obvious rusticity, he follows her home and sees that she lives in
the mansion of the aristocratic Konoe family. Since such a woman would beunapproachable by traditional means, he returns to the Kiyomizu Temple to beg theBodhisattva Kannon for help and awakes one morning to find a scroll next to his pillow
which informs him that he should visit the nearby house of a widow.

This old woman

reveals the true identity of the young beauty and agrees to pass along Uraminosuke’s love
letters.

Yukinomae, after initially refusing to read them, acquiesces. In order to test

her suitor, the woman sends him a riddle based on poems from the classical canon.
When the hero solves the problem by asking for help from another, she allows him inside

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 1

98

where he bumbles around but eventually sleeps with her. The next morning he asks herwhen they can meet again and receives the fateful answer, “In the next life.”
The structural homologies between this section of the Uraminosuke andtraditional medieval narrative are readily apparent.

In fact, every plot point listed

above—save the means taken to solve the poetic riddle—is in common with such pieces
as the Kootoko no sōshi (The Book of the Little Man 小男の草子) and Monogusa tarō
(Lazy Tarō 物臭太郎). Even the characters as they are first introduced would seem tobe very much suited to the world of Muromachi fiction.

Uraminosuke, as a highly

libidinous rustic, could be the perfect hero; Yukinomae initially appears to be thebeautiful daughter of the Konoe family, a group that held hereditary rights to the regency,
the highest position within the aristo-imperial government.

It seems possible that theenergetic hero would, after causing a little damage, be quite literally incorporated into thearistocratic system and thereby reinvigorate it. Yet it does not happen, and the point at
which things start to go wrong is instructive.
under false assumptions.

Yukinomae allows the affair to begin

Unlike his many predecessors in Muromachi fiction,

Uraminosuke cannot solve the poetic riddle on his own and must ask the help of a certain
adept who served under the famous waka poet Hosokawa Yūsai.
world, lack of skill in poetry is an intolerable failure.

In the aristocratic

Probably the most fundamental

piece of writing to the aristocratic worldview is the Vernacular Preface to the Kokin
wakashū, an early tenth-century text that became an object of near-religious devotion forthe poets of the medieval period.

The so-called expressive-affective poetics that lie at

the heart of medieval literary art are laid out clearly in its overwhelmingly well-known

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 1

99

opening passage:
The poetry of Japan takes the human heart as its seed and takes form in a myriadof words. People in the course of their lives are stimulated by actions and events,
so they use the seen and unseen, and come bursting forth with their feelings.
Listen to the bush warbler crying in the cherry blossoms and the voice of the frog
living in water—of everything alive and living, can there be even one that does
not chant poetry? That which can move heaven and earth without the applicationof energy, which can move the invisible spirits, which can bring harmony torelations between men and women, which can soothe the heart of fierce
warriors—it is poetry.
やまと歌は、人の心を種として、万の言の葉とぞなれりける。世中に在る人、事、業、繁きものなれば、心に思ふ事を、見るもの、聞くものにつけて、言ひ出せるなり。花に鳴く鶯、水に住む蛙の声を聞けば、生きとし生けるもの、いづれか、歌を詠まざりける。力をも入れずして、天地を動かし、目に見えぬ鬼神をも哀れ60と思はせ、男女の中をも和らげ、猛き武人の心をも慰むるは、歌なり。

Japanese poetry both issues forth spontaneously and has the ability to shape the world.
Thus, the natural skill at poetry of the heroes of Muromachi fiction reveals their innate
nobility despite all rough appearance, and poetry can function as a means by which theirenergy is transferred into the aristocracy and then back onto the world. Uraminosuke
does not possess this skill and cannot become part of traditional society. Unable toinnately grasp the poetics of this society, he takes Yukinomae’s offhand remark at facevalue, and the plot falls apart.
The problem lies in the way the hero and heroine are constituted.

Muromachi

fiction is set out of normal time, and the figures which populate its world are actants,
more or less interchangeable vehicles for the action with a few attributes that mark theirroles.

They are not, and could never be mistaken for, faithful representations of peopleof the quotidian world, especially not contemporary extra-literary individuals.

60

On theKokin waka shū, Shin Nihon koten bungaku taikei (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1989), p.4.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 1

100other hand, Uraminosuke and Yukinomae—he as a middle-ranking soldier within the
Tokugawa forces, she as the orphaned daughter of a famous Toyotomi general—are so
specific to the world of early seventeenth-century Japan that several scholars haveproposed possibilities for historical models on which the Uraminosuke was based. 61

Itshould also be noted that the modern-ness of the characters does not equally impede theirability to fulfill their roles. Uraminosuke is hopeless, but Yukinomae is almost fully
assimilated. She is skilled at poetry and can deftly navigate the dense web of literary
allusions typical of aristocratic communication. It is only in the final instance that she
betrays her birth.

She neither takes the tonsure nor is reborn as a tutelary deity.

Worse,

her death inspires martial, as opposed to religious, devotion. The hierarchy of failure of
the two characters takes focus when put in the wider historical consciousness of the
Kyoto civil aristocracy in the decades after the turn of the seventeenth century. The
Tokugawa were reviled because of actions like those taken on the tenth day of the sixth
month of 1606; the Toyotomi were embraced, but only for basically the same reasons.
The character of Hideyoshi, the founder and symbol of the Toyotomi house, has been
described by Donald Keene as follows:
Like other parvenus, he delighted in wearing the trappings of the old aristocracy:
he took the name Fujiwara and had himself appointed as kampaku, or [regent],
recalling the Heian court. He threw his energies into mastering the tea ceremony,
the austere medieval rite, but enjoyed it most in the teahouse he built of solid gold.
He also took pride acting in Nō, choosing the most difficult and lofty roles, andhad special plays written at his command in which he performed himself, a heroof legendary prowess with divine attributes. 62
61

Such well-regarded scholars as Noma Kōshin, Matsuda Osamu and Hamada Keisuke
have made such attempts. For a fuller discussion, see Watanabe, “Kinsei shōsetsu no
mosaku.”62

Donald Keene, World within Walls, p.231.
Michael J. ScanlonChapter 1

101

To a much greater extent than Ieyasu, Hideyoshi played according to aristocratic rules,
but this impulsive and lowborn man would never have been thought of as anything but
the least of all evils.

Moreover, the fall of Kyoto on that fateful summer day alluded toat the start of the Uraminosuke could be traced directly to another event manifestly
narrated within it: the murder of Hidetsugu by his adoptive father.

To the contemporary

aristocracy, it was Hideyoshi’s reckless act that allowed Ieyasu the opportunity to takeover the realm in the name of the young Hideyori.

In other words, it was understoodthat the house of Toyotomi was not murdered, it committed suicide.
The downfall of the Toyotomi, because it was conflated with the death ofaristocratic hope, was certainly mourned. It would seem quite natural, then, for the
Uraminosuke to be taken at face value and read as a tragic love story by its initialreadership. Modern scholars almost universally categorize it as such, and Watanabe
Kenji goes so far as to call it “tragic to the point of being wretched.”63

Yet the amountof scholarly sorrow over the lovers’ downfall is completely out of proportion with theevent that caused it.

This is evident in Yukinomae’s death scene, which occurs

immediately after the widow passes along Uraminosuke’s final testament.
[Uraminosuke] had written: “The other day when I tugged at your sleeve andasked when I could see you again, you said, ‘In the next life.’ Though you may
live for many, many a year, in the end all must die. Thinking about having
received this pledge and knowing we will be reborn on the same lotus petal, my
passing from this life is a joyful thing. Hail Amida Buddha.”
The woman looked at this letter and wailed, “What is this? How horrible!
Listen, Ayame! On that dawn as we clung to each other, Uraminosuke asked when
he could see me again, and I, thinking that anyone would have to understand, said,‘In the next life.’ But he grieved and wasted away—and I couldn’t even let him
63

Watanabe Kenji, “‘Toshi’ to Uraminosuke zengo,” pp.93-4.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 1

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know in a dream!”「さてもさても、後朝の御袖を取り、「いつぞ」と申せしに、「後生にて」と仰せられし程に、そもじ様は幾久しく御齢をましまして、一度は生死の道なれば、一つ蓮の台の縁と、契りを籠め参らせんと思へば、死する命の嬉しくてこそ候へり。
南無阿弥陀仏。
」と書き止むる。
此文を姫御覧じて、「こは何事ぞや、恨めしや。菖蒲殿も聞き給へ。其のあか月
自らにすがりつき、恨殿の給うやうは、「又いつぞ」とありし時、只大方と思ひ、「後生にて」と申せしを、嘆き給ひて空しくならんとは、夢共知り参らせず」、涙64
を流し仰せしがHere, Uraminosuke is less a hero worthy of readerly tears and more a buffoon who died aridiculous death because he could not comprehend even the most clichéd of coquettish
farewells. This, in turn, colors all the subsequent deaths as well as the almost
one-for-one relationship between this plot and those of Muromachi fiction.
Watanabe’s words were not strong enough.

Perhaps

This is not the realm of pathos and tragedy,

but that of bathos and parody. The original readers of the Uraminosuke probably did not
cry for these two so much as laugh at Uraminosuke.
to ridicule and made to appear weak and stupid.
evolution, is imperfect.

The upstart Tokugawa are exposed

But the text, like all products ofFrom the point of the hero’s death onward, the plot seems weak

and meandering, and the powerlessness of the aristocracy, which was being allowed tosurvive in the modern world only in vestigial form, is exposed.

At the close of the text,

the aristocrats (kumo no ue 雲の上), shocked by the blood-soaked scene, grieve morethan the Buddha’s disciples upon his passing into Nirvana and find the pair’s doomed
love more pathetic than that of Kashiwagi and the Third Princess in the Genji monogatari(The Narrative of Genji 源氏物語, ca.1010). Moved by the “rare and mysterious way of64

Uraminosuke, p.85.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 1

103love” (kitai fushigi no koiji 希代不思議の恋路), 65 they decide to cremate the two together.
The aristocrats have lost all ability to resist the Tokugawa directly.

The illicit affair,which could directly undermine the aristocratic emphasis on blood relations, is in the end
accepted if not condoned.

Moreover, the most exalted narratives of the religious andliterary tradition are invoked, but they cannot give meaning to the modern story.
One question remains: Why has the Uraminosuke not been seen as a parody?

Itis not simply modern scholars who have failed to recognize what is most likely to havebeen the original function of the text. Fujikake Kazuyoshi has stated: “[In addition tothe original movable-type version], a woodblock edition exists, and this xylographic
version—particularly in its latter half—contains enough major divergences that it could
be called an alternative text (ihon 異本).” 66

Details are added and subtracted freely, andthe overall style drifts from a pure and quaint one close to that of Muromachi fiction to aplayful one similar to the haikai-inflected prose made famous by texts written by Ihara
Saikaku. 67

In other words, as the text moved from the very restricted territory ofmovable type to the larger one of xylographic reproduction, it mutated from a modern
story told by traditional means to simply a modern narrative. This near contemporary
failure to recognize the parodic nature of the text is somewhat counterintuitive because
seventeenth-century Japan was experiencing a golden age of parody.

65

Kon Eizō,Uraminosuke, p.87.

66

Fujikake Kazuyoshi, “Seihanbon Uraminosuke no hyōgen gikō,” Muromachiki
monogatari no kinseiteki tenkai (Osaka: Izumi Sensho, 1987), p.215.
67

Noda Hisao, Kinsei shoki shōsetsu ron (Tokyo: Kasama Shoin, 1978), pp.47-52.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 1

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rejecting both the modern scholarly protocol of separating poetry from prose as well as
what he calls the “taxonomic compulsion” within these specialties, posits that parody is acurrent that unifies the artistic production of the time. He states that in literature “theonly development is organic and successive” and narrates his “parody century” as
beginning as a trickle of texts in the mid-sixteenth century, exploding in popularity at theturn of the seventeenth century, reaching its artistic apogee in middle of that century, andburning itself out in an orgy of over-production under the Osaka-based Danrin school of
haikai poetry in the final decades before the dawn of the eighteenth century.

In short, ina self-contained literary system, parody breeds more parody until its energy is exhausted,
and the mode is driven back to the hinterlands of the literary realm. 68
Parody certainly was a pan-literary mode, but Kon’s century holds better for
poetry than prose.

Haikai and kyōka comic verse became so widely practiced thatsometime over the seventeenth century the total number of produced poems belonging tothese comic genres probably grew to outnumber those from the serious genres of waka
and renga, and parody continued to be a prevalent mode as these types of comic poetry
moved from being pastimes to minor arts. Prose parody, more conspicuous because it ismaintained over a much greater length, had a more intense, but shorter, lifecycle.

Theso-called “parodic imagination” can be thought of as taking two forms in prose: short,concentrated texts that “mongrelized” the distinctive prose style and rhetorical strategies
of classical works, particularly the Makura no sōshi and the Tsurezuregusa, as well as

68

Kon Eizō, “Parodī no seiki,” Ōtani joshi daigaku Kokubun 2 (February, 1972); p.3, 2,
passim.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 1

105

word-for-word burlesques of the most canonical texts in the tradition, especially the Isemonogatari and the Vernacular Preface to the Kokin wakashū.

A late example of thistrend is the Nise monogatari (The Fake Tales of Ise 仁勢物語, 1639-40), a text which
combines a word-for-word parody of the tenth-century main text, a Chinese-language
burlesque of the thirteenth-century colophon, and lampoons of the pictures of an earlyseventeenth-century movable-type edition of the text.

Parodic elements can, of course,

be found in narrative texts published after 1650, but most of these are believed to belargely “independently structured [narratives] not exclusively motivated to parody.” 69
It is important not to overestimate the centrality of parody to the Japanese prose
literature of the first half of the seventeenth century. Parodic texts were being written
and appearing as printed books, and these were selling enough copies for similar but
different texts to make it to market.

The Nise monogatari spawned three woodblock

editions, and several of the “mongrel classics” maintained popularity long enough toappear in multiple versions of late seventeenth-century booksellers’ catalogues.

But

print is opportunistic; texts are produced according to (perceived) demand. Thus, theoutput of the commercial press is a useful tool for an approach to literary history that tries
to give weight to those texts being read over a given time as opposed to considering only
those being written. The earliest booksellers’ catalogue of 1659 shows that establishedtexts—the possible targets of parody—far outnumber the parodic ones themselves. 70
69

Jeffrey Johnson, “Saikaku and the Narrative Turnabout,” The Journal of JapaneseStudies 27:2 (Summer, 2001), p.332.
70

It lists 99 titles of texts affiliated with waka tradition (kasho), 12 titles under the
category of renga, 41 under haikai, and a handful of prose texts within the larger categoryof Japanese writings (washo).
Michael J. ScanlonChapter 1

106

These classics (and the serious genres of poetry that based their tradition on them) had
not yielded the center of the cultural field, and parody survived on its fringes, in the lesser
poetic arts of haikai and kyōka poetry as well as the despised genre of fiction.
same time, the classics were not necessarily as dominant as they once were.

At theForinstance, one of the earliest of the word-for-word extended parodies, the Kokin wakashu
jo (A Preface to Catamites, Old and New 古今若衆序, 1589), begins as follows:
Catamites take the human heart as their seeds and take form in the study of the
myriad of things. People in the course of their lives are stimulated by indecency,
so they use those doing it and those having it done and come bursting forth with
their feelings. The bush warbler crying in the hole and the turtle living inwater—of everything alive and living, can there be even one that does not love
this way! That which can move mud without the application of the rod, for which
one writes oaths to the invisible spirits, which does not reach the jealousy between
men and women, which can soothe the quivering heart of fierce warriors—it is thebutt.
それ若道は人の心をたねとして、よろづの事学とぞなれりけろ。世の中にあるひと、淫犯しげき物なれば、心に思ふ所を、するものさするものにつけて出せる也。
あなに鳴く鶯、水にすむだうがめの声を聞けば、いきとしいけるもの、いづれか
この道をこのまざる。らを入れずして雨つちを動し、目に見えぬ鬼神をも起請に書き入れ、男おんなのりんきも及ばず、たけき心のもののふる心をもなぐさむる
71
はしり也。

The humor of this text comes from a juxtaposition of the serious and elegant traditional
form with the lively and coarse content of the present.
straightforward as those of the Uraminosuke.

The politics are not as

There may exist a hierarchy that favors

the refinement of the past to some degree, but the contemporary practice is notdisparaged in the least. Nevertheless, the parody is based on exactly the same premise:the ill fit between the forms of the past and the modern experience.

This time the71“Hosokawa Genshi Hōin Kokin wakashu jo,” Ōta Nanpo, Misonoya, vol.4 (Tokyo:
Kokusho Kankōkai, 1917), p.497.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 1

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parodied text was much more vital to the received tradition. The Vernacular Preface tothe Kokin wakashū had for centuries set the standards for literariness.

To be a piece ofbelles lettres was to conform to the principles set out in the Preface. Moreover, since
the first breakdowns in the aristocratic hegemony began in the twelfth century, thePreface itself had been the object of intense exegetical effort as medieval poets andscholars tried to show the compatibility between it and their worldview. Here, however,the Preface itself is seen as out of place in the new world, perhaps even unfit for it,
despite the facts that it was written in 1589 when Toyotomi Hideyoshi was serving as
regent and, thus, the hope of an aristocratic revival had not yet been completely
foreclosed upon as well as that it was supposedly authored by Hosokawa Yūsai, aconservative waka poet and possessor of the Kokin denju, the most esteemed secretteaching concerning the Kokin wakashū.

The text’s impotence stems from the rise of a

new conception of time in which the future had separated from the past, and this radically
reoriented the present.
This rupture in time is of epochal importance. Quasi-cyclical, united time thatheld out the promise of restoration was central to the medieval worldview.

One of thecentral articles of medieval Buddhist faith was that, even though the church was suffering
through a dark period, Maitraya Bodhisattva would eventually descend from the Tusita
Heaven, succeed Śākyamuni Buddha, and revitalize the world.

Within the domain ofliterature, this time structure had the function of bestowing eternal life on the past.
According to Matsuda Osamu, the element most common to the literary production of thethirteenth to the seventeenth century—the period known as the medieval—was an effort

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 1

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to recover an idealized past, the aristo-imperial court of the long tenth century that beganwith the reign of Emperor Daigo (897) and ended with the death of Fujiwara no
Michinaga (1027). 72

This world, which marked the time of aristocratic politicalascendancy and served as the matrix for the Kokin wakashū and Genji monogatari, hadlong since been lost to history, but its symbolic hegemony continued.

The importanceof this to Muromachi fiction and the way in which many of its texts both engaged andresolved the divestment of energy from (aristo-imperial) order need not be rehearsed here.
This same worldview also spawned a high literature in which acceptable poetic
vocabulary was limited to a circumscribed set of canonical texts, forgeries of texts
attributed to the cultural heroes of the tradition proliferated, and secret teachings that
often seem trivial or wrongheaded to modern eyes were taken with utmost seriousness
because it was believed that they enabled direct communication with the past.
Therefore, the emergence of the concept of heterogeneous, irreversible time constituted a
breakdown in one of the central paradigms of medieval culture.

This rupture in time did

not, of course, directly determine any future “early modern” developments, but it—more
than a devaluation of traditional knowledge due to its wide dissemination via print, morethan any class-based appropriation, more than an inwards (or outwards) turn caused by
the policy of national isolation—served as the enabling factor for the much talked about“new knowledge” of the Edo period.

Intellectuals like Ogyū Sorai and the early

Kokugaku Nativists were able to apply more positivistic scholarly methods to the classics

72

Matsuda Osamu, “Kinsei bungaku no kinseisei,” Nihon bungaku shinshi, Kinsei,
Matsuda Osamu, ed. (Tokyo: Shibundō, 1986), pp.9-10.

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because it had become (more) possible to isolate them from the layers of commentarythat had (seemingly) organically built up around them over the centuries and see them asarcheological objects from the past that were to be understood as products of specifictimes and places.
This competing sense of time did not immediately overrun the world.

The

process by which it spread was slow, piecemeal, and never complete. For centuries after
the founding of the Tokugawa regime, the imperial court maintained the tradition of
secret transmissions and kept its poetry away from the printing press. 73

Its genesis

cannot be tied directly to a specific historical event or the emergence of a conquering new
ideology. As Raymond Williams has pointed out, there always exists “a tension
between the received interpretation and practical experience.” 74

The imperfection ofideologies means that new ways of making sense of experience are constantly being
generated in great quantities and with no strong orientation. Even though long-range

73

Even here, there was no immunity from the split in time. Karasumaru Sukeyoshi(1623-1669), a court poet active in the salon of Emperor GoMizunoo, compares his“modern” (tōdai, kindai) poems to those included in a medieval imperial poetry
anthology and, in a complete break from medieval etiquette, declares his the better.
Ōtani Shunta, “Tōshō no waka to karon,” Nihon bungakushi, vol.8 (Tokyo: Iwanami
Shoten, 1996), pp.205-228.

74

It is important to realize that this gap between experience and ideology is a constant.
Williams goes on to write:
While this tension can be made direct and explicit, or where some alternative
explanation is available, we are still within a dimension of relatively fixed forms. But
the tension is often an unease, a stress, a displacement, a latency: the moment ofconscious comparison has not yet come, often not even coming.
In other words, all ideologies everywhere are imperfect, and imperfection does notnecessarily lead to instantaneous rejection.
Raymond Williams, Marxism and Literature (New York: Oxford University Press,
1977), p.130.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 1

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historical time was quasi-cyclical within the medieval worldview, individual time—beingof much shorter duration—had always been seen as being linear.

The incongruity ofthese two versions of time forms the basis of the poem composed by Ki no Tsurayuki thatcloses the Winter volume of the Kokin wakashū:How regrettable,
The passing of the year!
For even the image I see
In my crystal clear mirror
Seems to have grown darker!

行く年の惜しくもあるかな
真澄鏡
見る影さへに75
くれぬと思へば

This, the last seasonal poem in the collection, implies that, even though the natural world
is about to be renewed with the imminent dawning of spring, the speaker only grows
older, gradually loses his sight, and approaches death.

It would take only a small

mutation for this sense of individual time to transform into a conception of grand-scale
historical time, and there is no reason to believe that it happened for the first time towards
the end of the sixteenth century. If the origins of this sense of time cannot be tied to thehistorical environment, its ability to survive and flourish certainly can. As open warfare
continued, aristocratic impoverishment increased and the sheer amount of time since thearistocratic golden age accumulated, an aristocratic rebirth was becoming less and lessthe given, and the conception of time that guaranteed it became less and less convincing.
The environment was set for structures of feeling to coalesce into potentially emergent
ideological structures, which have a greater ability to allow for the recognition of new
experiences, the formation of new interpretations, and the possibility of new actions.
Thus, in its time, Nobunaga’s sacking of the monasteries of Mount Hiei in 1571 could
75

Kokin wakashū, Shinpen Nihon koten bungaku zenshū 11, Ozawa Masao, ed. (Tokyo:
Shōgakukan, 1994), p.147.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 1

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have been understood as something other than one more trial to be borne before an
aristocratic rebirth, and it was an event that helped create—and was, therefore, well
suited to be incorporated into—a narrative in which Nobunaga defeated Buddhism,
Hideyoshi subdued the peasantry, and Ieyasu started a new dynasty that excelled that of
Yao and Shun. 76
Parody is a parasitic mode of literature.

Parodic texts—perfect embodiments ofthe disjuncture between received interpretation and practical experience—flourished ingreat numbers because of the ideological crisis that occurred over the decades
surrounding the seventeenth century.

Fostered by the deformations in the larger

symbolic system, these parodic texts, in turn, weakened the hold of the classics within therealm of literature and helped spread a sense of this rupture in time. But parody is itself
fragile, in the words of Jurij Tynjanov, “[it] is only viable in so far as what is being

76

The idea of progress might be seen as antithetical to the Confucian-based, feudal
ideology of Japan’s early modern period. It is not; it is, however, a type of progressdifficult to recognize from within a bourgeois capitalist worldview. Society was supposedto get better; it was just supposed to do so without disturbing the fixed social hierarchy
that was guaranteed by timeless Confucian ideals. It is interesting that there co-existed arecessive ideological structure, which was able to narrate a version of progress based oncompetition, change, and survival of the fittest much closer to that espoused in texts
written by Adam Smith and Charles Darwin. For instance, in the third story of the first
volume of Miyako no Nishiki’s Genroku Taiheiki (1702), entitled “The Pros and Cons ofModern Authors” (Kindai sakusha no yoshi-ashi), one of the characters explains how thefiction of Miyako no Nishiki supercedes that of Ihara Saikaku even though the writings ofthe former borrow liberally from the latter, stating:
Many are the cases in which either the words of Zengzi [one of Confucius’ disciples
who excelled at filial piety] were made the utterances of Confucius or the style of the
Makura no sōshi yields to [that of] the Genji monogatari.
The role of this type of competition in long-form fiction will be an issue of great
importance to the third chapter of this scholarly text.
Miyako no Nishiki, Genroku Taiheiki, Miyako no Nishiki shū, Nakajima Takashi, ed.
(Tokyo: Kokusho Kankōkai, 1989), p.97.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 1

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parodied is still alive.” 77
equally.

The break in time did not treat all literary works of the past

At the beginning of the century, the texts most often parodied—the VernacularPreface to the Kokin wakashū, the Ise monogatari, the Tsurezuregusa, the Makura nosōshi—were not merely relics of a bygone age. “They were classics,” writes Nakamura
Yukihiko, “but it is best to consider them to be alive as the contemporary literature of theday.” 78

Over the first half of the century, however, classical prose texts had largely

ceased to work as prose texts capable of engaging contemporary social reality and were
becoming repositories for poetic reference.

Even this territory was being challenged.

By the 1640s, a new genre of poetry encyclopedias (saijiki 歳時記) was being publishedand used in great numbers.

The long process over which the connection between

classical texts and contemporary literary production was becoming indirect had begun inearnest, and the age of prose parody production would come to a close. However, evenafter their position in the literary field weakened, the classics’ importance lingered on to
the point that they were one of the preferred areas on which various pre-existingideological projects competed, and the parodies of the classics remained obviously
parodic.
Muromachi fiction did not survive the crisis as well.

The genre was too well

suited to a late medieval climate that combined the reality of chaos and the ideal ofrestoration. They were still being produced, reproduced and read over the first half of77

Jurij Tynjanov, “On Literary Evolution,” Readings in Russian Poetics (Chicago:
Dalkey Archive Press, 2002), p.70.

78

Nakamura Yukihiho, “Kana-zōshi no seikaku,” Nakamura Yukihiko chojutsushū, vol.4(Tōkyō : Chūō Kōronsha, 1987), p.45.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 1

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the seventeenth century, probably in greater numbers than ever before. Nevertheless,something disastrous had happened to the genre.

An examination of all extant diaries

from the fourteenth to the early seventeenth centuries conducted by Ichiko Teiji has
shown that Muromachi fiction was once read by all literate members of society, including(and perhaps even especially) educated male aristocrats.79

Within a century of Ieyasu’srise, however, they had become a literature fit only for women and children.

When agroup of twenty-three pieces of Muromachi fiction were bundled together around the turnof the eighteenth century to form the famous Otogi bunko, the book was marketed as theperfect wedding present for brides-to-be and “several of these sets, complete, boxed, andin good condition remain with us today…because they were indeed received as wedding
gifts, and put away in family storehouses together with other treasured gifts.” 80

Thesenarratives had very quickly come to seem, in the words of Barbara Ruch, “remarkably
fantastic and naïve.” 81

The downfall of Muromachi fiction was a quick one brought

about by a catastrophic event.

Tokugawa Ieyasu had in a very real, extra-literary way

solved the conflict between energy and order which was the central concern of latemedieval fiction.

Narratives developed within this problematic and offering thecustomary aristocratic renaissance as the solution could not help but seem outdated,fantastic and naïve.

The entire corpus of Muromachi fiction soon lost the gravitas

79

Ichiko Teiji, Chūsei shōsetsu to sono shūhen (Tokyo: Tokyo Daigaku Shuppankai,1981), pp.179-271.
80

Barbara Ruch, “The Origins of the Companion Library,” Journal of Asian Studies,vol.30, no.3 (May, 1971), p.594.
81

Ruch, “Origins,” p.594.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 1

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necessary to be a potential host site for parody, and the Uraminosuke’s survival was
predicated upon its mutation into a piece of “modern fiction.”

To put it in a different

way, the typographic version of the Uraminosuke, as a parasite for a soon-to-be-moribund
host, was but a dead-end mutation within a larger evolutionary trend. The demise of
Muromachi fiction as a whole and the dependent nature of parody had a very importantconsequence for the prose literature produced over the second half of the seventeenth
century.

The master narratives of the immediately received tradition were unfit tocontain the modern world, and parody has a completely destructive function: it clears theway for future developments, but can create nothing on its own.

With the center ofprose literary production in shambles, new ways of dealing with the new world would
have to develop at the very fringes of the literary field, and the result would be chaos.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 1

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Counterrevolution!
The Sutra of Karmic Cause and Effect explains,“Look at the consequences in the present, and you
will know the causes in the past.”
UkiyobōUkiyo monogatari (ca. 1660s)
Asai Ryōi (d.1691)
Though the rise of Japanese commercial print was, in most ways, absolutely
typical, the first half of the seventeenth century was witness to an exceptional
development within the commercial print culture of Japan: the reemergence and total
triumph of xylographic book production.

As is clearly visible in the following graph,moveable-type printing, which had dominated the commercial market for a quarter
century, began to come under intense competition from woodblock printing sometime in
the third decade of the century.

Xylography, which had never disappeared as a viablemeans of book production, had regained its position as the dominant mode for large-scale
textual reproduction within ten years, and the commercial moveable-type press had, by
the middle of the century, been forced into extinction.
would seem in some ways unique in world history.

Thus, the Japanese experience

Movable-type printing first emergedin China in the eleventh century and then, about two hundred years later, spread to Korea
where was improved upon before it reached Japan at the turn of the seventeenth century.
Yet typography had never been a serious challenger to xylography as the dominant modeof commercial book production on the Asian continent. In Europe, the two forms ofprint started to put out books for the commercial market at nearly the same time, and thecompetition ended fairly quickly in favor of moveable type. This move fromMichael J. Scanlon

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typography to xylography in early modern Japan can be traced to a subtle shift in the
dynamics of the early commercial market for the printed book.

Although these

conditions lasted for a relatively short period, the consequences would be felt for
centuries.
Analyses of this early seventeenth-century Japanese phenomenon had long beencolored by an assumption that typography simply is the superior technology because it
both triumphed quickly in the West and eventually supplanted woodblock printing
throughout the entire world.

Elizabeth Eisenstein in her influential The Printing Press

as an Agent of Change argues that the characteristics of standardization, disseminationand fixity, which print imposes upon texts, moved into the wider cultural arena and were
fundamental to the modernization process.

In most ways, Eisenstein is correct.

Thesechanges that can be associated with the rise of the printing press as the preferred means of
textual dissemination probably did condition an environment favorable for the scientificrevolution. Yet Eisenstein, as a Europeanist, is concerned solely with the difference
between print culture and non-print culture.

Any possible difference between axylographic print culture and a typographic print culture simply lies outside the purview
of her study.

If xylography is glossed over in Eisenstein’s work, other scholars go muchfurther in attributing the rise of the modern, capitalist West to elements stemming from a
specifically typographical print culture.

S.H. Steinberg, for instance, posits that

movable-type publishing was the first instance of an industry’s adoption of production bymeans of interchangeable parts, an approach that would eventually come to dominate all

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 1

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mass production in the post-Industrial Revolution world. 82
Moveable-type print is taken to be an element essential to the European
experience of modernization, and this modernization is linked to Western military,cultural and economic imperialism, so it is possible to see the Japanese return toxylography as a devolutionary movement, a clinging to a retrograde technology and amore primitive version of print culture that necessitated a postponement of modernization
until the West forced Japan’s hand around the time of the Meiji Restoration in the second
half of the nineteenth century. This is the way the victory of woodblock printing inJapan and the rest of East Asia has traditionally been interpreted in global histories ofprint culture, which are almost always written from the American-European point of view,
if not by Westerners themselves. 83

Recent scholarship from specialists in East Asian

cultural history, however, has called these assumptions into question.

Henry Smith, whohelped pioneer the study of the Japanese book in the West, gives the following outline fora more proper global history of the printed book:The overall shape of the history of the book, then, at least in terms of the crucial
dynamic of printing, looks something like a seesaw out of balance. For a thousand
82

S. H. Steinberg, Five Hundred Years of Printing, rev. ed. (New Castle, DE: Oak Knoll
Press, 1996), p.25.
83

Henri-Jean Martin, for instance, clearly sets up a contrast between a dynamic andcapitalist West in which this typographic print culture could flourish and a stagnant Eastin which it failed: “Gutenburg and Waldfoghel are merely two minor gods in thepantheon of the demiurges who invented means of communication. By their side in themodest section reserved for printing there are other gods, older and wiser, not half soclever and, above all, less agitated. They lived in the Far East… We have to grant that foronce there were virtues in capitalism, preferable, in the last analysis, to a society
paralyzed by a rigid hierarchy that is often the twin process of statehood.”
Henri-Jean Martin, The History and Power of Writing (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1994), pp.224-226.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 1

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years from the mid-ninth century, weight lay to the east in the continuous andvigorous development of block-printing within the confines of the Chinese
cultural sphere. Beginning in the mid-fifteenth century, weight gradually shiftedto the West, with print in the form of movable type on a mechanical press
suddenly spreading outward from Europe and eventually taking over thealphabetic remainder at uneven rates. Until the industrialization of printing began
in the 1830s, the world history of the book consisted of two parallel realms, forthe most part isolated from one another, using wholly different technologies withoften differing societal impact. 84
This cultural model with its dualist view of print culture—East and West both adopted thetechnology best suited to it, and the different modes of print helped direct further
developments within each culture—is, in many ways, correct and has come into general
acceptance. 85
The vigorous lifecycle of typography in early seventeenth-century Japan,
however, would seem to compromise this model because, for a few decades, typography
was dominant in a pre-modern Eastern culture. In a collection of essays on the Japaneseblock-book, Nakano Mitsutoshi, notes the “astonishing” spread of movable type andwrites: “For the near half century between the Keichō (1596-1615) and Keian(1648-1652) eras, the printed matter of our country was produced chiefly by this method,and it is said that up to five hundred editions or so were made.” 86

Though typography’s

period of dominance was short lived, for about thirty years, it was most certainly aprofitable means for the reproduction of texts written in Asian languages, and these very
84

Henry Smith, “Japaneseness and the History of the Book,” Monumenta Nipponica 53:4
(Winter 1998), p.504.
85

The preeminent scholar of the French book, Roger Chartier, echoes this understandingin his introduction to a collection of essays on Chinese print culture gathered in thejournal Late Imperial China.

86

Nakano Mitsutoshi, Edo no hanpon (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1995), p.31.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 1

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decades mark the period in which print publishing was established as a commercially
viable industry in Japan.

Though the cultural model is not wrong, per se, theories basedon deep structures are notoriously ill suited to explain phenomenon of short—or, as inthis case, medium—duration.

This is further complicated by the fact that the

Edo-period book is often studied in light of the modernization process that the country
underwent during the Meiji period (1868-1912). The two main cultural explanations forthis seventeenth-century return to xylography are quite productive for an understandingof developments that occurred over the second half of the nineteenth century in Japan,
but they are also colored by interpretive strategies developed to analyze the history of adifferent period and, as such, obscure as much as they enlighten.
One, the supposed visual predilection of the Japanese, is based on an assumptionof loss, for the victory of mechanical movable-type print technology imported from theWest near the turn of the twentieth century ended the calligraphic style of printed
Japanese characters and brought about a de-emphasis on book illustration. The problem
with this explanation is that it mistakes an effect for the cause.

Over the eighteenth

century there would arise genres of fiction in which word and image were thoroughly
integrated, but these are future developments. They could not have been a pressure that
helped condition the return to xylography.

According to the data collected in Kawase

Kazuma’s study of the early movable-type book in Japan, three quarters of the datable
editions produced were written in the Chinese language, and the ratio remains unchangedin the first printed, datable booksellers’ catalogue of 1671.

The impetus for the return towoodblock printing must be traced to these Chinese-language books, which contain

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 1

121basically no illustrations and are written in standardized, block-style characters eminently
suitable for typographic reproduction.

Moreover, approximately half the vernacular

texts printed via movable-type technology were written using Chinese characters and the
katakana syllabary in a completely non-cursive style.

Even the illustration style of theearly seventeenth-century vernacular book did not foreshadow eighteenth-century
developments, much less favor a xylographic mode of print. The firstJapanese-language books put out by both types of press contained few illustrations,basically all of which were full-page images clearly separated from the text.

Thisformat meant that, within the domain of typographic printing, pictures were reproduced
by being carved onto woodblock plates, which could then be added easily to forms of
movable type.
This particular cultural emphasis also seems to mistake a universal start to print
culture for a uniquely Japanese (or Eastern) one. The incipient press everywhere
survives because its products are able to imitate the established visual conventions ofmanuscripts as books are being produced in greater numbers by the new technology.
Though typography would win out in the end, block-books actually postdate theEuropean invention of the movable-type press, and there was real competition between
xylography and typography to put out alphabetic books in the West for nearly fifty years.
The most prevalent font styles in Europe were the non-cursive roman and gothic scripts,
simply because these were the dominant scribal styles at the time of Gutenberg’s
invention. But semi-cursive fonts, such as the familiar italic, were created for certain

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genres, 87 and it was certainly not the case that calligraphic skill in both cursive andnon-cursive styles was ignored within the European court and monastery. Finally, itneeds to be remembered that fifteenth-century Catholic Europe was a culture “obsessedby images and by visual forms of representation.” 88

The European book did indeed

evolve in such a way that illustrations are sparse and letters are “lined up like soldiers onparade.” 89This process, however, should never simply be attributed to an innate

Occidental disdain for illustration and penmanship.
The other cultural explanation forwarded, which is based on the complexity of
the Japanese writing system, is related to the linguistic prerequisite for the imaginedcommunity that is the modern nation of Japan.

This is a much more persuasive

argument than the visual nature of the Japanese. It has an economic basis and is valid
given the Sino-centric output of the early commercial press.

A vast amount of Chinesecharacters are necessary to print Chinese-language texts as well as the majority ofvernacular ones. Nevertheless, it is important to note that the native elements of thewriting system, which can be used to distinguish a uniquely Japanese culture from ashared East Asian one, do not play a large role in this.

The two native syllabaries

probably intensify the linguistic difficulties of the Japanese language. However, theprice of typesets is based solely on the number of pieces that must be prepared in order to87

Brian Richardson, Printing, Writers and Readers in Renaissance Italy (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1999), pp.122-125.

88

Martin, The History and Power of Writing, p.228.

89

Martin, The History and Power of Writing, p.231.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 1

print most texts.

123

Relative to the financial outlay needed for the requisite Chinesecharacters, any additional costs for the katakana and hiragana syllabaries are negligible.
Each can be reduced to a minimum of fifty graphs, was almost always used in exclusionof the other, and occur in fairly easily-estimated ratios. (In fact, because the syllabaries
allow for rare Chinese characters to be “spelled out” and omitted, it could even be argued
that the native elements make Japanese more amenable to typography.) Moreover, theeconomic advantage of xylography for the reproduction of books transcribed using theJapanese writing system is not as categorical as one late fifteenth-century Jesuit
missionary thought it to be when he stated: “[Our books] will have to be printed in theirlanguage but in our characters, since there can be no [movable-type] printing in theircharacters, because of the innumerable multitude of them that there are.” 90

There aretwo periods in which it was not only possible, but also profitable, to print books using
movable type in Japan: the early seventeenth century and much of the twentieth.
Another point that is often overlooked is that, while it is very true that theJapanese writing system constituted a pressure that affected the competition between
print technologies towards the middle of the seventeenth century, the vector of influencealso went in the opposite direction. Xylographic printing most certainly had thepotential to preserve perfectly the Japanese language system in both its visual andlinguistic dimensions, but it did not actually do so. According to the work of Hamada
Keisuke, the greatest evolution in the hiragana script since its development in the ninth
century can be traced to the harsh environment of commercial printing. At the90

J.F. Moran, The Japanese and the Jesuits (London: Routledge, 1993), p.154.

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beginning of the Edo period, the hiragana syllabary contained many variant symbols
called hentai-gana (変体仮名).

Within the corpus of texts commonly referred to as

kana-zōshi that were printed before the 1680s, an average of 108.8 hiragana characters
was used per text with a total of 136 in common use. (The numbers of variant
characters in the earlier texts are higher than in later ones, despite the fact that the former
are products of the movable-type press and the latter are block-books.) In the prosetexts of Ihara Saikaku printed over the final two decades of the seventeenth century, thenumbers fall to an average of 95.6 characters per text with 129 in common use. The
nineteenth-century fiction of the pedantic Takizawa Bakin average 82.7 characters per
text and have 104 in common use, while the image-centric texts of the later eighteenth
and early nineteenth century average 69.4 characters per text with 91 in common use.
In libretti of the puppet theater, pre-eighteenth-century texts average 85.3 characters per
text; early eighteenth-century plays by Chikamatsu Monzaemon average 71.4; those fromsecond half of the century average 65.1 characters per text with the total number ofcommon-use characters reduced to 70.

Moreover, from the latter 1650s onwards,

furigana reading glosses were done with an average of between 60 and 65 hiragana
characters per text.

Hamada is also of the opinion that the form of printed characters asa whole became less idiosyncratic and markedly easier to read as the Edo period moved
on. 91

The change to intra-textually uniform block-style characters as well as the legal

limitation of the hiragana syllabary to a total of fifty fixed characters only occurred at the91

Hamada Keisuke, “Hangyō no kana jitai,” Kokugogaku 118 (September, 1979),
pp.1-10.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 1

125

turn of the twentieth century when almost all commercially published books and a gooddeal of text-based printed matter were produced via movable type. 92

As discomfiting as

these changes might have been to those who experienced them directly, it is also worth
noting that this final burst of standardization in the modern period and on the mechanized
movable-type press did not occur ex nihilo.

The Japanese writing system had long been

evolving to adapt to an environment conditioned largely by the pressures of print culture
in general.
The reaction against the previous anti-xylographic bias has come to affect eventhe most market-based analysis of this phenomenon.

Peter Kornicki, in his The Book in

Japan, gives one of the best analyses of the market conditions that favored xylography:
Although the Sagabon has shown that movable type was capable of producing
92

Though the pre-modern Japanese book and the modern Japanese book do physicallyresemble each other to some degree, it is hardly the case that the sole difference between
the two is on the level of typeface. Pre-modern books are constructed of sheets struck on
only one side, folded with the text on the obverse, and stacked together, while theindividual pages of modern books have print on both sides. Similarly, whereas the spinesof Edo-period books were not even covered, those of modern books soon came to display
important bibliographical information. Even the basic way books were handled changed
radically in Meiji Japan: for the first time, it became standard practice for books to be
shelved side by side vertically with their spines facing outward. The transformation of thebook occurring over the latter decades of the nineteenth century was hardly atypical.
Though there is much linking modern Japan with its cultural traditions, great changes
were also occurring in the years after 1868. A large number of what would become basic
commodities—such as tweed sport coats, cigarettes, clocks, and soap—entered Japan insignificant quantities and reached the general populace for the first time during the Meiji
period, and many common and long-established practices also transformed with the dawnof modernity. The Japanese past was not annihilated by these developments, and these
new commodities and practices did not immediately or completely displace theirpredecessors. However, it must always be kept in mind that the Meiji Restoration was a
shock to the status quo on the levels of ideas and things, a radical expansion in the set of
viable alternatives. Though these changes did not necessarily result in trauma among
those who experienced them firsthand, the great ruptures surely drew more attention than
did the continuities, and the instability of the early Meiji period should never be simply
discounted or downplayed.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 1

126

aesthetically satisfying books, the calligraphic variety that was simple to achievewith wood-blocks was only possible if new fonts of type were to be cut indifferent calligraphic styles, and of course each font had to consist of a large
number of pieces to accommodate all the Chinese characters that would be needed.
Inserting reading marks (kunten) in Chinese texts was again much easier in thecase of blockprinted books, and, even more importantly, blockprinting proved
better able to handle the growing market for books in the seventeenth century:
reprinting movable-type books requires resetting the type, while blockprinting
simply required taking the blocks out of storage. Consider, for example, theseventeenth-century editions of Azuma kagami, a thirteenth-century account of thefoundation of the Kamakura Bakufu. In 1605 Tokugawa Ieyasu had this text
printed for the first time at Fushimi and there were two further movable-type
editions in the seventeenth century: thus type was set up to print Azuma kagami
three times in about 20 years. In 1626, a blockprinted edition was published withreading marks, and these blocks were used to print up to and beyond 1661, and in
1668 a separate hiragana version was also published. It is evident that there was acontinuing and growing market for the Azuma kagami which the same set ofblocks was able to satisfy for more than forty years. Similarly, in the case of
Kan’ei gyōkōki and many other works mentioned above, blockprinted editions
replaced the moveable-type ones, in some cases simply by preparing kabusebori
facsimiles of the latter, and the printing blocks for the new editions remained inuse for decades. 93
Yet he prefaces this with the following question:
The abandonment of [movable-type] technology and the reversion toblockprinting raises difficult questions. Is this a case of ‘technological lock-in’,
whereby an ‘established but inferior technology continues to dominate because of
secondary advantages that derive from the consequences of its priorestablishment?’ Blockprinting was certainly well established before theintroduction of typography, but it is by no means obvious that it was inferior in all
respects. 94
Though correct in most ways, it is also true that technological lock-in or, conversely,
lockout could only have occurred after the commercial movable-type press was driven to
extinction around 1650.

This slight slippage has led to a situation in which the market

conditions of a very specific time—three or four decades from the end of the first quarter

93

Kornicki, The Book in Japan, pp.134-135.

94

Kornicki, The Book in Japan, p.134.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 1

127of the seventeenth century—are considered to have lasted much longer than they actuallydid.
The extreme difference in the relative weight of each factor in the hierarchy ofmarket pressures mentioned in Kornicki’s analysis comes into sharp focus when the early
Edo competition between typography and xylography is compared to a similar momentthat occurred over the first decades of the Meiji period.

These periods are separated bya vast amount of time, and the results of the competition are diametrically opposed, buteven those elements with the most divergent endings have similar beginnings. Just as
Hon’ami Kōetsu and Suminokura Soan created sets of movable type that mimicked thecalligraphic style of manuscripts, some early Meiji printers also cut the first fonts forJapanese-language books written using Chinese characters and the hiragana syllabary ina cursive or semi-cursive style that was typical of xylographically printed materials. Yet,with the victory of the mechanical movable-type press, calligraphic fonts soon lost out,
and the logic of type soon imposed itself. Despite the long-held dominance of the
cursive style for writing that employed the hiragana syllabary, characters in printed
Japanese-language books soon separated and took on a decidedly non-cursive style.
This typographic revolution then spread beyond the world of the book. Block-stylecharacters increasingly became the typical form of public, quotidian writing. 95
Eventually, the calligraphic script of Edo books became illegible to the vast majority of95

In pre-twentieth-century Japan, block-style characters were a form of writing often
used when writing using purely Chinese characters and almost always employed for texts
transcribed using Chinese characters and the katakana syllabary. However, the style wasalmost never employed for texts set down using the hiragana syllabary.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 1

128

Japanese. This process, though occurring after the Meiji Restoration had set off a strong
westernization movement, need not be conflated with a loss of “Japanese-ness” in theface of European technology any more than the changes wrought by Edo-period print
culture would be associated with acculturation due to continental intrusion. Books werestill almost all written in either the Japanese or Chinese language and, despite all
proposals by would-be reformers, continued to be transcribed using Chinese charactersand the native syllabaries. The glosses and reading marks typical of the Edo bookwould remain until language reforms following the Second World War severely limited
the number of Chinese characters in common use. 96

Moreover, many of the first titles tobe produced by the new print technology were the dominant texts of the immediately
received tradition. “In the first two decades of the Meiji Period,” writes Kornicki,“when it was rare for new works of fiction to appear in more than one printing, there wasby contrast a plethora of reprints of late Tokugawa fiction.” 97

In short, the high initialcosts of typography were relative; the calligraphic style was less important than economic
efficiency; the ability to reprint long-selling texts and the demand for complex layouts ofvariously sized characters on the printed page could feasibly be met by the movable-type
press.
The final victory of typography in the nineteenth century was ensured not by the96

They would only disappear with the radical reduction in the set of Chinese characterscommonly used in printed matter (from about 7000 to around 2000) after the end of theSecond World War.

97

Peter Kornicki, “The Survival of Tokugawa Fiction in the Meiji,” Harvard Journal of
Asiatic Studies 41:2 (December, 1981), p.471.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 1

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first successes specific to the mechanical movable-type press, but by the high rate of
failure common to both print technologies. By the time of the Meiji Restoration,commercial publishers had to produce items for a large-scale and mature market.

Thistype of market is not simply quantitatively larger and older than that of the first half
century of the Edo period.

It is qualitatively different.

By the middle of the nineteenth

century, the output of the commercial press barely resembled that of the time of its birth.
R.P. Dore writes:[Japan at the turn of the Meiji period] was a world in which books abounded.
Their production (by printing on wooden blocks) gave employment to several
thousands of people in the official school presses and in the free-enterprise
publishing houses which sold their wares to the public. Works of scholarship now
accounted for only a small part of the total output. There were story books forchildren, illustrated books, technical books, popular medical books, pornographic
books, travel guides, novels, poems, collections of sermons; and they were bought
or borrowed at so much a day from book peddlers, not simply by the samurai, butalso, or even chiefly, by members of the other classes. 98
The commercial market for the classics had long since approached saturation, and thegreatest profit lay in publishing newly produced texts.

However, there was no guaranteethat these new texts would ever sell, much less sell well over time.

Publishers had toput out more texts, and the failure of a large number of individual texts was an expectedpart of business.
environment.

Typography is much better suited than xylography to such an

The initial investment in typesets is defrayed by the large variety of texts

produced by each publisher. More important, should a given text not find a market, theforms of movable type can simply be disassembled and reused to print other texts.

The

blocks of failed texts are nearly worthless. They may be planed down and reused, but
98

R.P. Dore, Education in Tokugawa Japan (Ann Arbor: Center for Japanese Studies
University of Michigan, 1984), pp.2-3.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 1

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the money saved by this is negligible compared to the very high initial investment
required for their carving.
The most direct cause of the re-emergence of typography can be traced back tothese market conditions, yet it would be a grave mistake to assume that they first emergedin the latter stages of the nineteenth century. The Genroku Taiheiki (The Genroku
Chronicle of the Great Peace 元禄大平記, 1702), a fictional account an overnight boat
trip down the Yodo River taken by two book merchants, contains the following
conversation near its opening:
After a bit, the Osaka bookseller spoke up, saying, “Well, since the prices of thepaper trade have recently risen along with the price of rice, the best laid plans ofbooksellers are coming to naught. In Kyoto, debts for paper are paid at year’s end,
are they not? So it’s easy to make preparations. Because Osaka paper suppliersmust be paid at the end of each month, we have a tough time making a living.
Blocks that until yesterday were carved with ‘Bundai’ [as publisher in thecolophon] today have had an insert reading ‘Akita’ [added in its place]. Matsuya’s
chest is held in Itamiya’s warehouse. Although they talk about changing times, itcannot be thought of as another’s problem. We Osaka booksellers are gradually
becoming a harried bunch who, when the sales of our books get slow, getheartburn, look around with trepidation, and listen warily.”
The Kyotoite replied, “It’s not only Osaka. Among the various publishers of
Kyoto, too, there are those who are excellent and those who are dreadful. Moreand more of these merchants are falling into trouble. When you think about theroot cause of it all, it mostly came from attempts to translate Chinese books into
Japanese editions. Recently, in a competition over the Shiji and the Yanji huofa,
the Shichiya house suffered, and Kobeni store almost went under. Thereupon,
they each took a Tongjian gangmu with annotations by both Ukai Kimpei and
Miyake Dōotsu, separated the combined scholarship into two discrete parts, andmade up the blocks. From this partial Tongjian gangmu, should they move on to
the Zhuzi wenji or the Poshi tongdian, they will say it is for the sake of society,but it is more to save the publishing houses. The Shiji and the Yanji huofa are thesame. These book merchants and all the others like them fail, each and every one.
It is like trying to force three carriages past each other on a single road—it will allend in tears. There are a lot of them these days! Even though the shogunate hasbanned copied blocks (jūhan 重板) and derived blocks (ruihan 類板), the blocks
of Kyoto publishers are copied in Osaka, and the Osaka blocks are imitated in
Edo. This is yet another sorrow. One person said that those scholars who want toMichael J. ScanlonChapter 1

131peruse the Diming yitong zhi and the Zhuzi wenji for the most part use
Chinese-language books; therefore, there is no demand for vernacular editions.
Consequently, the vast majority of these books have no prayer of selling to any
degree. Even if the texts are popular in their original language, most do not sellquickly in translation. For example, there are, among others, the Song xueshi
quanshu, the Sishu zhengxie, the Lu Tonglai dushiji, and the Shishu xuyan. Thesedays, hard books should be set aside. When it comes to vigorous sales, erotic
books (kōshoku-bon 好色本) and commonplaces (chōhōki 重宝記) are better, arethey not?”やや有りて大坂の本屋申けるは、「さても近年米につれて、紙の売買高直によつて、書物屋の分すべて医者坊さ。まだ京都には紙屋の払が節季の仕切じやによつて、手回しがよい。大坂の紙屋をば晦日払にせねばならぬにより、われわれが商売ことの外不勝手なり。きのふまで文台と刻たる板も、今日は秋田といふ入れ木になり、松やのたんすは伊丹屋の蔵に納る。もことに時の変化といひながら、余所事にもおもはれず。われわれが手板ども売れの鈍をおもへば、胸が八人附して、見ておそれ、聞てつつしむ大坂の本屋、次第にせはしくなり侍る」といへば、 京都
本屋「大坂のみならず、京都の本屋仲間にも、すぐれてみにくき衆中多し。つくづ
く本屋の不勝手なる、その源をかんがふるに、ををくは唐本を和板にするよりはじまれり。中頃史記、活法のあらそひにて、七屋はおとろへ、小紅はすたりぬ。
されば金平、道乙両点の通鑑を一点となして一板にさだめ、片板の通鑑をば、朱子文集か。杜子通典にするならば、世の為といひ、まして書林のたすけにならん。
史記活法ともおなじ。是等は本屋の仲間たをし。たとえば一路に三車を押がごとく、ともにやぶれてすたりゆく事、歎くに絶たり。よきかなや近年、重板類板御制禁たりといえども、京都の板を大坂で重板し、大坂の板を江戸にて類板する事、
是亦憂の一つなり。ある人の申すは、題明一統志、朱子文集などをみる程の学者
は、大かた唐本を用れば、和板を求る事あるまじ。しかれば、かやうも大部なる書物は、売の程こころもとなし。唐本にて流行しも和板になれば、売遠き物多し。
所謂宋学士全書、四書正解、呂東莱読詩記、四書緒言等なり。当世はただかたひ
99
書物をとり置て、あきなひの勝手には、好色本か重宝記の類が増しじや。」“The state of the publishing world described in their conversation,” writes Konta Yōzō inan analysis of this oft-quoted section, “is not so different from that of modern times.” 100Though it is never a good idea to take the statements of fiction at face value, there is agood deal of corroborating evidence to support this description of the book market at the99

Miyako no Nishiki, Genroku Taiheiki, Miyako no Nishiki shū, Takada Mamoru, et al,ed. (Tokyo: Kokusho Kankōkai, 1989), p.95.

100

Konta, Edo no hon’ya-san, NHK Books 299 (Nihon Hōsō Shuppan Kyōkai, 1974),
pp.36-38.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 1

132

end of the seventeenth century.

Booksellers’ catalogues, though imperfect, give ageneral window onto the number and variety of titles in circulation at a given time, andtheir listings indicate that there was a remarkable increase in the number of texts beingbrought to market over the second half of the seventeenth century.

The 1,548 entries(including some duplicates) of the 1659 manuscript climb to 3,866 in the 1670 printed
catalogue, and this in turn rises to 7,181 by the 1692 edition. Erotic books, orkōshoku-bon, surely the lightest and most perishable type of writing to be printed in bookform, became one of the fastest growing categories within the catalogues.

In fact, whenbooksellers’ catalogues began to be organized alphabetically over the eighteenth century,
titles beginning with the word kōshoku were so numerous that they were listed in a
separate category at the end of the text.

Finally, the painstaking archival work of

Sakamoto Muneko and Inoue Kazuo shows that, in the first decades of the eighteenth
century, the number of business closures began to rival that of startup ventures in the
publishing industry. 101

If the output of the commercial press were to be considered inisolation, from this point forward typography should have at least provided competition
for xylography because movable-type printing was becoming a better and better fit forthis most central aspect of the book market.

Its failure to do so in no way undermines

the evolutionary model that orients this analysis. Competition is never fair, and change
does not necessarily (or even often) occur when it “should.” Being more fit to even themost important facet of a given environment does not ensure success.

One of thefundamental aspects of the Darwinian model of evolution is its radical inclusiveness, and101

See chart 3.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 1

133

a large part of this is a recognition of the existence of a great advantage in incumbency.
Either the benefits of the new must be so great that they can overcome the structuralinertia of the environment, or the stability of the overall environment must be loosenedby some sort of outside catastrophe to allow space for competition among more evenly
matched foes.
The publishing and bookselling industry is made up of many elements beyond
the output of the press itself.

The period of heightened competition between publishers

towards the turn of the eighteenth century proved to be an environment conducive to theformation of structures and practices—like those discussed by the two book merchants inthe quotation from the Genroku Taiheiki—that would help to alleviate the situation.
Individual publishers had a much better chance of survival if they banded together tocreate and enforce a system of protocol in the trade. By 1698, professional associationsof publishers had sufficient organization and influence to pressure the Tokugawa
government to create laws that gave some measure of copyright protection, and thesegroups would eventually develop into the booksellers’ guilds of Kyoto, Edo and Osaka,
which were formally recognized in 1716, 1721 and 1723, respectively. These guilds
maintained order by institutionalizing and rationalizing the privileges of the status quo,and the block became the basic unit of the book trade. They could be bought and soldor used as collateral in dealings within the profession, but the most important
manifestation of this had to do with their role in the pre-modern concepts of copyrightprotection and infringement.

The legal title to publish texts can be translated literally as“possession of the blocks” (zōhan 蔵版), while a direct copying of an entire text was

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 1

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known as a “doubled block” (jūhan 重版), and a partial copy or imitation was called a“parallel block” (ruihan 類版).
The association of these concepts with woodblock printing was fortuitous.
Xylography was the only type of commercial print being practiced at the time of theirdevelopment.

However, these terms became principal to the regulatory institutions of

the book trade and, therefore, an important means by which the established hierarchies
were protected.

So long as the larger societal and ideological structures into which theseorganizations and their protocols fit maintained their position, momentary crises could bewithstood, and xylography was basically exempt from typographic competition. This
becomes clear in an incident from the year 1792, in which a Confucian scholar named
Kondō Junji applied to the Tokugawa government for permission to print a few texts on a
movable-type press.

Kondō was clear in his application that the books were not to be

sold on the commercial market.

They were to be inexpensive versions of a few costly or

unavailable scholarly texts that could not compete aesthetically with block-books.

Intheir successful counter, the Osaka guild offered a great many reasons why this should
not be allowed, the two most striking of which were that it would undermine copyrightprotection and that, because of the ease of further book composition once a font is made,the products of the movable-type press would be impossible to regulate. As Ōuchida
Sadao has pointed out in his analysis of this incident, typography was recognized as
being an extremely dangerous threat to the status quo due to its superior efficiency,
attacked and vanquished. 102

102

Copyright had been extended to cover all modes of print inŌuchida Sadao, “Kinsei mokkatsuji ni yoru insatsu to shuppan,”Bungaku 49:12
Michael J. ScanlonChapter 1

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a way that protected the established system of publishers, all of whom happened to beusing woodblock techniques.

When guilds were momentarily outlawed by shogunal

command from 1842 to 1851 as part of the Tempō Reforms, the localized problem didbring about a noticeable increase in the amount of disputes among publishing houses, but
not the downfall of xylography. 103
Less than half a century later, circumstances had changed, and commercial
blockprinting would meet its end. The political structures of the Edo period had been
jolted by the political and ideological catastrophe that was the Meiji Restoration, and thefoundational element of xylographic power was soon undermined.

Western-influenced

copyright laws were written within a year of the Restoration and emended before adecade had passed.

The adjudication of publishing disputes henceforth moved from theguilds to the national court system.

The negative pressures conditioning stasis had been

largely removed, and the re-rise of typography became far more possible. Nevertheless,change was not immediate.

Though mortally wounded, xylography and the associationof publishers making their way according to the traditional rules of the game fended offcompetition for a decade or so, just as they had during the 1840s. But soon individual
publishers began to experiment with the mechanical movable-type press, and the(December, 1981), pp.59-69.
103

That typographic print did not even challenge xylography during this decade is, in fact,
proof that evolution is a Darwinian phenomenon. In a Darwinian world, time is always ofthe essence because development is not spurred on by logical or moral imperative. Rather,it occurs when chance innovation meets with favorable circumstance. Therefore,
evolution is slower than it would be were it a purely structural, Lamarckian phenomenon
or a Spenserian one wherein right makes might.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 1

136

traditional regulators of the trade were powerless to stop this. After little more than ten
years of competition between the two print technologies, the commercial block-book was
driven to extinction, and established publishing houses either had to adapt to the newenvironment or perish. 104
It is important to keep in mind, however, that the institutions and practices which
ruled the book market for the entire Edo period are predicated not on the dominance of
xylographic technology from the midway point of the seventeenth century, but on theextinction of the commercial movable-type press around 1650.
helped condition this can be reconstructed fairly easily.

The environment thatAs has been noted by scholarsof the European book, the commercial press, like all media of mass consumption, canonly succeed when there pre-exists “a set of favorable social, economic and cultural
circumstances [providing] a context in which the new medium can flourish.” 105

In orderto survive as a viable industry, however, publishing must expand quickly, or else be left
open to a quick extinction.

This expansion can be provisionally separated into two

104

This is not to deny the fact that, over the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries, literary and non-literary genres, which are unfit for movable-type printing,would evolve and be of some importance to the book trade. These, of course, formed anegative pressure which helped select against a quick reversion to typography. For
instance, some of the first fiction serialized in newspapers in the decades after the Meiji
Restoration were texts belonging to what is known as the gōkan genre of fiction, an
important object of early modern pleasure reading that integrated text and image, and it isworth noting that, after a brief period during which these texts were produced throughmoveable-type technology, publishers soon turned back to woodblock printing for thiskind of text because of that technology’s superior ability to combine writing andillustration. It must not be forgotten, however, that this is an exception, not the rule. A
typographic revolution most certainly did occur in Japan over the final decades of thenineteenth century, for it was images, not typography, that lost out in the modern period.

105

Brian Richardson, Printing, Writers and Readers in Renaissance Italy (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1999), pp.5-6.

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aspects: intrinsic (growth in the amount of titles in circulation) and extrinsic (expansionof the reading public). Over the first few decades of commercial print in Japan, themarket expanded in both directions, but the weight was towards the former.

As

discussed before, new readers were added, but the already present aristocratic reading
public of Kyoto—the existence of which was a prerequisite for the establishment ofcommercial print—formed the core set of consumers. To these customers, whose
numbers were limited to the extreme, publisher-booksellers sold an increasing variety oftexts.

A scant few of these were newly written works, but the vast majority was simply

new to the medium. 106

It is, however, vital to keep in mind that, under these conditions,

neither typography nor xylography holds much of an advantage or, conversely,
disadvantage.

The variety of texts the market could bear and the number of potential

book sales per text were too restricted.
This would soon change.

Print quickly entered a second phase in which theweight of expansion shifted to the opposite end of the spectrum.

Texts new to print

continued to be added, but the greatest growth sector in the industry lay in selling a coregroup of texts to an expanding group of readers. These new readers were not as highly
educated as the first-generation reading public. Thus, there is a marked increase in theamount of reading marks and pronunciation glosses included in later editions of the same
106

Whether this was also the case in Europe is an open question. Certainly the maps
included in Febvre and Martin’s The Coming of the Book that show a very quick
geographical spread of the press in late fifteenth-century Europe might seem to argue
against it. However, given the political disunity of the time, it seems quite possible thatthese preexisting readers in Europe were present in separate communities spread over thecontinent. In other words, this spatial expansion masks what is typical of early print
markets and most visible in Japan due to the concentration of the reading public in Kyoto.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 1

138base text. Moreover, these potential book-buying customers read less widely than theoriginal aristocratic and highly educated reading public for the commercially printed
book.

These new readers, whose demand for books is concentrated on a circumscribedand fairly stable set of texts, are created slowly over time, so most initially successful
texts are almost guaranteed to sell well over a long period of time.

Anecdotal evidence

concerning this development in the market can be seen in the extended quotation from
Kornicki’s study included earlier.

Even more striking, however, is the statisticalevidence that can be gathered from the appendix of datable editions included in Kawase
Kazuma’s study of Japanese early typography. His chart lists a total of 256 titles oftexts printed over the crucial decade of 1625 to 1634.

Of these, 169 (66%) were printed

on at least one other occasion before 1635, and several such as the Heike monogatari and
the Taiheiki went through numerous reprints. 107

Woodblocks had a nearly unlimited

capacity (relative to the number of potential consumers) to reprint given texts over timein response to market demand, and it is hardly surprising that the ratio was even higher
within xylographic production for the ten-year period mentioned above, with a full 72%

107

Kawase Kazuma, (Zōho) Kokatsujiban no kenkyū, vol.2 (Tokyo: The Antiquarian
Booksellers Association of Japan, 1967), insert.
It is important to keep in mind that it was not unusual for publishers put out reprint
editions of a text without making any changes to the colophon of its first edition, so theabove-listed ratio probably underestimates the number of reprints being brought tomarket at this time. This also means that the dip in the number of identifiable editions
published in a given year starting around 1630 may be less meaningful than it first
appears. It could very well be that numerous editions of previously published texts werebeing put out and sold. In other words, a slowdown in the numbers of new texts beingbrought to market might be a phenomenon quite separate from a slowdown in thenumbers of new books being brought to market.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 1

139(101 of 140) of the titles listed having been printed before or within the time frame. 108
The book industry had entered a phase in which bestsellers were longsellers, longsellers
were bestsellers, and the market had largely indicated which texts were likely to sell themost books.

Typography is completely ill-suited to these market conditions. The

forms of movable type must be re-figured each time a reprint becomes necessary, while
the technology’s superiority in rapid change is basically obviated, and the disadvantages
related to the high initial investment in type are maximized.

In other words, whenanalyzing the result of the competition between xylography and typography during thesecond quarter of the seventeenth century, it must be remembered that things were
decided after commercial print was an established fact, and the result should be seen notas the victory of xylography, but as the defeat of typography.
If the factors selecting against typography during the middle of the seventeenth
century are readily apparent, a very important question remains unsolved because these
temporally specific conditions in and of themselves cannot fully explain the complete
eradication of the commercial movable-type press.

After all, the aristocratic audience of

Kyoto that was sufficient to support the birth of commercial print still existed, and thismost literate of potential consumers read much more broadly than newer readers and, infact, combined both intensive and extensive reading practices. In other words, there
existed a demand, albeit one of relatively shrinking size, for new or varied texts that
108

Ibid.
Again, the same set of woodblocks was often used to strike multiple editions, and it
was extremely rare for new colophons to be made to mark this. Therefore, the ratio listed
above probably radically underestimates the number of reprint editions being brought tomarket via xylographic technology.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 1

140

could be produced more efficiently via typography.

To some degree, manuscript

reproduction—a still-vital method of book production both commercial and private that isoften overlooked because of the intra-print competition in early seventeenth-century
Japan—might have been another contributing factor to the demise of commercial
typography.
away.

However, chance played a role that cannot be ignored or forcibly explained

In a Darwinian history, things happen because they can and do, not because they

have to, much less because they should. The Darwinian revolution in thought mightvery well be a radical spread in the “capacity to imagine a system that at crucial moments
remain[s] unpredictable, inexplicable, beyond control.” 109Thus, a properly Darwinian

narrative of history can contain a past filled with contingency without resorting to theanti-narrative of the Annales school or most competing versions of poststructuralist
historiography. 110

In any case, after the middle of the seventeenth century, thecommercial print culture of early modern Japan was a xylographic one, even thoughtypography would soon have become a better and better fit to the demand for books.

Asthe gap between entrenched technology and market conditions widened, the effects of thespecifically xylographic nature of early modern Japanese commercial print culture comeinto greater focus, and nowhere is that more clear than in the publication of literary
narrative.

109

George Levine, “Charles Darwin’s Reluctant Revolution,” South Atlantic Quarterly 91(1992), p.549.
110

Darwinism, with its dualist system of evolution, is a poststructuralist theory thatcompeted with and defeated the pure structuralism of Lamarckianism, where evolution
was thought to be largely caused by form-generating internal drives.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 2

141
Chapter II

Groping for a FormThe Gion monogatari (The Gion Narrative 祇園物語, 1643) is one of the mostoft-quoted pieces of Edo-period fiction in modern literary histories of early modern
Japanese narrative.

This is not because the text itself is typically seen as a masterpieceor even as a progressive work.

To the contrary, it is a debate among the Three Teachings

set in dialogue form—a genre normally associated with the medieval period that lost
popularity as a type of produced literature after the 1670s—and a near article-for-article
response to a 1638 pro-Confucian text from the same genre.

Moreover, the majority ofcitations used to support the cause of Buddhism in the Gion monogatari are culled from
Confucian sources.

Consequently, most scholars see it as a reactionary text that issomehow “reflective” of its age, one that futilely argues for the continued pre-eminenceof Buddhism at a time when the religion was transforming from a dominant ideology into
a fairly well-integrated, recessive one. Thus, it is perhaps not particularly surprising thatthe excerpt from the text which appears so often in modern scholarship is, in fact, areference to the success of the Confucian text against which the Gion monogatari argues:
Recently, an unexpected business has occurred. A certain person brought
something called the Kiyomizu monogatari and said, “Should blocks be made for
this, there is sure to be a quick profit.” Accordingly, [blocks] were prepared,
whereupon two to three thousand have been sold to people of the capital andcountryside.
此ほど、はからぬあきなひをいたし候。ある人、清水物かたりと申候物を携来り、是を板にせられ候はば、利とくあらんと申され候により、すなわち調候へば、京やゐなかの人々に、二三千とをりも売申せし也。 1

1Gion monogatari, Kana-zōshi shūsei, vol.22 (Tokyo: San’yōsha, 1998), p.3.
Michael J. ScanlonChapter 2

142

The Kiyomizu monogatari (The Kiyomizu Narrative 清水物語) is held in much higher
esteem by modern scholars.

The extreme commercial success the text enjoyed until atleast the end of the century ensures that it warrants mention in most modern literary
histories of early modern Japanese narrative, 2 and one scholar even goes so far as towrite:
It is my opinion that the Kiyomizu monogatari published in 1638 is an importantfork in the macroscopic development of vernacular prose literature. Works thatprecede it are either in the classical style or rife with techniques that depend on
the classics. After it, the methods of previous writings were discarded, and reality
in its various forms was faced. 3
For this study, however, it is the Gion monogatari that is of far greater importance. It is
probably the first text of prose literature that was verifiably written for the press, a printed
rejoinder to a text that may have simply happened to owe its dissemination to print.
The Gion monogatari was participating in a much larger trend that was
occurring over the fifth decade of the seventeenth century.

At exactly the same time, theConfucian philosopher Hayashi Razan, the haikai poet Matsunaga Teitoku and manyother authors associated with established reading communities were also turning to theprinting press in order to mark and expand their territory. 4

This, of course, does notmean that suddenly all books were written to be printed. Texts that had already been2

In addition to the original blocks of 1638 (which were used to put out at least four
editions of the text), two more sets were carved in 1645 and 1682.
3

Emoto Hiroshi, “Suzuki Shōsan to Asai Ryōi,” Kinsei zenki shōsetsu no kenkyū (Tokyo:
Wakagusa Shobō, 2000), p.138.
4

Katō Sadahiko, “Haikai no tanjō,” Nihon bungakushi, vol.7 (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten,
1996), pp.99-128.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 2

143

successful in manuscript, oral or performance culture were still sought after by publishers,
and great numbers of texts continued to be written to be delivered either orally or inmanuscript form to members of a given school, literary salon or congregation.

The

Buddhist priest Suzuki Shōsan (1579-1655), who had only one text printed in his lifetime
but went on to become one of the most prolific authors of the second half of the century
when his writings were published posthumously, included the following as an example ina letter detailing evidence concerning a contemporary revival of the Buddhist faith:
Again, Buddhist books and the like are said to sell beyond all expectations. For
this reason, they are increasingly seeking out even old sermons and publishingthem.
一、仏書ノ類、殊外ウレ申候。此故、ニ次第ニ古ノ法語等迄求尋出シテ開版致シ5候。

Nevertheless, Nakajima Takashi posits that the 1640s mark the beginning of the period inwhich a literature specific to print culture began to develop. 6

For the first time, theconditions of the greater commercial market for the printed book became an importantpressure that would affect the evolution of literary form, and it is an investigation of thenature of this relationship that is the central concern of this chapter.

5

Suzuki Shōsan, Suzuki Shōsan dōjin zenshū (Tokyo: Sankibō Busshorin, 1975), p.312.

6

Nakajima Takashi, “Hanpon jidai no ‘shahon’ to wa nanika,” Kokubungaku kaishaku tokyōzai no kenkyū 42, no.11 (September, 1997), pp.49-53.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 2

144

The Matrix
The type of author doesn’t matter. You make up abook in which all—young and old, smart anddumb—take interest without wavering. It remains
fashionable for a long time, and sales are strong.
The news about book turnover is good. It is theseauthors that are praised, and they are money in thebank for publishers.
Osaka bookseller
Genroku Taiheiki (1700)
Miyako no Nishiki
The second half of the seventeenth century was a time of great expansion for thecommercial print industry. From the 1660s onwards there was a marked increase in thenumber of new publishing ventures, and the geographic domain of the commerciallyprinted book was also pushing outwards.

As the cities of Edo and Osaka became viable

environments for the book trade, publishing houses began to appear in ever greaternumbers in these two urban centers, and there is also evidence that book retailers weresetting up shop in other castle towns.

There are also some scholars who argue that therange of the commercial book might have extended far beyond these self-sustaining
markets.

The famous historian Kōda Shigetomo (1873-1954) writes:

Take educators and booksellers—their very names differ. Generally, it is notdifficult to imagine the one who puts his future in the publishing and sales ofbooks opening up a store either in front of a temple complex where there aremany worshippers or on a street corner bustling with foot traffic, then trying toadvertise his newly printed materials using something along the lines of a sign orbillboard. However, the people able to catch sight of this advertisement arelimited to those who make their way to the storefront, and the number of books
that they can be made aware of at one time through these posted advertisements
remains very, very small. As for the sole way that necessary books could quickly
be searched for and ordered by the many readers living in the countryside andnever setting foot in the capital—it was none other than book listings, newly
printed book listings. 7
7

Kōda Shigetomo, Shoshigaku no hanashi, Nihon shoshigaku taikei, vol.7 (Tokyo:
Michael J. ScanlonChapter 2

145

Whether or not these catalogues were used to market books on a near-national scale, they
played a large enough role in the book trade that it was possible for many different
versions to be published over this half century as more and more books were beingbrought to market.

These catalogues are certainly not a perfect set of data.

They

exclude libretti of jōruri drama and include some titles that were never actually published.
More important is Nagatomo Chiyoji’s warning that the high cost of block carving meantthat publishers were not likely to destroy blocks too readily. It is highly possible thatthe titles listed in these catalogues are indicative of the existence of blocks (or the plan tocreate such blocks in the near future) which could be used to put out books to meet ademand for the text in question, rather than a direct reflection of the titles in current
circulation. 8

Nevertheless, these catalogues constitute the best evidence available for ananalysis of the overall book trade and indicate the industry had entered a new phase.
Chart 4: Growth in Commercial Publishing I(Arranged according to period categories in booksellers’ catalogues organized by genre.) 9

Category

1670 catalogue1692 catalogue

Total numberof titles

Total numberof titles

Repeated
titles

Non-repeatedtitlesPercentage of
non-repeatedtitlesTendai
天台宗

345

523

330

193

37%

Nichiren
日蓮宗

61

92

58

34

37%

Kusha
倶舎宗

14

22

13

9

41%

Seishōdō Shoten, 1979), p.161.
8

Nagatomo Chiyoji, Edo jidai no shomotsu to dokusho (Tokyo: Tōkyōdō Shuppan, 2001),
pp.34-35.
9

Op. cit., pp.32-33. All entries above the sermons (法語) category tabulated by author.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 2

Category146

1670 catalogue1692 catalogue

Total numberof titles

Total numberof titles

Repeated
titles

Non-repeatedtitlesPercentage ofNon-repeatedtitles

Ritsu
律宗

37

114

31

83

73%

Kegon
華厳宗

20

31

20

11

35%

Hossō
法相宗

35

77

39

38

49%

Shingon
真言宗

330

502

248

254

51%

Zen
禅宗

369

635

346

289

46%

33

7

25

76%

Lives of Eminent
Monks & Chronicles

僧伝並編年
Jōdo
浄土宗

262

460

252

208

45%

Ikkō
一向宗

88

139

79

60

43%

Sermons
法語

116

185

87

98

53%

Confucian Writings
儒書並経書

136

353

210

143

41%

Exemplary Prose

52

88

42

46

52%

Histories
歴代並伝記

38

73

41

32

44%

Ancient Customs
故事

56

84

40

44

52%

22

0

22

100%

Collections & Handbooks

文集並書翰

Miscellaneous
Writings
雑書
Poetry Collections
詩集並聯句

125

275

97

178

65%

Dictionaries
字書

76

179

73

106

60%

Calendars &Divination
暦占書

54

105

38

67

64%

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 2

Category147

1670 catalogue1692 catalogue

Total numberof titles

Total numberof titles

Repeated
titles

Non-repeatedtitlesPercentage ofNon-repeatedtitlesMilitary Writings
軍書

132

178

121

57

32%

Shinto Writings &Ritual Manuals
神書並有識

79

133

72

61

46%

Medical Writings
医書

247

465

237

228

49%

Waka Poetry &Comic Verse
歌書付狂歌

224

389

198

191

49%

Renga
連歌書

29

38

28

10

26%

Haikai
俳諧書

133

678

124

554

82%

Vernacular
Writings
仮名和書

88

113

77

36

32%

Writings for
Women
女書

19

24

11

13

54%

Nō Libretti
謡本

30

63

28

35

56%

10

0

10

100%

Instruments
糸竹書
Mathematics
算書

18

42

7

35

83%

Go
盤上書

12

19

7

12

63%

14

6

8

Tea Ceremony
茶湯書並花之書7

77%

Flower Arranging& Incense
立花付香

17

1

16

Etiquette
躾方書

12

7

5

7

4

3

Cooking
料理書

11

42%

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 2

Category
Famous Places &Travel Records
名所尽並道中記148

1670 catalogue1692 catalogue

Total numberof titles

Total numberof titles

Repeated
titles

Non-repeatedtitles

71

21

50

28

Percentage ofNon-repeatedtitles75%

Travel Literature
紀行之類

24

3

21

Models &Picture Books
雛形付絵本尽

59

11

48

81%

Hanashi Anecdotes
噺の類

14

37

6

31

84%

Military Drama &Fiction
舞本並草紙類

199

117

116

1

1%

Monogatari
Narratives
物語類

169

76

93

55%

Erotic Books &Pleasure
好色類並楽事

101

6

95

94%

Pornography
楽事枕絵

18

7

11

61%

Letter Manuals
往来手本類

88

159

83

76

48%

Stone Rubbings &Calligraphy
Handbooks
石刷並筆道書

77

138

69

69

50%

Scrolls & Maps
掛物並図

55

126

54

72

50%

Commercial publishing was undergoing a remarkable period of growth over thesecond half of the seventeenth century.

This included a good deal of extrinsic expansion.

Titles and notes concerning book format included in these catalogues would seem toindicate that potential book-buying customers who were, on the whole, less educated andwealthy than those of the early part of the century continued to be added in great numbers.
Michael J. ScanlonChapter 2

149

For instance, the greatest growth within Confucian texts—one of the central genres of thebook trade—comes from publishing different versions of the same base text to which
various glosses or features had been added in order to make the learned text moreaccessible, and there was an increase in the number of texts printed using specialized
book formats, such as editions with large print or small book size.10

At the same time,

this was also a period of great intrinsic expansion, and the booksellers’ catalogues revealthat there was an explosion in the variety of texts being put out by publishers over thesefifty years. In fact, as can be seen in the above table, the number of titles listed in every
category—with one crucial exception—included in these catalogues rose by healthyamounts in the interval between the 1670 edition and 1692 one. Accompanying thisgrowth, however, was an increase in danger for individual publishers.

The situation ismade clear in another famous passage from the Genroku Taiheiki, the text’s most detailed
description of publishing success:From [those for] the Four Books 11 and the Five Classics 12 right down to theplaythings of Japanese writings, the numbers of printing blocks have increased
with each passing year. My goodness, it’s reached the point that one could
mistakenly think that all the cherry trees of Mount Yoshino had been chopped
down! Though it might be thought that the appearance of the boxwood edition of
10

Nagatomo Chiyoji, “Shōgyō shuppan no kaisho,” Nihon bungaku shi, vol.7 (Tokyo:
Iwanami Shoten, 1996) pp.164-5.

11

In Japanese, the Four Books (Shisho 四書) of Confucianism are the Rongo (The
Anelects 論語), the Mōshi (The Mencius 孟子), the Chūyō (The Doctrine of the Mean 中庸) and the Daigaku (The Great Learning 大学).
12

In Japanese, the Five Classics (Gokyō 五経) of Confucianism are the Ekikyō (The Book
of Changes 易経), the Reiki (The Book of Rites 礼記), the Shokyō (The Book ofDocuments 書経), the Shunjū (Spring and Autumn Annals 春秋) and the Shikyō (TheBook of Songs 詩経).

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 2

150

the Sanjūin 13 occurred because cherry trees had gone extinct, that is not the case.
Rather, the printing capacity of boxwood is said to be fifty percent more thancherry. Mister Umemura, the holder of these blocks, in the past had held [theblocks for another edition of] the Sanjūin and made a great profit on them. Thus,in order to reap the benefits, he had boxwood plates made. As for the scribe, hemade the then-famous [calligrapher] Makimura Iroku take a rough draft and fixed
the price at one monme and two fun per folio. For a mere pocket-sized book, thecosts for the clean copy manuscript [on which the blocks would be based] reachedthree hundred monme. The carving costs for each page exceeded thirty monme.
However, within the year in which these plates were finished, the investment costs
had been completely recouped, and with each passing year he has reaped profit.
Nowadays, the use of this boxwood edition goes as far as Tsushima in the west
and reaches Matsushima in the east. Therefore, in the provinces they have given
Umemura—Mister Plum Grove—the nickname Mister Boxwood Grove. The
affair went well, and it is true what they say—with a little you can make a lot!
Because this Sanjūin has been so lauded, should you mention even only thephrase “Umemura edition,” the whole world will know it as a good set of blocks.
This is something that stemmed from the genius of [Umemura] Yahaku! Recently,
a certain someone, in making a pocket-sized edition of a home encyclopedia,
added footnotes and put in models for letter writing. He gave it the title The
Souvenir Home Encyclopedia (Miyage setsuyō), and within a year the manuscript
was ready. Thinking that, should this be done using boxwood blocks, it would
double the sales of the Sanjūin, he went to various and sundry publishers [seeking
an investor]. But the costs of the boxwood plates were a sticking point. It’s that,when it comes to meeting with the conditions of the day, people with abilities likethose of Umemura are rare. Many are the people who say that, should Umemura
pass away, the way of the boxwood edition would come to an end.
それ四書五経をはじめ、大和書のたはれ草にいたるまで、梓の数年々にひろがり、
すでに吉野山の桜木も切り尽くすかとあやまたるほどに、すはみよ。黄楊板の三重韻発りしは、さくらが絶しゆへかとおもへば、さにあらで、黄楊はかへって板
ちん桜に五割増じゃといふ。此板本梅村氏そのむかし三重韻をもって、大に利を得しゆへ、そのむくひのため、あらたに黄楊板を行ふ。筆工は当時の名人牧村伊六に筆垢をとらせ、壱丁を壱匁弐分書にさだめ、わづかなる寸珍の筆料三百匁におよぶ。板一枚の堀手間三十匁余にいたる。しかれども此板成就せし年、入目のこらず取戻し、続て年々利を得、今におゐて黄楊板を用る事、西は対馬をかぎり、東は松島におよぶ。それゆへ諸国に梅村を黄楊村と名付け、其沙汰よろしく、一をもって万をしれといふことまことなるかな。この三重韻のほまれあるゆへ、梅村板とさへいへば、世間にをしなべよき板ぞとおもふは、是弥白が才のかしこきによる所ぞかし。此ごろある人節用集を寸珍にして首書をくわへ、書礼をかき入、
土産節用と名付、一年ほどにして写本出来侍り。是を黄楊板にせば三重韻には倍13The Sanjūin is a revised version of a fourteenth-century rhyme dictionary that was used
as a reference book for the composition of Chinese poetry.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 2

151

して売れんとおもひ、書林かれ是のぞむといへども、黄楊板の値になづみ、しばらく日和を見合する事、梅村の器量に似たる人まれなるゆへなり。誠に梅村なくなりて黄楊板の道たへぬと、世になげく人を々かり 14

The number of titles was rising quickly, not because publishers wanted to put out new
texts, but due to the fact that they had to.

The market for the texts which had beenhighly successful for the first fifty years of commercial print in Japan was beginning tosaturate, and the failure rate for new, untested texts was far higher than it had been overthe first half of the century.

Further, bringing a successful text to market was no

guarantee of long-term earnings.
Sanjūin.

The Umemura house was not the first to put out theThe 1698 booksellers’ catalogue shows that there were sixteen versions of thetext vying with each other.

This was not an isolated incident. “As for the epistolary

primers (ōrai-mono 往来物) being used so often in temple schools,” writes Yayoshi
Mitsunaga, “even if you look only at the [1670 booksellers’ catalogue], there are twelve
editions of the Teikin ōrai (庭訓往来) and eleven of the Jōei shikimoku (貞永式目).” 15
Success leads to imitation, and, since there were not as of yet copyright laws or officiallyrecognized guilds to regulate the industry, publishing houses were relatively free to put
out competing versions of basically the same text, possibly undermining the sales of theoriginal publisher or weakening those of all parties.
As is typical of unregulated markets, this one tended towards monopoly. Thisdevelopment is clearly visible in a 1696 booksellers’ catalogue compiled and published

14

Genroku Taiheiki, pp.138-139.

15

Yayoshi Mitsunaga, “Jūhan ruihan no hōnin jidai,” Mikan shiryō ni yoru Nihon
shuppan bunka, vol.4, Shoshi shomoku shiriizu, vol.26 (Tokyo: Yumani Shobō, 1989),
p.161.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 2

by Kawachiya Rihei, a book merchant of the Kyoto-Osaka area.

152

The basic objectives

and organization of the text are laid out in its preface:
A few years prior, the titles of books were collected and made into a three-volume
syllabically organized catalogue. Since then, there have been a great number ofblocks carved, so now I increased its merit and made it into six volumes. The
titles are collected according to i-ro-ha syllabic order and separated into sections.
The section for Confucian writings includes such things as Shinto writings,
military writings, dictionaries, books on the arts, and so on. As for the vernacular,
this section includes all books written in Japanese, such as high poetic writings,
music books as well as texts concerning Buddhism, Confucianism, Shinto andmilitary writings that are written in the vernacular. To be certain, because there areso many old pocket books of haikai poetry, these will be excluded from the main
body of the catalogue and written in one section. The Buddhist writings section
gathers together the texts of all the various sects. Further, in order to make thecatalogue easy to use for scholarly neophytes, titles are ordered according to themost common pronunciation of their Chinese characters, even though this resultsin some confusing placements. For each title entry, the chief author and the
publisher are made clear, and the price has been written in. However, there will be
price discrepancies based on the quality of the paper used to make the book aswell as [the cost of] shipping goods to distant provinces. Though it may bedifficult to set an absolute standard [of organization], I have written down thegeneral [method]. Someone should be able to add more and more new titles insubsequent printings. New Years Day, 1696.
先年書籍の題号を集てかな付きの目録三巻とす。自爾以来彫刻数多なれば、今又増益し六巻とし、部を分いろは寄にして集之。儒書の部は神書軍書字書芸書等を摂し、仮名は歌書儒仏神道軍書音曲等、総てかな物之書を集。但俳諧の古き句帳は品多けれは除之、一所に記す。仏書は諸宗通じて悉く集。雖然かなの通音により、寄所違有べけれ共、童蒙の見やすからしめんが為也。凡書の大意作者並板元之家名を顕し、値段をしるす。しかれ共値段は紙の善悪、又遠国におゐては運送の品により、相違あるべければ、一概に定めがたしといへとも、大概をしるす。
開猶此以後板之書は追々に加ふべき者也。干時元禄九丙子のとし孟春日。 16

The haikai section was never included, so the catalogue’s organization is basically that of
the Edo-issued 1681 version mentioned in the text’s introduction: titles are arranged insyllabic order with each unit further divided into Confucian, medical, vernacular, and16

Edo jidai Shorin shuppan shojaku mokuroku shūsei, vol.2 (Tokyo: Inoue Shobō, 1963),
pp.211-212.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 2

153

Buddhist sections; and a section for erotic books has been added to those for books donein the stone rubbing style (ishi-zuri 石刷) and maps which are located after the main
listings in the earlier edition.

The attempt at exhaustiveness and the inclusion of the

publisher’s name in each entry makes this particular edition of the booksellers’ catalogue
an invaluable resource for modern scholars because it provides data that allows for a
fairly reliable reconstruction of the commercial print marketplace at the end of theseventeenth century.
The publishing industry was separating into the very large and the very small.
Konta Yōzō has calculated that twenty-nine publishers sold over fifty different texts,
around eighty produced between ten and fifty, and three hundred or so held the blocks for
fewer than ten. 17

Moreover, one third of the titles listed in this catalogue were

accounted for by eleven extremely large houses. 18

The most interesting parts of Konta’s

scholarship, however, lie in his examination of the types of books these large houses
published and his investigation into the histories of these businesses. Each, while
publishing a certain variety of texts, specialized in particular types of texts that werelinked to well-established reading communities, such as religious sects, academies orliterary coteries. 19

This is simply an adaptation to the contemporary environment.

Thedominant publishing houses, at a time in which they were unable to keep competitors

17

Konta Yōzō, “Genroku-Kyōhō-ki ni okeru shuppan shihon no keisei to sono rekishiteki
igi nitsuite,” Historia 19 (1958), p.51.

18

Op. cit., p.52.

19

Konta Yōzō, Edo no hon’ya-san, p.33.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 2

154from publishing similar books, gained their advantage by setting up special relations with
fixed groups of consumers.

Further, nearly all of these houses were of long standing,most with histories that reach back to the 1620s or 1630s. 20
the xylographic print industry.

This is a vital factor within

The capital investment in blocks that can be used tomake new copies of longselling texts is spread out over time, and the income from steadysales can be used to underwrite the costs of producing new blocks to add to the inventory.
As a result, large houses held a great advantage over smaller ones and gained an everstronger hold over the central genres of the book market.
This booksellers’ catalogue is also instructive in that it indicates the genres thatthese large houses did not control. Konta’s study shows that, in 1698, the largest elevenpublishing houses put out 54.8% of the medical titles listed (253 of 462), 38.8% of the
Confucian ones (655 of 1684), 32.4% of the Buddhist ones (948 of 2621), but only
21.7% of the vernacular texts (393 of 1809).

Munemasa Isoo has taken an in-depth lookat the production of the two largest publishers that specialized in literature—the Hayashi
and the Yoshida houses—and found that the vernacular texts which they published were
almost all associated with the high poetic tradition.

The Hayashi is listed as the

publisher of seventy-four titles (thirty-five Confucian, one medical, thirty-five vernacular,
and three Buddhist), 21 while Yoshida’s name is included in sixty-nine entries (twenty-two
Confucian, seven medical, seven Buddhist, thirty-two vernacular, and one stone-rubbing

20

Op. cit., p.53.

21

Munemasa Isoo, “Hanmoto to esōshi,” Kinsei Kyoto shuppan bunka no kenkyū (Tokyo:
Dōmeisha, 1982), pp.220-225.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 2

155style calligraphy handbook). 22

Yet they each published only a single text that modern

scholars study as a piece of contemporary prose literature. 23

This does not mean that

there was no money to be made printing non-canonical vernacular texts. In fact, thisfamily of texts was the fastest growing sector of the publishing industry. However, it
must always be kept in mind that these books were definitely not the product of the centerof commercial print.
Chart 5: Growth in Commercial Publishing II(Arranged according to period categories in booksellers’ catalogues organized by i-ro-hasyllabic order.) 24
1659

1670

1685

1692

Confucian texts

403 (26.0%)

877 (22.8%)

1228 (20.7%)1472 (20.5%)

Medical texts

136 (8.8%)

247 (6.4%)

401 (6.8%)454 (6.3%)

Vernacular texts

400 (25.8%)1025 (26.5%)

1812 (30.5%)2456 (34.3%)

Buddhist texts

619 (40.0%)1677 (44.3%)

2493 (42.0%)2799 (38.9%)

1548

3866

5934

7181

Frontiers tend to be harsh environments, so it is perhaps not surprising that the
decade surrounding the half-century mark was a period over which little contemporary
prose literature was put into print for the first time.

Mizutani Futō explains this trend as

follows:
When you think about it, in the Kan’ei period (1624-1644), printing itself was ararity. Both booksellers and collectors got carried away and tended to put out too
many texts at one time. Then a reaction against this appeared. At that point,
education had not spread widely, and the sphere of reading was accordingly
narrow. There was not enough energy to consume that unlimited production of22

Munemasa Isoo, “Yoshida Shiremon: koten no hanmoto,” Kinsei Kyoto shuppan bunka
no kenkyū (Tokyo: Dōmeisha, 1982), pp.225-230.

23

Munemasa, Kinsei Kyoto shuppan bunka no kenkyū, pp.222, 229.

24

Konta Yōzō, “Genroku-Kyōhō-ki ni okeru shuppan shihon no keisei to sono rekishiteki
igi nitsuite,” p.50.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 2

156

printed books. The number of books stagnated, and [many] met the fate ofremaining unsold. The authors of the transitional period had all made theirappearance. When you take into account the fact that the period for development
was still not sufficient for progress to appear, [it becomes clear that] it wasnecessary for there to be a stretch of downtime here. 25
Noda Hisao acknowledges Mizutani’s theory and adds a few more factors from the wider
historical circumstance, such as the famine that plagued the country in the early 1640s,
the numerous earthquakes and fires that Kyoto suffered at this time, as well as the
sumptuary laws and other forms of proscriptive control that were emanating from thecentral government. 26

Yet Noda himself would seem to undermine this argument by

revealing that a good number of contemporary vernacular prose texts—especially
military narratives—published in the first half of the century were being reissued during
this interval. 27

The lull, no matter what its cause, was not of long duration.

By the1660s, there was an explosion in the number of new vernacular texts being printed andbrought to market, a development in which literary prose is said to play an important role.
Noda includes in his study of early Edo fiction entries for one hundred twenty-eight texts
composed and printed between 1655 and 1680 compared to a mere thirty-eight for theyears between 1596 and 1644.
25

Konta writes: “The level of success [that the market]

Mizutani Futō, Shinsen retsudentai shōsetsu shi (Tokyo: Shun’yōdō, 1929).

26

Noda Hisao, Nihon kinsei shōsetsu shi, Kana-zōshi hen (Tokyo: Benseisha, 1986),
p.240.
27

Op. cit., pp.241-242.
Though this is just speculation, Noda’s information about reprinting seems to indicatethat the pressures conditioning this lull should probably be sought within the industry andthe place of prose literature in it. The most obvious possibility is that, since xylography
was the only print technology in commercial use at the time, a very large capital
investment was necessary to put out an edition of an as of yet unpublished text and, at atime when established texts were still selling well, the risks involved with publishinguntested texts in the most volatile and marginal sector of the market were too high.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 2

157

was able to bear was such that forty-five titles appeared before [1654], while one hundred
seventy-eight were published between 1655 and 1673.” 28

These new texts, unlike theones from the beginning of the century, show a great diversity in form.
There is also something troubling about this group of texts: it is extremely
difficult to distinguish literary texts from non-literary ones. This problem is addressedby Suzuki Tōru as follows:
Kana-zōshi contains an extreme variety of textual groupings, so grasping its
character in toto is difficult. However, since the enlightenment thought from the
beginnings of the early modern period was permeating society extensively,
impressive are didacticism, practical usefulness, a desire to enlighten, and so on.
In cases where kana-zōshi are being used as objects for the study of literary
history, the question of what kana-zōshi—a category which includes writings ofpurely practical use—should be included is a rather difficult problem. Literarinessshould be the criterion for judgment, but many are the cases in which it is difficult
to say things are clear, even in the most literary of examples. In this type of work,
it may be that the principal axis lies in didacticism, practical usefulness or a desire
to enlighten, and literariness is something like a nonessential factor motivated forthe purpose of these [other] goals. As for their didacticism and practicalknowledge, loftiness was perhaps flavorless and made it difficult for the common
reader to understand. So that the reader might interestedly receive [thisdidacticism and practical knowledge], they were softened and broken up.
[Kana-zōshi] were a literary costume. Yet it may have well been that the author’s
intentions did not lie there. It is for this reason that many of the works ofkana-zōshi stand in an uncertain position with regards to literary character.
However, this is our modern sensibilities. Perhaps we have fallen into that
delusion because, compared to the civilizing elements that abound in ambition,
the literary elements are all too immature, naïve, and simple. It is probable that at
said time there was a demand for literature, and there is no reason to believe thatkana-zōshi were unable to meet the demand. So long as there are traces of literary
elements, we cannot—no matter how immature and flawed they may seem whenlooked at from our modern sense of literature—ignore their literary efforts. This isbecause these are where their thought became fixed in literary form. 29
28

Konta, Edo no hon’ya san, p.32.

29

Suzuki Tōru, “Kana-zōshi ni okeru kyōkunsei to bungeisei: Ukiyo monogatari no kōseio megutte,” Shimane Daigaku Ronshū 11 (1962), p.92.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 2

158

The argument rests on two debatable points.

Judgments of literary worth based onmodern standards are well to be avoided because they are based on a Spenserian versionof evolution that mistakes what happened to succeed for what should have succeeded.
On the other hand, because the modern sense of literature is contingent on a familiarity
with an array of the most evolutionary successful literary forms, an inability to recognize
a text’s “literariness” is an important piece of data that should not be willfully ignored.
Moreover, whereas a demand for narrative literature is probably universal, the mere
presence of demand does not in any way imply its being met.
The Tōkaidō meishoki (Records of Famous Places on the Tōkaidō 東海道名所記,
c.1660) was a successful text belonging to a popular genre of the time.

It sold wellenough to be printed in several editions, while records of famous places (meishoki 名所記) became so numerous that a category specific to them soon developed within thebooksellers’ catalogues. In some literary histories written in the twentieth century, thetext is placed within a genealogy that links the Chikusai monogatari (The Narrative of
Chikusai 竹斎, printed c.1620) with the Tōkaidō-chū hizakurige (Hoofing it along the
Tōkaidō 東海道中膝栗毛, 1802-1809).

In a vague way, the three are similar in that they

are comic narratives which follow a bumbling hero on his travels along the road linking
the imperial capital of Kyoto and the shogunal capital of Edo.
meishoki is obviously different than the other two.

However, the Tōkaidō

Though it is doubtful that even the

Chikusai and the Tōkaidō dōchū hizakurige are directly related, they are similar enoughthat it is reasonable to think so, for it could be argued, in a way that approximates Viktor
Shklovsky’s famous analysis of Don Quixote, that these two texts are essentiallyMichael J. ScanlonChapter 2

159

picaresque narratives in which heroes’ journeys serve as motivation for the device of
concatenation that links dissimilar materials into pieces of extended fiction. 30
In the Chikusai, the presentation of factual information about the people, places
and things of the road interrupts the flow of the narrative’s plot to a certain degree.
However, the inclusion of information in the Chikusai is not done simply for the sake ofpresenting that information.

Rather, it serves as background for comic poems deliveredby characters, and the discourse of the narrative, never settling on it, quickly returns to
the action. 31

The same cannot be said for the Tōkaidō meishoki.

The road is theprotagonist of this text:
From Okazaki to Chirifu: eight miles.
On the left, there is a castle.
The inn is about a league away by river. The river is called the Matsuha Riverand has a bridge with a length of thirty-two yards.
The Yahagi Bridge is two hundred and eight yards long. In the past, this bridge
was an earthen one. Therefore, in times of flood it was swept away. Because
people making their way could not cross, a plank bridge has been built recently. In
the mid-1330s, Ashikaga Takauji, while in Kamakura, turned his back on theorders of GoDaigo. The emperor sent out a force with Nitta Yoshisada as leader.
At this spot, they met the Kamakura force in battle. They defeated Takauji andforced him to flee all the way to Sagisaka. Or so they say, anyway.
East Yahagi. West Yahagi. To the right, in the rice fields, there is a thicket ofbamboo grass. Long ago, this was the estate of Lady Jōruri, the daughter of theowner of the inn at Yahagi. The naming of this place predates this. Yamato Takeru,
planning on destroying the eastern barbarians, came this far and fashioned a great
number of arrows. From this act, came the name Yahagi. 32
30

The Chikusai, not a fully motivated piece of fiction, contains many interpolated
sections in which the hero plays little to no role. Mizuta Jun notes the heterogeneous
qualities, but theorizes that the character Chikusai helps unify the text and his travel“makes possible its long-form structure and assemblage of anecdotes.”
Mizuta Jun, “Chikusai no seiritsu: shogenteki yōso no kyōzatsu,” Kana-zōshi no sekai:
mibunka no keifu (Tokyo: Ōfūsha, 1981), pp.51-82.

31

Op. cit., p.53.

32

Yahagi is written with Chinese characters that literarily mean to fashion arrows out of
Michael J. ScanlonChapter 2

160

The village of Itōzaka. The hamlet of Ozaki. Between them runs a single seaside
road, the Kobama seaside road.
Imamura. It has a teahouse. Nishida. 33
About a league to the north of the road proper lies the historic spot known as theEight Bridges. In the past, surely, it lay on the highway itself. In the Isemonogatari, Lord Narihira, at the time of his travels to the East, here composed
the famous acrostic poem about the kakitsubata iris. As for this place being named
the Eight Bridges, it is because the water of several rivers crisscrossed here anddid not flow in a single stream. They lay bridges across them in accordance withthe water, and it took eight different ones, something like a spider’s limbs. That is
why they say it got the name Eight Bridges. Might it have been that there were
kakitsubata irises in the nearby swamp? Now, it has become a village, and the
kakitsubata irises, having become kindling wood, are no longer here. Further, theswamps have been drained and made into rice fields. Only the place’s name and a
few bridge posts remain. It may be that a stone monument to Narihira—areminder of the distant past—lies here. The [traveling companion] composed apoem:
The skinny face
Of the mean man,Standing in the swamp fields
Of Eight Bridges—
Might it be kakitsubata iris!
In the past, Narihira took the five syllables of ka-ki-tsu-ba-ta, placed them at thehead of each line, and composed a poem about the essence of travel. They callthat an acrostic poem, don’t they? When the priest asked him to take the same fivesyllables, place them at the head of each line, and make a poem about theloneliness of the road, Rokuami recited:
Holes are popping out
On the surface of my oft-worn coat;
Since it will have to do,
I think about cutting the seams,
And turning it inside out.
When he was done, the man spit, and the noise reverberated in the fire water
vessel.
岡崎より池鯉鮒まで三里八町
左のかたに、城あり
宿の町はづれに、川あり、松葉川といふ、橋あり、長さ三十二間
矢矯橋、長さ二百八間あり。此橋、いにしへは、土橋にて。侍べりしかば。洪bamboo and feathers.
33

This is a mistake, taken directly from the Dōchūki. The actual name of the town is
Ushida, but the う (u) was mistakenly read as a に (ni).

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 2

161

水の時は。しながされて。往来の人渡りかねたる故に。ちかき比より、板ばしに成けり。建武年中に、足利尊氏、鎌倉にありて。後醍醐天皇の命をそむきしに、
新田義貞を大将軍として、さしくださる、此所にて。かま倉勢と出合。いくさあ
りけるに、尊氏打まけて、鷺坂まで、にげられしとかや
東矢はぎ・西矢はぎ、右のかたの田の中に。篠藪あり。むかし、矢はぎの宿、長者のむすめ。浄瑠璃御前の屋敷あり。爰を矢はぎと名づくる事は。そのかみ、大和武の尊。東夷をほろぼさんとて、この所までくだり給ひ。矢をおほくつくら
せられしによりて。矢はぎとはいうなり
うたふ坂の村、尾崎の郷。このあひだに左右へ、海道一すぢあり。小浜かいだ
うなり
今村、茶やあり、西田
海道より北のかた一里斗に。八橋の旧跡あり。そのかみは、さだめて、東海道にて有けるにや。業平朝臣、あづまのかたへ、くだり給ひし時。爰にして、杜若の歌をよみ給へる事。伊勢物がたりにあり。爰を八はしといひけるは。川の水、たてよこに落合て。ひとしく流れず。その水にしたがいひて。橋を竪よこにかけ渡し。蛛手のごとくに、端を八かけたれば。八橋と名づけたりといへり。その沢に、杜若ありとかや。今は在所になり。杜若は薪となりて、絶はて。沢は又すかれて、田と成にけり。わづかに、その名ばかり。橋杭すこし残りたり。また、業平の石塔とて。むかしのかたみに是あり。男かくぞ読ける
八橋の 沢田にたてる 賤の男のやせたる顔は かきつばたかな
かくて、男申けるは。そのかみ。業平殿も。かきつばたといふ五文字を、句のかみにすへて。歌に読給へり。折句とかや、これを申す。御坊も、この五文字を、句のかみにをきて。侘の心を読み給へといへば、六阿弥
かみ衣 きつつやれにし つぎしあればはりめきれぬる たちおしぞおもふ34とよめりければ、男よだれを流して。をとがひのまはり。ほどびにけり

Rokuami, the erstwhile hero of the narrative, plays a secondary role in the Tōkaidō
meishoki. He writes comic verse and occasionally interacts with other characters, but
his chief role is being an audience for stories told by people met along the way. He isless a participant in the action than an observer of it, a conduit though which information
can be brought into the text by literary means, in the form of exempla narrative(monogatari) and anecdotes (hanashi). 35

It is not surprising that Kan Tokuzō traces the34

Asai Ryōi, Tōkaidō meishoki, Tōyō bunko 361, Asakura Haruhiko, ed. (Tokyo:
Heibonsha, 1979), pp.16-21.
35

Mizuta Jun, “Tōkaidō meishoki no hōhō,” Kana-zōshi no sekai: mibunka no keifu(Tokyo: Ōfūsha, 1981), p.97.
Michael J. ScanlonChapter 2

162

origins of the Tōkaidō meishoki to the combination of two non-literary texts.

The

structure and a good deal of the content of the text derive from a bestselling guidebook(Dōchūki 道中記) and a gazetteer (Heishin kikō 丙辰紀行) written by the famous
Confucian scholar Hayashi Razan (1583-1657). 36

To this non-literary base, literary

elements were grafted or overlain. Despite its non-literary core and origins, it is the
text’s literary elements that garner the most modern scholarly attention, and there seems
to be an underlying belief that this text was part of a larger evolution towards literarinesswithin the genre from which it sprang.
The documentary record, however, would seem to argue against that thesis.

In

1664, the fourth verifiable edition of the Dōchūki guidebook was published by Tsuruya
Kieimon.

Much longer than previous versions, it “should be called an expurgatedversion of the Tōkaidō meishoki, which was re-compiled by retaining only the essential
parts of the reports on the famous historical places, removing Rokuami, removing the
comic verse, and—with a focus on useful matters—adding [information about]surcharges and the names of brokers.” 37This was hardly an isolated incident.

In theEdo meishoki (Records of Famous Places in Edo 江戸名所記, 1662), a later text by theauthor of the Tōkaidō meishoki, the literary elements are said to appear in much reducedform.

Likewise, the four texts from the genre written by Nakagawa Kiun are thought toget progressively less literary. “On the literary map of the time from the Meireki

36

Kan Tokuzō, “Dōchūki, Heshin kikō, Tōkaidō meishoki,” Kanzōshi to Saikaku (Tokyo:
Seibundō, 1974), pp.31-41.

37

Op. cit., p.39.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 2

163(1655-1658) and Manji (1658-1661) towards the Kanbun (1661-1673),” writes Matsuda
Osamu, “literature and practical use came together and re-separated again and again.” 38
There is no overall trend within these genres towards literariness.

When a category forthe genre precipitated out of the catchall “vernacular writings” section of the booksellers’
catalogues in which its texts had been gathered previously, it denoted an essentiallynon-literary type of writing.
This quality of the overall genre is of far greater importance than the literarinessof any individual text included within it. Extraordinarily commercially successful texts
are, of course, important to an understanding of literary evolution. They are sold andread in great numbers because they fit a historical and cultural environment.
are the exception, not the rule.

Yet they

Nearly all texts meet a different fate. In the part of the

Genroku Taiheiki in which the book merchants are discussing prose fiction, the Kyotoitesays:
As for anecdotes (hanashi), [exempla] narratives (monogatari) and the like,though it can be said that their numbers are limitless, within a year or a half-year
they move on. Even if yesterday it was a treasured item, today it cools quickly. A
run of the mill piece of fiction will disappear never to be seen again. Those thathave maintained a high level of interest without cooling from the distant past until
now are the Otogibōko, the Kashōki, and the Iguchi monogatari. As for thosepublished in recent years, the Sōgi shokoku monogatari, the Budō denraiki, and
the Gozen otogi—these and some others are books that will last forever,unchanging.
およそはなし物がたりの類その数無量なりといへども、一年半年の間に移りかはり、きのふめづらしかりしもけふははやくさめ、一遍みたる草紙は二度見られぬやうになりぬ。むかしより今にいたりてみざめせずしておもしろき物は御伽婢子、
可笑記、意愚痴物語なるべし。又近年板行ありしには、宗祇諸国物語、武道伝来、

38

Matsuda Osamu, “Kitamura Kiun, aru meishoki sakusha no baii,” Nihon Kinsei
bungaku no seiritsu (Tokyo: Hōsei Daigaku Shuppankyoku, 1963), p.201.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 2

164

御前於伽、此等は万代不易の書なり。

39

The perishablility of most popular literature seems to surprise the fictional book merchant,
but it is absolutely normal.

The vast majority of newly produced texts of any type ofwriting sell for only a brief period of time (if at all), then disappear.

The quickdisappearance of most collections of anecdotes and exempla does not mean that thegenres were somehow unfit to the literary environment at the turn of the eighteenth
century. Interchangeability of individual texts is not a sign of generic weakness. In
fact, in this case, the exact opposite could be argued.

These two types of narrativecollections may have been functioning as vital genres in that texts similar enough to be
categorized within them were being produced in large quantities and selling well enoughto breed further texts.
In most traditional literary histories, a central role has been played by the mostextreme of exceptions, potentially canonical texts that combine popularities of high initial
magnitude and long duration.

Even recent scholarship into “forgotten bestsellers” stillconcentrates on extraordinary texts. In an attempt to rectify this situation, Franco
Moretti, in an essay from the early part of his career, proposed that genre be one of thefoci of literary study because it draws direct attention to “normal literature”:[L]iterary history has never ceased to be a histoire évenemetielle, where the‘events’ are great works or individuals. Even the great historical controversies,
when all is said, turn almost exclusively on the reinterpretation of an extremely
small number of works and authors. This procedure condemns the concept ofgenre to a subaltern, marginal function, as is indicated most starkly in theformalist couple convention-defamiliarization, where genre appears as mere
background, an opaque plane whose only use is to make the difference of themasterpiece more prominent. Just as the ‘event’ breaks and ridicules the laws ofcontinuity, so the masterpiece is there to demonstrate the ‘triumph’ over the norm,
39

Genroku Taiheiki, p.148.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 2

165

the irreducibility of what is really great. 40
As Moretti’s abandonment of this metaphor for a neo-Darwinian one would seem to
imply, there are serious drawbacks to the annaliste model for the history of literature. In
a programmatic essay titled “History and the Social Sciences,” Fernand Braudel explains
histoire immobile is fit to explain phenomena like myth, which develop “very slowly,
almost timelessly” and are “sheltered from accidents, crisis, and sudden breaks.” 41
he also states that this is only “one of time’s many possible highways.” 42

But

If the objectof scholarly inquiry is a different type of phenomenon, such as the development andreception of Machiavellianism, the model would not work:
Everywhere [the historian] would find rifts and reversals, even in the very
structure of Machiavellianism, for it is not a system which has the theoretical,
semipiternal solidity of myth. It is sensitive to any action or reaction, to all thevarious inclemencies of history. In a word, it does not have its being solely within
the calm, monotonous highways of the longue durée. 43
Myth and fiction are both narrative, but fiction is not myth.

The differences are laid out

by Frank Kermode:
Myth operates within the diagrams of ritual, which presupposes total and adequate
explanations of things as they are and were; it is a sequence of radicallyunchangeable gestures. Fictions are for finding things out, and they change as theneeds of sense-making change. Myths are the agents of stability, fictions the agentof change. Myths call for absolute, fictions for conditional assent. Myths makesense of a lost order of time, illud tempus as Eliade calls it; fictions, if successful,

40

Franco Moretti, “The Soul and the Harpy,” Signs Taken for Wonders (New York: Verso,1997), p.13.

41

Fernand Braudel, “History and the Social Sciences,” On History (Chicago: Universityof Chicago Press, 1980), p.45.
42

Ibid.

43

Op. cit., p.46.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 2

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make sense of the here and now, hoc tempus. 44
Literary narrative may have mythic and folkloric elements that could possibly act as ananchor slowing evolution, but it—especially long-form, well-integrated fiction—is an
ideological form subject to saltational change. “Normal literature”—periods of strong
genres—generally occurs in times of cultural and historical stability.

Great

extra-literary change often disrupts generic equilibrium, and new genres form when agroup of texts extraordinary in both form and popularity deviate from generic norms to
produce a new type of literature.

One of the strengths of the neo-Darwinian metaphor isthat it draws attention to the importance of stasis while also being able to account forchange both sudden and gradual.
Genre is one of the basic agents of evolution, and in some ways the mostimportant.

No matter how extraordinary an individual text may be in popularity andform, the true mark of evolutionary success lies in whether or not it spawns an array ofsimilar but different texts.

This simply was not happening for the texts that are now

deemed to be “literary kana-zōshi” within the records of famous places, critiques ofactors and courtesans, or any other of the basically non-literary genres that house these
exceptions to the rule. With genre as the focus of inquiry, it soon becomes clear that theliterary environment over the second half of the seventeenth century was far from normal.
Mature literary markets are marked by a fairly stable hierarchy of genres. 45

Yet the44

Frank Kermode, The Sense of an Ending (New York: Oxford University Press, 1966),
p.39.
45

This is a phenomenon that drew the attention of Antonio Gramsci who wrote:
A certain variety of types of popular novel exists, and it should be noted that,
although all of them simultaneously enjoy some degree of success andpopularity, one of them nevertheless predominates by far.
Michael J. ScanlonChapter 2

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texts now studied as literary kana-zōshi do not form a single category in the booksellers’
catalogues of the period.

Instead, their entries are included in several different sections

and never constitute a majority of titles in any of these.

Further, even when the basis ofclassification is one proposed by modern scholarship, no clearly dominant genre
appears. 46
met.

The market demand for literary prose of which Suzuki spoke was not being

At the same time, since this environmental niche was not already occupied by any

strong type of narrative literature, occasional mutations towards literariness, such as the
Tōkaidō meishoki, could survive and even thrive within certain limits.
The chaos within the domain of narrative literature is sometimes thought to besomehow reflective of larger historical circumstances.

However, the generally accepted

theory of Edo history is that the Tokugawa system settled in over the Kan’ei period(1624-44). 47

Moreover, the central issues within which the most successful earlymodern narrative genres would be written precipitated elsewhere very early in theseventeenth century. Instead of looking at history as something to be mirrored byliterature, it is better to see it as a negative pressure on it. The foundation of theTokugawa shogunate selected strongly against the previously dominant types oflong-form fiction.

They and the early seventeenth-century narratives that evolved fromthem, though occasionally highly successful as individual texts, simply did not establish
Antonio Gramsci, Selections from Cultural Writings (Cambridge: Harvard University
Press, 1985), p.359.
46

These “scientific” categories need to be used with extreme caution, particularly whencontemporary generic categories exist, because modern re-classifications are almost
always based on a retrospective teleology, while “native” groupings include the vast,
un-oriented variations from which development was possible.
47

Kumakura Isao, Kan’ei bunka no kenkyū (Tokyo: Yoshikawa Kōbunko, 1988).

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 2
new genres.

168
This is most clearly visible in the one category of the 1692 version of thebooksellers’ catalogue that did not include many more non-repeated entries than that of
the 1670 edition. The “military drama and fiction” category (mai narabi sōshi 舞並草子)—the very one Nakamura Yukihiko says collected the works most obviously“novelistic” to modern eyes because it contained late medieval fiction and much of its
Edo-period offspring 48 —was displaced in the 1680s with the emergence of two genres inwhich the writings of Ihara Saikaku play a great role.
By the midpoint of the seventeenth century, narrative literature had been reduced
to its lowest common denominators, which the poetics of the day separated into two
narrative types: the exemplum (monogatari) and the anecdote (hanashi). The
differences are explained in the preface to the Hanashi monogatari (Anecdote Exemplum
噺物語, 1670):

When one is about to tell a story, you give him your full attention, and it is
unexpected nonsense. This type of matter is called an anecdote (hanashi). When aperson tells of matters among rumors of the world that are not true, this appears
very much to be an anecdote; it is alright to add reason to it when it is said.
[Exemplum] narratives (monogatari) are those things spoken of matters for which
there are correct written references. Even in commentaries to the Ise monogatari,
it is taken that someone heard a narration of matters that happened and then wrote
this down.
物語せんと申さるる程に、耳を澄し聞居たれば、思の外の戯言也、さやうの事を咄しと社いふなれ、世の噂にもまことしからぬ儀を人のかたれば、夫ははなしにてぞあらめと、いふにても弁へしられよかし、話（ものがたり）とは出書正しき事をいふなるへし、伊勢物語の註にも、其有しことをかたるを聞きて、書たる心49なりと侍るとかや

Exempla, for the most part, have a centripetal force because the vast majority relates

48

Nakamura Yukihiko, “Kana-zōshi no seikaku,” Nakamura Yukihiko chosakushū, p.25.

49

Hanashi monogatari, Hanashibon taikei, vol.4 (Tokyo: Tōkyōdō Shuppan, 1976), p.50.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 2

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stories in which a transgressive character is brought back within accepted norms of
behavior, and individual narratives restore an ideal and transparent system to the world,
something which is made more meaningful because of a momentary disruption. 50
Anecdotes are more likely to function like Freud’s tendentious jokes, which serve as ameans of temporary liberation from the pressures of authority. 51

Structurally speaking,however, these two narrative forms are nearly identical. They are extremely short,
event-driven narratives, belonging to what Mizuta Jun has described as “a still
undifferentiated literature.”

Their brevity is such that their plot structures are basicallyunclassifiable, or at least any such attempts to classify them are meaningless.

They areuniversally present narratives of tension and release—the literary equivalent of Frank
Kermode’s “tick-tock” or Sigmund Freud’s “Fort! Da!”—that are only more noticeable atthis point because longer, more advanced forms of narrative had grown so weak.

Theirsimplicity allows them to contain almost any story matter, and a fantastic number ofpotential routes of evolutionary development are contained within these because it ispossible for the middle of an individual narrative, which lies between its initial problem
and final resolution, to expand or for groups of these to come together as the constituent
elements of an extended, more complex narrative.

It is from these most basic of

50

Sigmund Freud, Beyond the Pleasure Principle (New York: Norton, 1961), pp.14-16.
This type of narrative can often be found in didactic texts, either as constituent
elements of exempla collections or as concrete illustrations within more discursive formsof writing.
51

Sigmund Freud, Jokes and their Relation to the Unconscious (New York: Norton,1960), p.125.
This type of narrative also tends to appear either as constituent elements ofhanashi-bon collections or as comic interludes within more discursive forms of writing.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 2

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narrative types that some of the earliest evolutionarily influential pieces of early modern
extended fiction would arise.
The reduction of currently produced literary narrative to these most primitive offorms does in some ways help to explain the length of time it took for specifically earlymodern narrative genres to develop. Literary evolution is uneconomical because it
occurs due to the interaction of two separate, irreconcilable processes of un-oriented
variation as well as directed and directing selection.

Nevertheless, the inefficiency ofthis two-step system is not in and of itself adequate to explain the extreme length of time
between the foundation of the early modern politico-ideological system and thedevelopment of the literary forms that prospered most under it.

In literary history, there

are many cases of literary forms that would come to dominate a given epoch developing
quickly, sometimes within a few decades of the establishment of that new political era.
Thus, there is a “need” for the theory of punctuated equilibrium, which posits thatevolutionary development can—and often does—take place quickly in restricted stretchesof time that interrupt long periods of relative stasis. Narrative literature entered this aperiod of great formal diversification at the turn of the seventeenth century when thepressures that kept late medieval fiction in a state of stasis were severely weakened,
continued through the chaotic burst of hybrid forms in the middle of the century, and only
settled into a period of normalcy at the turn of the eighteenth century. In other words,
well over a third of the early modern period passed before the stabilization of what can becalled specifically early modern narrative types, a phenomenon that stands in stark
contrast to the evolution of the modern Japanese novel within a decade or two of theMichael J. ScanlonChapter 2

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Meiji Restoration of 1868.
Simple chance played a role in this, but many other retarding factors can betraced to the rise of the commercially printed xylographic book as the preferred means ofdissemination for these types of texts.

In xylographic printing, capital investment in the

preparation of woodblocks is high and specific to each newly produced text. It isdefrayable only if the book in question sells a certain number of copies, though it matters
not if this happens in a short interval or is spread over a longer period of time.

In otherwords, the perishability of most pieces of fiction lamented by the fictional bookseller in
the Genroku Taiheiki is of relative unimportance once average sales reach a certain level.
When this happens, literary narratives become a better investment, and texts of this typeappear in greater numbers.

During the seventeenth century, however, average sales

were far too low. Though there is little evidence by which to judge overall book sales atthis historical juncture, an excellent piece of data exists for the literary narrative sector of
the market.

The Kyoto author-publisher Izumiya Hachieimon, in the preface to his

Kōshoku toko dangi (Sermons on the Erotic Bed 好色床談義, 1689), brags:
I created the Renbō Mizukagami and ran off eight hundred copies. Afterwards, I
wrote the Genji iroasobi and, meeting with the hopes of its preface, ran off one
thousand copies. I gave an account called the Saga momiji and printed seven
hundred copies. Recently, the Kōshoku tabimakura has sold a number equal to the[ten thousand or so] arrows loosed by Wasa Daihachi, and next I made an actors
critique that put out two thousand copies. Further, I made the Kōshoku kakuchō,and it reached seven hundred copies.
予、恋慕水鏡を作して八百部摺、厥後、源氏色遊を作りて序の心にかなひ千部すり、又、嵯峨紅葉を述して七百部すり、ちかくは旅枕、和佐大八の通し矢にひとし、そののち役者大評判を作して二千部すり、又、好色覚帳を述作して七百部に及べり 52

52

Munemasa, Kinsei Kyoto shuppan bunka no kenkyū, p.174.
Michael J. ScanlonChapter 2

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Munemasa Isoo rejects the highest number as an exaggeration and estimates that fiction
sold in rapid order “an average of anywhere from about seven or eight hundred copies toaround two or three thousand.” 53

There is no need to dismiss even the claim of ten

thousand sold copies as being too large, for bestsellers do sell on an order that dwarfs
average sales.

In either case, the upper limit of sales is not of great importance because

it is average sales that have a much greater effect on price. Given the context in whichthese figures are given, each of the numbers listed in the preface should be thought of as
the criterion for what could be considered commercially successful texts, and averagesales were probably slightly lower. Thus, there existed a vicious circle withincommercial fiction: high production costs and low sales meant high prices for books,
which severely limited average sales, keeping prices exorbitant.
These circumstances favored texts capable of selling books over a long stretch oftime, ones that possess what Lee Erickson has called a high marginal utility ofre-reading. 54

The texts most suited to these conditions were those canonical ones that

had been incorporated as a bonding mechanism by well-established communities ofreaders, texts that were read repeatedly by their readership and even helped to form newmembers of the reading community.

53

Among non-canonical texts, the most fit new texts

Ibid.

54

Marginal utility is a standard economic term meaning: “the satisfaction gained by anindividual from an additional unit of the thing, or in other words from the particular
choice of a single good at margin.”
Lee Erickson, The Economy of the Literary Form: English Literature and Publishing
1800-1850 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996), pp.9-13.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 2

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belonged either to genres associated with these canonical texts or to the practical use
genres, such as dictionaries (jisho 辞書), home encyclopedias (setsuyōshū 節用集), andrecords of famous places (meishoki 名所記). 55

Newly produced literature depends onthe more nebulous factor of pleasure and generally has a much lower marginal utility
because nearly all new literary texts bring considerably less pleasure with each rereading.
Printed collections of haikai poetry were able to circumvent the negative pressuresassociable with woodblock printing because the existence of a core community ofauthor-readers all but assured a certain level of sales and may have even allowed for thedevelopment of an underwriting system.
environment.

Literary narrative was least fit to thisNo literary institutions like the haikai schools and associations coalescedaround fiction, and the establishment of commercial print coincided with a dramatic
weakening of its traditional forms.

Because commercial print puts out new books andnew texts mechanically based on past success, it can help to re-produce, hone, propagate,
and even prolong the importance of established genres.

It can also be a highly adverse

environment for the formation of new genres, and the innovations that led to the mostsuccessful early modern genres of fiction happened at the very border of the industry.

55

The combination of the large number of texts from practical use genres being produced
at the time and the lack of any strong genre of narrative literature that would serve ascompetition makes the survival of mutations towards literariness such as the Tōkaidō
meishoki more understandable.

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The ManWell, then, erotic books are spreading farther andfarther with the passing of time. From the time
Saikaku wrote the Ichidai otoko in Osaka until the
Shinshiki gokensho [was written] in the tenth monthof last year, there has been no break to the additions[to their numbers]. In this Gikeiki, however, I gather
that which has been omitted from those...
Page Tarō
Gozen Gikeiki (1700)
Nishizawa Ippū (1665-1731)
In the tenth month of 1682, the Osaka printer Magobei Kashin of the Aratoya
house put out his only known publication: the Kōshoku ichidai otoko (The Erotic Life of a
Man 好色一代男), a book of eight volumes each of which contains seven stories, save thelast, which has five.

It sold well enough that a larger publisher-bookseller bought therights to the blocks, and the text spawned several editions including three pirated
Edo-published ones illustrated by Hishikawa Moronobu.

The Edo books were popular

enough that a chapbook consisting of the Moronobu prints and digests of the narrative
was brought to market by 1686, and a series of sequels was put out by the original author
and his competitors over the next decade or so. The text was included in the“erotic-type and pleasure” (kōshoku-rui narabi rakuji 好色類並楽事) section of thebooksellers’ catalogues, a genre that expanded more quickly than any other over the lastquarter of the seventeenth century. Even though this commercial category included bothliterary and non-literary texts, there was, by the turn of the eighteenth century, anawareness that there existed a specifically literary subgenre of erotic books which took
the Kōshoku ichidai otoko as its progenitor. In short, the appearance of the Kōshoku
ichidai otoko was an extraordinary event that probably had a greater effect on the literary

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 2

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environment than all previous pieces of commercially printed narrative literature.
Because the Kōshoku ichidai otoko has long been seen as an epochal text, it is
one of the main foci of the study of early modern Japanese literature with most scholars
either emphasizing the rupture between this text and the preceding literary tradition or
trying to show the closeness of the connections between the two.

In scholarship thatstresses the break, a central role is played by the figure of the author, who was a famousand well-positioned haikai poet, and much attention is drawn to the text’s prose style.
Donald Keene, taking his lead from Nakamura Yukihiko, writes:
Perhaps the most distinguished feature [of the text] is the style. The novel openswith a sentence typical of Saikaku’s manner: “Sakura mo chiru ni nageki, tsuki wa
kagiri arite Irusa-yama.” A fairly literal translation would go: “We grieve whencherry blossoms fall, and the moon, having its limits, sinks behind Irusa
Mountain.” The full meaning, however, is something like: “The sights of nature,such as the cherry blossoms or the moon, give us pleasure, but this pleasure isnecessarily of limited duration: the blossoms fall and the moon disappears behinda mountain. But the pleasures of the flesh have no limits.” The sentence ischaracteristic of Saikaku’s style in that it ends with a noun, contrary to the normal
Japanese usage; it also contains a play on the word iru, meaning both “to sink” ofthe moon and the first part of the name Irusa. But what gives the sentence its truly
Saikakuesque flavor is the omission of the implied conclusion: “But the pleasuresof the flesh have no limits.” This elliptic kind of utterance surely owes much to
Saikaku’s training as a haikai poet of the Danrin school. We have only to compare
this opening sentence with those of typical kana-zōshi to recognize the startlingachievement of Saikaku’s style: “When did the story take place? It was during theninth year of Keichō…” (Uraminosuke). “All under heaven is calm; themountains are still, the pines on the peaks are peaceful, the wind is gentle andorderly. This is an age of long rejoicing for the nation” (Chikusai).
Saikaku’s style, perhaps even more brilliantly displayed in [the Kōshoku ichidai
otoko] than in later works, gave the work its éclat. He was at pains to make his
diction “elegant.” The elegance showed itself in the borrowings from the classics,
especially the Nō plays (it will be recalled that the Danrin poets considered theseplays to be their “Genji”). Writing, initially at least, within the traditions of
kana-zōshi, he no doubt felt that literary expression demanded the use of poetic
phraseology. The most striking feature of the style, however, is its strongly
colloquial flavor; this is what makes [the Kōshoku ichidai otoko] so difficult toread today. Necessary prepositions, indicating the subject of a sentence or theMichael J. ScanlonChapter 2

176

agent of an action, are cavalierly omitted, sometimes for euphonic reasons,
sometimes because the meaning would be obvious in oral delivery…
Saikaku’s style often shifts without warning from a classical idiom suggestiveof [the Ise monogatari] to contemporary colloquial, from earthy descriptions tolong passages meant to be understood by the ear rather than the eye; the effect is
to make [the Kōshoku ichidai otoko] virtually impossible to translate. It must havebeen difficult even for contemporary readers, but they were apparently captivatedby the novelty of the subject, the interest of the story, and the expansive
atmosphere, even if they could not follow the refinements of language. Saikaku’s
style became plainer in his later works; the success of [the Kōshoku ichidai otoko],despite its complexities, may have encouraged him to try to win an even larger
body of readers. 56
The similarities between this playful prose style and haikai linked poetry—particularly
some texts written by Saikaku which have a much greater degree of narrative element
than was typical in linked verse poetry—have led some scholars to postulate that the
Kōshoku ichidai otoko evolved out of Saikaku’s poetic practice.
This route of origin, if true, would vitiate the neo-Darwinian model for the studyof literary history being forwarded in this text.

The concept of “hopeful monsters,” thecentral agents of an evolutionary theory forwarded by Richard Goldschmidt in the 1940s
which argues that almost instantaneous speciation occurs due to macro-mutation (rather
than by gradualism be it slow or accelerated), is not accepted by the vast majority ofscholars specializing in the natural sciences because such a large degree of coordinatedvariation would be impossible outside of a monistic and directed Lamarckian version ofevolution. Probably because the effect of human agents has traditionally been stronger
in literary evolution, development happens much more quickly in it, and there areundoubtedly literary hopeful monsters.

Yet even Goldschmidt’s theory remains on thelevel of species, while the evolution of the Kōshoku ichidai otoko from haikai poetry
56

Keene, World within Walls, pp.171-172.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 2

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would be the equivalent of movement between families or even orders. There are,however, reasons to doubt the proposed genealogy. The playful style became lessimportant in both later texts written by Saikaku as well as the kōshoku-bon genre as awhole. This casts doubt on the centrality of the poetic style to the lateseventeenth-century readership of the text, but in no way does it in and of itself preclude
the possibility of a haikai origin for the Kōshoku ichidai otoko. A Darwinian history isable to narrate a past filled with rupture and chance without resorting to the anti-narrativeof most competing versions of poststructuralist historiography because it relinquishes all
claims on the future.

The future of a text can be analyzed when genre is taken as thebasic unit of analysis, but any such effect a given text might have on the later literary
environment cannot enter into a discussion of the genesis of that text. A much morecogent counterargument to the proposed haikai ancestry of the text is that the remarkablestyle of the Kōshoku ichidai otoko could have been an evolution from within the domain
of fiction.

All the various poetic rhetoric found in the Kōshoku ichidai otoko can also befound—albeit to a lesser degree—in previous prose narrative texts. 57

Furthermore, thepoetic elements found in the Kōshoku ichidai otoko take up considerably less of the text’s
discourse than the prosaic narrative. The base of the text evolved from narrative genres.
As outstanding as the poetic style may first appear to be, it is a secondary feature of thetext, at most a graft or an overlay.
An alternative genealogy has been proposed by scholars who emphasize the57

Nagatomo Chiyoji, “Saikaku no hōhō 1,” Saikaku o manabu hito no tame ni (Kyoto:
Sekai Shisōsha, 1993), p.232.

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connections between the Kōshoku ichidai otoko and pre-existing genres of writing: thetext evolved directly from the genre of courtesan critiques (yūjo hyōbanki 遊女評判記).
This theory holds best on the level of content because many names and places in the
Kōshoku ichidai otoko probably do come from these guides. Moreover, contemporary
genre classification was based primarily on content, not form, so literary kōshoku texts
were placed in the same category as non-literary ones in period booksellers’ catalogues. 58
However, in literary evolution, the primary focus should be on structure rather than oncontent because one of the hallmarks of successful evolution is that the same form can beused to contain a large variety of story matter. 59

Courtesan critiques normally consist ofdescription of customs and mores or dialogue, not plot-based narrative, which forms thecenter of the Kōshoku ichidai otoko. The piece of literature most structurally similar to
it is the Ukiyo monogatari (A Narrative of the Floating World 浮世物語), a five-volume
text made up of fifty-two short narratives first published around 1665.

Both areincompletely integrated successions of small narrative units linked by the presence of ahero that begin with his birth and terminate with his departure from the quotidian world
58

That said, the internal structures of the erotic books category within these booksellers’
catalogues indicate that there was a period awareness distinguishing literary kōshoku-bon
from non-literary kōshoku-bon. For instance, in the kōshoku no rui narabi rakuji sectionof the 1699 edition of the catalogue, there is a blank entry space that comes
between—and, of course, separates—a group of entries of titles for texts that modern
scholars mostly see as being non-literary and another group, which begins with an entry
for the Kōshoku ichidai otoko, of titles for texts that are now most often classified as
being literary.
Hasegawa Tsuyoshi, Ukiyo-zōshi no shinkō (Tokyo: Kyūko Shoin, 1991), pp.34-35.
59

Cases such as the Uraminosuke, which was analyzed in the previous chapter, areimportant because they are exceptions that prove the rule. There is something significant
about the fact that the basic structures of Muromachi fiction could not ultimately containa Tokugawa hero and a Toyotomi heroine.

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for a mythic land. 60

On the other hand, an evolutionary step has taken place between

the two, and their structures have diverged enough that a distinction has been drawn
which categorizes the Ukiyo monogatari as “episodic” and the Kōshoku ichidai otoko as“seriatim.”

These evaluations probably have to do with the divergent rhythms of thetwo texts. The individual stories of the Ukiyo monogatari fit together clumsily, and theoverall narrative proceeds in fits and starts, while the Kōshoku ichidai otoko moves
forward smoothly, like the ticking of the mechanical clocks being imported into Japan at
the time. 61
If the Kōshoku ichidai otoko is, these days, almost universally hailed as the first
purely early modern shōsetsu, 62 the Ukiyo monogatari has received a much more
ambivalent treatment by modern critics.

At one point, there were scholars who saw it asa revolutionary text that threw off a medieval focus on religion and the afterlife for an
early modern worldliness, if not hedonism.

These critics drew much attention to the

opening section of the text:
The present; the past.
“Among the folk songs of this land, the one that goes:
Such a strange thing!
Though my heart is mine to own
It does not follow my will
is sung by all, be they rich or poor, man or woman, young or old. There is anotherone:
60

It is important to keep in mind that this evolutionary route is true only for the Kōshoku
ichidai otoko and a few of its direct descendents. The majority of erotic books—literary,non-literary, and semi-literary—may very well have developed from different origins.
61

One of these clocks is mentioned in the story involving Yoshino in the Kōshoku ichidai
otoko, which will be examined in some detail later.
62

See footnote 52 on page 92.

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180

Because nothing goes
As one would wish it to,
It is a sorrowful world
In all things, wishes go unfulfilled, and things do not turn out as you would haveit. Thus, they call it ukiyo. It is akin to the proverb, ‘Scratching the bottom of yourfeet through leggings.’ You feel an itch, but you can’t scratch it. It’s such an
irritation. You are yourself, but you have no control over your body or spirit. Whata strange thing! What’s more, in this world there is not one thing that goes as one
would wish it. That’s precisely why this ukiyo means ‘sorrowful world,’” said one
man.
“No, that’s not its meaning. Living in this world, we see and hear something,
and, whether it’s good or bad, it’s interesting. [The future is unknowable, for] one
inch ahead is blackness. No, it’s useless [worrying about the future], like the skinof a gourd; fretting causes indigestion. Take each moment as it comes. Look off at
the moon, the snow, the cherry blossoms, and the autumn foliage. Recite poems;
drink sake. Float along taking pleasure. Even abject poverty should not be a worry.
Float along with an unsinkable disposition, like a gourd bobbing along with thecurrent. This ukiyo is the ‘floating world,’” opined another, whereupon an expert
heard him and exclaimed, “It’s true. It’s true.”
今は昔、「国風の歌に、『いな物じゃ。こころは我がものなれど、ままにならぬは』と、高き賎しきも、男も女も、老いたるも若きも、皆うたい侍る。
『思ふ事かなは
ねばこそ、うき世なれ』といふ歌も侍り。よろづにつけて、こころにかなはず、ままにならねばこそ、浮世といふめれ。
『沓をへだてて跟を掻く』とかや、痒きところに手のとどかぬごとく、当たるやうにして行きたらず、沈気なもにねて、我ながら身も心も我がままにならで、いな物なり。まして世の中の事、ひとつも我が気にかなふことなし。さればこそうき世なれ」といへば、「いや、その義理ではない。世に住めば、なんの糸瓜の皮、思ひ置きは腹の病、当座当座にやらして、
月・雪・花・紅葉にうちむかひ、歌をうたいひ酒のめ、浮きに浮いてなぐさみ、
手前のすり切りも苦にならず、沈みいらぬこころだての、水に流るる瓢箪のごと
くなる、これを浮世と名づくるなり」といへるを、それ者は聞きて「誠にそれそれ」と感じけり。 63

In the later 1950s, however, Matsuda Osamu pointed out the shortcomings of this“progressive” reading: it is based entirely on the text’s introduction, which is taken atface value despite the fact that the majority of the text would seem to be occupied withsocial criticism.

In other words, the ideological thrust of the text would seem

63

Asai Ryōi, Ukiyo monogatari, Taniwaki Masachika, ed., Kana-zōshi shū, Shinpen
Nihon koten bungaku zenshū 64 (Tokyo: Shōgakkan, 1996), pp.88-89.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 2

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diametrically opposed to the viewpoint espoused in second half of the introduction. 64
From that point forward, the evaluation of the Ukiyo monogatari has suffered.

Kondō

Tadayoshi’s comment that the Ukiyo monogatari “in the end does not possess a truelong-form structure” 65 became Taniwaki Masachika’s assessment of the text as “awretched failure.” 66
Mizuta Jun summarizes the “problems” modern scholars have had with the text
in three points:
The first is the divisions and discrepancies in the structure of the work. The Ukiyo
monogatari at its beginning tells of the “origins” of “Ukiyobō” [its protagonist]and has him appear in each chapter until the final “Daoist immortal” one. It takeson the form of something like a biographical account. However, each and every
one of the chapters is a separable fragment, and the speech and actions of“Ukiyobō” cause feelings of incoherence and awkwardness. The second is theheterogeneity and complexity of various elements. These are: discussions aboutsuch things as the origins of phenomena and traditions; playful humor that isvisible in jokes, puns, and comic verse; as well as didactic instruction and social
criticism that is told in relation to exempla and historical facts. Moreover, thesevarious elements are most often not amalgamated within a single section which isinconsistent. Rather, [each section] has the unity of an “anecdote” (hanashi). The
third is the discontinuous continuity between an anti-idealistic affirmation ofreality and a loftiness. This is related to the first two problems and is manifested
in the exploits and words of “Ukiyobō.” 67
Mizuta’s point on the internally unified nature and separability of the individual narrative
64

Matsuda Osamu, “Ukiyo monogatari no zasetu,” Nihon kinsei bungaku no seiritsu(Tokyo: Hōsei Daigaku Shuppankai, 1963), pp.110-112.

65

Kondō Tadayoshi, Kinsei shōsetsu, Nihon bungaku taikei, vol.10 (Tokyo: Kawade
Shobō, 1938), p.100.
66

Taniwaki Masachika, “Ukiyo monogatari no ronri to kōsei,” Saikaku kenkyū josetsu(Tokyo: Shintensha, 1981), p.212.
Though the article itself is four decades old at this point, it is important to note that
Taniwaki was the scholar chosen to edit the most recent annotated edition of the Ukiyo
monogatari which served as a platform for his theory.
67

Mizuta Jun, “Ukiyo monogatari no kōzu,” Kana-zōshi no sekai, p.135.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 2

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units is valuable, but he then attempts to explain away these issues: the comic elements
are of more importance to the author than the didactic ones, and the text can be unified by
the picaresque qualities of its hero, Ukiyobō.

This, of course, is a return to the traditionof scholarship that sees the introduction as speaking for the text as a whole, and it fails to
explain one of the most prominent features of the text—its ending. The closing sectionin which a man who has been making his living as a Confucian preacher leaves for a
Daoist paradise is a serious criticism of contemporary society that would have been
obvious to the Ukiyo monogatari’s primary reading audience.

In the Confucian tradition,

men are allowed to leave the social world only during degenerate times when there areimmoral rulers.

This alone would have largely undercut the comic elements of thenarrative as well as called into question the general good humor of Ukiyobō. Besides,
for a text that is so noticeably disjointed, a reading that allows for contradiction andimperfection would seem necessary. A more fruitful path for exploration—because it ispredicated on an understanding that the text is a flawed one—is Taniwaki’s theory that, at
a rather high degree of abstraction, the text can be separated into two parts.

In the first,

the hero is an object of criticism according to the commonsense virtues of the age.

Hegoes gambling and whoring, fails at several careers, and generally causes much trouble.
In the second half of the text, he has become a companion lecturer in the court of adaimyō baron who argues for the same commonsensical positions and ideals that herejected earlier in his life to criticize contemporary times.

In between comes aconversion sequence over eight separate narrative units from the fourth story of the text’s

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 2

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second volume to the second story of the third one. 68

Though the second component isof relatively greater length than would be normal, this overarching structure in which atransgressive character is brought back within social norms would seem to be that of an
exemplum narrative.
As has been mentioned earlier, exempla are extremely short, plot-driven andoften didactic narratives that reaffirm or re-produce already known and accepted valuesby supplying an exemplary story that illustrates them.

They have straightforward plotsthat organize story matter so that narrative time proceeds according to diegetic time.
This accentuates the relationship between plot and time that Frank Kermode puts at thecenter of fiction.

Because all basic narratives, which begin with a problem and proceed

towards its resolution, confer (or at least promise to confer) meaning over time, Kermodemakes his central metaphor for fiction the ticking of a clock:Let us take a very simple example, the ticking of a clock. We ask what it says: andwe agree that it says tick-tock. By this fiction we humanize it, make it talk ourlanguage. Of course, it is we who provide the fictional difference between the twosounds; tick is our word for a physical beginning, tock our word for an end. We
say they differ. What enables them to be different is a special kind of middle. We
can perceive a duration only when it is organized… According to Paul Fraisse thetick-tock gap is analogous to the role of the ‘ground’ in spatial perception; each ischaracterized by a lack of form, against which the illusory organizations of shapeand rhythm are perceived in the spatial or temporal object. The fact that we callthe second of the two related sounds tock is evidence that we use fictions toenable the end to confer organization and form on the temporal structure. Theinterval between the two sounds, between tick and tock is now charged withsignificant duration. The clock’s tick-tock I take to be the model of what we callplot, an organization that humanizes time by giving it form; and the interval
between tock and tick represents purely successive, disorganized time of the sort
we need to humanize. 69
68

Taniwaki, “Ukiyo monogatari no ronri to kōsei,” pp.208-211.

69

Kermode, p.45.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 2184

This linking of middles to beginnings and ends is an instance of temporal integration,“our way of bundling together perception of the present, memory of the past, andexpectation of the future, in a common organization.” 70

In other words, narrative isnormally a way of establishing concords between past and present, present and future thatassure the meaningful-ness of experience.
Examined using the logic of exemplum narrative, it becomes clear that the
preface is not a debate between the relative importance of this world and the afterlife, but
a competition between two extremely different senses of time.

The reading of ukiyo as“sad world” espoused by the first speaker is based on a Buddhist theory of degenerativetime.

The doctrine of the Three Ages states that enlightenment, proper practice, and theBuddhist law would all be present and possible for the first five hundred years after the
Buddha’s passing; over the next five centuries enlightenment would become impossible;
after that, even proper practice would cease to exist in this world.

With the dawn of theearly modern age, the explicatory power of this Buddhistic organization of time waned,
and the non-fulfillment of hopes and desires could no longer be ascribed to a generaldeterioration that should be mourned.

The “floating world” ideal forwarded by thesecond speaker posits that time is mere successiveness, its passage of no significancewhatsoever. This is the attitude taken by the hero in the first part of the narrative.
When forced to hear sermons railing against his vices, Ukiyobō never confronts hiswould-be teachers to argue proactively for his actions, but simply ignores them and goes
about his business.
70

Kermode, p.46.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 2

185

Chronicity—purely successive time—is anathema to the exemplum form, and thesecond part of the narrative tries to banish it. In other words, the conclusion drawn at
the end of the introduction is the problem that the text as a whole engages and seeks toresolve. In order to do so, it is essential that the experiences of Ukiyobō over the firstpart of the text be rendered significant. This is accomplished in the very story that
Taniwaki has said concludes the conversion sequence, “Evaluation of Good and Bad
Samurai.” Ukiyobō, who has just gained employment as a companion meant toentertain and instruct a feudal baron, is questioned by the retainers of the house:
Well, mister priest, you’ve turned towards Buddhism despite your young
age—surely there is some detail or other behind this. There are normally two
reasons people turn to Buddhism. The first is that everything goes wrong. One
goes crazy gambling and whoring, uses up every last cent of his money, getsdisowned by his family, and chased off by his lord. With no stipend or position, hethinks about becoming a merchant, but has no capital. He lacks the means to get
by in this world. In the sadness of impending starvation, he shaves his head anddons the surplice to get people’s donations and preserve his life. This is not a true
follower of the Way. These are an excess population that the world discards. In
Confucian terms, they are a vagabond populace. In the Buddhist scriptures, they
are called bald householders, who are neither lay nor tonsured. They are like bats,which are neither birds nor beasts. They are the greatest drain on society. The
second are those who notice the impermanence of their bodies and know to thinkof the afterlife. They completely discard the world as a sad thing and turn towards
Buddhism. With hearts full of compassion, they advise people and try to makethem enter the Buddhist Way. Of their own accord, they closely follow theproscriptions and train assiduously. These are true followers of the Way. People
who discard the world are like this. Your appearance is haughty, and your conduct
appears willy-nilly. So, then, you’d better be on your guard.
いかに御房は、その年いまだ若くおはしますに、道心をおこし給ふは、いかさま
子細有るべし。をよそ道心をおこすふたつあり。ひとつには、その身よろづにつ
たなく、博打傾城狂ひに一跡をほつきあげ、親の勘当をかうぶる、主君に追ひ出され、奉公もならず職はおぼえず、商ひをせんにも元手はなし、身を過ぐる手だてに事を欠き、飢えにのぞむことのものうさに、髪をそりて衣を着し、人の施物を受けて命をつなぐ。これまことの道心者にあらず。世に捨てられたるあまり者なり。儒教には遊民のたぐひといへり。仏経には禿居士と説かれて、俗にもあらず出家にもあらず、かの蝙蝠の、鳥にもあらず獣にもあらぬがごとし。世の費にMichael J. ScanlonChapter 2

186

なる最上なり。ふたつには、我が身の無常を観じ、後世の大事を思ひ知りて、世を憂きものに捨てはて、道心をおこし、心に慈悲ふかく人をすすめて仏法に入らしめ、みづからかたく戒をたもち行をつとむるを、まことの道心といふ。世を捨て人とは此事也。御房の有様、何とやらん鼻の先うぞやき、身のふるまひも瓢金
さうに見ゆ。かまへて万事たしなみ給へ 71

Though Ukiyobō denies it, his conversion experience obviously falls into the former
pattern rather than the latter, and this confession from the outside gives meaning to thefirst part of the text by tying it to the second. Ukiyobō’s specific experiences in theformless floating world bring him to a new understanding of society.

That it cannot fit

into an “authentic” Buddhist pattern of conversion is important unto itself.

The

Buddhist values rejected in the text’s introductory section are not brought back in thesecond half.

To the contrary, Buddhist values and characters are often mocked andundercut in this part, while the hero, in his role as social critic, tries to order or makesense of the world using the ideals of the dominant martial-Confucian structures of theTokugawa ideology.
This overarching exemplum structure breaks down often.

Exempla narrate

story matter using a bare minimum of kernels (hinge events) with almost no satellites(supplementary events).

In the Ukiyo monogatari, however, there are several narratives

included in the text that neither advance the larger exemplum plot nor even involve thehero.

For instance, prior to the sections in which Ukiyobō is spending too much money

on games of chance and courtesans, there are wholly independent sections which present
the historical origins of a card game and of the pleasure quarters.

Of far greater

importance, however, is the ending of the Ukiyo monogatari. Exemplum end with71

Ukiyo monogatari, Kana-zōshi shū, Shinpen Nihon koten bungaku zenshū 64, Taniwaki
Masachika, ed. (Tokyo: Shōgakkan, 1999), pp.151-152.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 2

187

complete closure: the problem present at the beginning is solved, and absolute adequacy
and plentitude are restored.

There is no narrative future—the state of affairs at the endof the text will continue on exactly as is—because there is nothing “narratable”
remaining. 72

The Ukiyo monogatari has a finish that both is open-ended and would

seem to undercut the martial-Confucian worldview argued for over the second half of thetext.

The breakdowns in the larger exemplum form might be traceable to a couple ofintra-textual elements.

The first possible contributing factor has to do with scale.

Exempla are extremely short narratives, and closure can be achieved with a minimum of
post-transformation (or post-climax) narration, whereas the overarching plot of the Ukiyo
monogatari plays out over a substantial number of pages, and episodes in which thereformed Ukiyobō is trying to rectify the world constitute the majority of the text’s
discourse. Perhaps an increase in the length of the section in which the hero is atransgressive figure made an overly abrupt ending seem unable to control and contain thefirst part of the narrative, and this, in turn, helped to condition a disproportionate increasein the relative length of the part that comes after his conversion. The second can beconnected with the fact that the overarching structure of the Ukiyo monogatari is notachieved by a radical increase in length of the discursive middle part of a single narrative72

In his study of the modern European novel, D.A. Miller defines narratable:[T]he instances of disequilibrium, suspense, and general insufficiency fromwhich a given narrative appears to arise. The term is meant to cover the various
incitements to narrative, as well as the dynamic ensuing from such incitements,
and it is thus opposed to the “nonnarratable” state of quiescence assumed by anovel before the beginning and supposedly recovered at the end.
D.A. Miller, Narrative and Its Discontents (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981),
p.xi.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 2

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unit, what Kermode calls the “peripeteia” between the initial problem and its final
resolution, but by the arrangement of a series of narrative units—some of which are
anecdotes (hanashi), but most of which are exempla (monogatari)—complete unto
themselves.

A sign of this can be seen in the formula that begins each story in the Ukiyo

monogatari: ima wa mukashi, which is a juxtaposition of the Chinese character for “thepresent” with one for “the past.”

This formal unit is used in three genres of literary

narrative: courtly fiction that precedes the Genji monogatari, exempla collections fromthe twelfth century, and early modern anecdote compilations. In the latter two genres,each individual exempla or anecdote can start with the phrase, and the collections, neverintegrated into a narrative whole, bring together these individual narratives atomistically,
at most linked to adjacent units by implication. Araki Hiroshi, in an article about thefunction of this phrase in a twelfth-century exempla collection, says:
As for two [adjacently] recorded exempla, their narrators are different, and thetime and space which are reflected in each differ. It could be said that the two areeach separate narratives with independent stories and no crossover which are
lined up but create different worlds. 73
In pre-eleventh-century courtly fiction, the formula could only appear at the very
beginning of those texts that had integrated narrative structures.
this is the Heichū monogatari, a text of the mid-tenth century.

The classic example of
A modern annotatededition of this narrative contains the following observation in an introduction written by
Shimizu Yoshiko:
The subsequent sections begin with “Again, this man…” (section two), “Thesame man…” (section three), “Again, this same man…” (section four). Thus, thisdiffers from the method of the Ise monogatari in which each section is told as a
73

Araki Hiroshi, “Setsuwa no jikan to kūkan,” Setsuwa no kōza,vol.1 (Tokyo: Benseisha,1991), p.150.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 2

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new, separate story with the phrase “In the past, there was a man…” That thewords “again”, “this” and “the same” were selected is a somewhat mechanicaloperation that repeats and drives home the fact that the various short andconcluded stories are connected and involve the same protagonist as that dealt
with in the first section. 74
As this type of literature evolved long-form plot structures, one of the first things tohappen was that the ima wa mukashi formula was banished from all integrated sub-units.
The building up of an overarching structure using basically autonomous,
individual and discreet narratives had several deleterious effects on the larger exemplum
structure. The inclusion of sections that seem outside the overarching plot becomes
more possible because of the extreme weakness of the bonds between sections.

There isalso a distinct lack of flow to the text. This is apparent in the eight-section long
conversion sequence. The series is set into motion by a story in which the hero laments
the high price of rice and the greed that harms the people.

The merchants who areforced to hear Ukiyobō’s long speech on the evils of profiteering look at his tearfulpresence and comment: “There are also many people in this world who are happy that theprice of rice is high. How strange, those tears of the monk!
because he wants some rice.” 75This section, as has been noted by Donald Keene,

simply “peter[s] out into frivolity.” 76
steady nor uni-directional.

He’s probably crying

The movement towards conversion is neither

Instead, over eight separate narratives, Ukiyobō has multiple

74

Shimizu Yoshiko, Taketori monogatari Ise monogatari Yamato monogatari Heichūmonogatari, Nihon bungaku zenshū 8 (Tokyo: Shōgakkan, 1972), pp.441-442.
75

Asai Ryōi, Ukiyo monogatari, Shin Nihon bungaku zenshū 64 (Tokyo: Shōgakkan,
1999), p.131.

76

Keene, World within Walls, p.158.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 2

190revelations and (often un-narrated) regressions until his conversion finally takes hold, andhe is hired into the baron’s residence.

The section in which Ukiyobō starts his

conversion is also instructive in that it shows the deformation which made it possible tolink the various narrative units in the first place. The finality of the closure for eachnarrative unit is weakened by the inclusion of scenes in which didactic sermons or
stories—many times exempla unto themselves—are judged, and often rejected, by
characters in the story. This affects the ability of individual narratives to function in thelarger exemplum structure unequally. It is well suited for first part of the text when thehero is an object worthy of criticism because his rejection of the commonsensical adviceof others is typical of an exemplum hero during the period before his awakening.

In thesecond part of the story, however, this development undermines the larger exemplum
structure. When Ukiyobō’s sermons are openly rejected by his listeners or simply haveno immediate and wide-ranging rectifying effect on the world, as was often the case in
the extended post-conversion section, the ideals themselves are never called into question.
However, the presence of both characters who mock these sermons as well as a world thatis not easily corrected shows the possibility of these values being rejected or ineffective.
In other words, there are characters present in these narratives not for the sole (inevitable)reason of being reformed.

Moreover, the martial-Confucian teachings are being rejectedor ignored by the selfsame samurai whose interests were being protected by these ideals.
The gap separating world and worldview is exacerbated, and this makes the ending inwhich the hero flees from society more fitting.
It is the incompatibility of the larger exemplum form and the individualMichael J. ScanlonChapter 2

191

narratives that make up the Ukiyo monogatari as a whole which makes it seem as if thetext were tearing itself apart.

If that means that, as a long-form piece of fiction, theUkiyo monogatari was a “failure,” it must be remembered that the text sold well until theend of the seventeenth century.

One possible explanation for this commercial success isthat the text had hit upon one of the great symbolic problems of the early Edo period.
Like Rokuami in the Tōkaidō meishoki, Ukiyobō is not a well-formed character who
deforms plot types, but an actant, a vehicle for the realization of the plot, whose actionsand views can change radically in different narrative contexts.

He does possess a few

core attributes, one of which is that he is of a status outside the norms of the four-classsystem and, therefore, has the freedom to move throughout society.

However, unlike theitinerant priests and quack doctors who are the heroes of other picaresque narratives ofthe seventeenth century, Ukiyobō is the son of a disenfranchised samurai, a rōnin.
Disenfranchised members of the military class, deprived of state income, often engaged
in social unrest as well as out and out thuggery, and the central government instituted
strong repressive measures to keep them in line.
remained high.

Yet sympathy for the plight of rōnin

At the close of the first volume of the Kiyomizu monogatari, theneophyte wonders:
In the various provinces, there is a terrible injustice. There are those who speak ofrōnin exclusion laws. What is the meaning of this? If they have fault, then they
will be conducted in crime. If they are blameless people, why should one despisewith all one’s heart their coming and going. Are rōnin not human? Samurai shouldbe able to depend on other samurai. It is unfathomable. It is meanspirited!
諸国に賢きにて大やけならぬ事こそ候へ、浪人に出入法度といへる人あり。是は何心にて候はんや。罪あらば罪にこそ行はらめ。罪なき人ならば如何したる心根にて出入を嫌はれ候ぞ。浪人は人にては候はずや。侍の侍を頼むはあるべき事な

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 2

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り。えこそ心得られね。汚き心根にてもや候はん。 77

Tellingly, the wise instructor—whose very function in dialogue narratives is to provide
acceptable answers—has no reply. The rōnin problem was an acute one because it lay
at one of the weak points of the Tokugawa ideology.

Herman Ooms has shown that oneof the chief functions of this meaning-generating mechanism was to transform militarymen, who had been seen as little more than animals in the centuries of war preceding therise of Ieyasu, into paragons of virtue, who were worthy of their position at the top of thesocial hierarchy. 78

Rōnin, a group that was simultaneously at the head of the four-classsystem as well as excluded from it, posed a problem in Tokugawa society, a contradiction
between ideals and reality.

The plight of these men made it apparent that chance, andnot simply innate virtue, determined placement in society. Thus, there is a fortuitousconsonance between the cacophonous form of the Ukiyo monogatari and its content.
The text engaged one of the most acute symbolic issues of the day and, unusually for a
popular work, exposed it in a way that is only softened slightly by comic elements.
In the Kōshoku ichidai otoko, on the other hand, problems are never intractable,
and social contradictions are most often ignored or passed over.

Jeffrey Johnson, in anarticle applying Bakhtinian literary theory to the oeuvre of Ihara Saikaku, hascharacterized the text as a playful one based on the logic of turnabout typical of haikai
poetry. He exemplifies this with the second story of the seventh volume of the Kōshoku

77

Kiyomizu monogatari, Kana-zōshi shū, Shin Nihon koten bungaku taikei 74 (Tokyo:
Iwanami Shoten, 1991), p.165.
78

Herman Ooms, The Tokugawa Ideology (Princeton, New Jersey: The Princeton
University Press, 1985), pp.18-62.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 2

193

ichidai otoko in which Yonosuke, the hero of the text, takes a group of male entertainers
to a geisha house and instigates a contest of mock insults and travesties among three such
establishments.

The competition draws so much attention from passersbys that businessowners try to distract the crowd by scattering money about, but this is ignored save by
Buddhist priests and scavengers who come to gather the coins. Johnson analyzes thisscene as follows:
The pleasure quarter, that Tokugawa space where money reigned supreme and thesexual trade was a primary feature, has its hierarchy overturned in this scene. The
entertainers center the crowd’s attention on visual and word play and as a result
the attraction of money, normally the commanding force of the pleasure quarter, issuspended. The final stroke of reversal comes when, along with the street cleaners,
the monks—those supposedly detached from the material world—scurry to pickup the money thrown by the owners of the teahouses (those who usually take inmoney). 79
This section could be read as an instance of the carnivalesque, but there are several
problems with Johnson’s interpretation, including the fact that the monks who appear in
the story are mendicants whose job was to collect money. This section is also absolutely
atypical of the Kōshoku ichidai otoko. For the most part, transgressive characters meetwith comeuppance for their actions within each story.

Thus, in the first half of the text,

which focuses on the life of Yonosuke, the hero is ridiculed when he, at age eight, tries tomake advances to a maidservant in the service of his neighbor, has his face slashed when
he tries to seduce a married woman, and so on.

This proclivity is even stronger in thesecond half of the text in which the protagonists of individual stories are courtesans while
Yonosuke is relegated to a supporting role. Courtesans or customers who violate the79

Jeffrey Johnson, “Saikaku and the Narrative Turnabout,” Monumenta Nipponica 27:2
(Summmer, 2001), p.331.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 2

194

code of the pleasure quarters are almost always sanctioned. Even the story Johnson
chooses for his analysis can be seen as an example of this socially centripetal force. As
he himself notes, it begins with a character sketch of a courtesan named Kaoru who has
too great an interest in clothing, and the distraction provided by a group of men “not evenwearing loincloths” could be seen as an indirect rebuke of this offense.
The individual sections that make up the Kōshoku ichidai otoko have structures
similar to the tension and release narratives of the Ukiyo monogatari, though therelatively long length of each—five pages of text—means that there are occasions inwhich multiple stories are included in the same narrative unit and that there is a higher
degree of digression than would have been normal for anecdotes or exempla.

The morestriking difference between the Ukiyo monogatari and the Kōshoku ichidai otoko lies in
the way each integrates these individual short narratives. Gone from the Kōshoku
ichidai otoko is the overarching exemplum structure.

In its place, there are tables ofcontents at the beginning of each volume which list the title of each section and the ageof Yonosuke at the time of its occurrence.

The Kōshoku ichidai otoko begins when thehero, at seven years of age, makes his first attempt at seduction and ends when he, at theage of sixty, heads off for the Isle of Women with a boat laden with aphrodisiacs andsexual implements.

The device is not unproblematic.

At the start of the sixth volumeof the text, the linear progression that had existed since the start breaks, and there is an
overlap of five years. The seventh volume then skips ahead six years. These“imperfections” have long drawn a good deal of scholarly interest with the two dominant
theories being either that it was a simple mistake on the part of the author who wrote withMichael J. ScanlonChapter 2

195

more speed than accuracy or that it was done in order to mimic the doubled time structureof the Genji monogatari. Leaving aside its direct cause, its function is to bind together
fifty-four disparate stories into the framework of a continuous narrative in such a waythat the text’s temporal structure approaches the “floating world” sense of time forwardedin the opening section of the Ukiyo monogatari.
This chronicity, which holds true only for the overarching narrative, not theindividual units that make it up, is somewhat counterintuitive to modern eyes.

Saikaku

specialists, whose horizon of expectations is set by the bildungsroman, have often tried toforce the Kōshoku ichidai otoko into a similar framework by stating that, over the firstthirty-five episodes of the text, the protagonist is trained in the way of love.
Yonosuke learns literally nothing about women or the world in general.

Yet

In the seventh

story of the second volume, Yonosuke remembers a pair of sisters who two years
previous had entered into a love affair with him and were brought to ruin:
Remembering the past when he lived with Wakasa and Wakamatsu in the passed
year, he put on his hat of woven cypress. Now, after several days of travel, [hewas at] the awesome peak of the two demons. His confessions [of his behavior]
up to now made him ashamed of himself. Making his way through the roughterrain, [he realized] the afterlife was what was real, and [had his mind] on theway of the bodhisattva. On his way down he wondered if that was indeed theBride Tea House. He returned to normal. Having absolutely no desire to live by
the Nun River, he got on the road, rented a house in the southeast portion of
Osaka famed for wisteria, and did such things as make earpicks out of whalebarbells. Getting through even a single day was difficult.
すぎし年、若狭若松と住みける昔をおもひ出、檜笠をかたぶけ、旅の日数の今は後鬼前鬼の峰おそろしく、今までの懺悔物語、こころと心はづかしく、後世こそまことなれ、菩提の道、岩のあらけなく踏み分けて、下向にここ娌が茶屋とかや、
又もとの水にかへりて、とても尼川すむべき心にあらねば、道かへて、難波の東南、藤の棚かりて、鯨細工耳掻などして、一日暮しもはかたし。 80

80

Ihara Saikaku, Kōshoku ichidai otoko, Ihara Saikaku shū, vol.1, Nihon bungaku zenshū
Michael J. ScanlonChapter 2

196

Experience means nearly nothing in world where time is merely successive.
of no weight; it cannot guide the future in the least.

The past is

In the second half of the text, thissense of purely successive time is challenged in each narrative unit. As has been notedby many scholars, these sections are basically narrative versions of courtesan critiques
and, as such, serve to classify, something that would seem to require a diametrically
opposed sense of time.

“Classification,” writes Franco Moretti, “is useful so long as

time does not alter it: by ordering given elements, it postulates their immobility.” 81

It

must be remembered that, though the end result in each of these narrative units isclassification, it is an effect achieved dynamically through narrative, and time withinthese narratives is neither frozen nor simply successive.
story of this second half.

This becomes clear in the first

Yonosuke has fallen in love with a courtesan of the highest

rank by the name of Yoshino and plans to marry her, but she is rejected by his family due
to her profession.

Yoshino has Yonosuke invite his relatives to his home pretending that

he has broken the affair off and wants to effect a reconciliation with his family.

After

the group has had a little to drink, Yoshino appears in servant’s clothing:“I am a courtesan who lived in the Misuji-machi pleasure quarters by the name of
Yoshino. Such esteemed company is too good for me. However, since I have been
granted my leave and will return to my village, [here is] my farewell,” she said
and sang the song about the single thread winding the past to the present.
私は三筋町にすみし吉野と申す遊女、かかるお座敷に出るはもつたいなく候へども、今日後隙を下され里へ帰るお名残に、昔を今に一節をうたへば

Her song was that of Shizuka Gozen, a female entertainer and one of the two great loves
38, Teruoka Yasutaka and Higashi Akimasa, ed. (Tokyo: Shōgakkan, 1971), p.145.
81

Franco Moretti, “Homo Palpitans,” Signs Taken for Wonders (New York: Verso, 1997),
p.111.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 2

197of the doomed Minamoto no Yoshitsune, and it was sung in defiance of his murderous
older brother and first military ruler of Japan, Yoritomo, after her beloved had made his
escape from Mount Yoshino.

Thus, Yoshino’s profession is invested with a worthy past,and she is allowed a future: the marriage is sanctioned by his family. But that is the endof things. Yoshino has no long-term effect on Yonosuke or the later sections of the
Kōshoku ichidai otoko. She never appears as a character again in the text, and the only
mention of her is in the final section when it is said that an underskirt of hers forms thesail on Yonosuke’s ship.
text.

This holds true for all the prostitutes of the second half of theEach and every one is nothing more than the flavor of the year.
The ending, though similar in structure to that of the Ukiyo monogatari, has acompletely different function. If, in the earlier text, the move to a mythic land signified
the disintegration of the overarching exemplum structure and the narrative world of thetext, here it serves to continue the narrative in perpetuity, not by stabilizing the situation,
but by promising that similar but different adventures will continue forever.

His partingis also dated clearly. In the second to last line of the original text, his departure is statedto have occurred in the tenth month of 1682—the exact date of publication for the
Kōshoku ichidai otoko. This makes the text similar to the chronicle, about which
Hayden White says:
The chronicle, by contrast [to the non-narrative annals form], often seems to wish
to tell a story, aspires to narrativity, but typically fails to achieve it. Morespecifically, the chronicle usually is marked by a failure to achieve narrative
closure. It does not conclude so much as simply terminate. It starts off to tell astory but breaks off in medias res, in the chronicler’s own present; it leaves things
unresolved, or rather, it leaves them unresolved in a story-like way. 82
82

Hayden White, The Content of the Form (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University
Michael J. ScanlonChapter 2

198

According to White, a lack of closure undercuts the raison d’être of all extended
narrative:
If every fully realized story, however we define that familiar but conceptuallyelusive entity, is a kind of allegory, points to a moral, or endows events, whether
real or imaginary, with a significance that they do not possess as a mere sequence,then it seems possible to conclude that every historical narrative has as its latentor manifest purpose the desire to moralize the events of which it treats. Where
there is ambiguity or ambivalence regarding the status of the legal system, whichis the form in which the subject encounters most immediately the social system inwhich he is enjoined to achieve a full humanity, the ground on which any closureof a story one might wish to tell about a past, whether it be a public or a private
past, is lacking. And this suggests that narrativity, certainly in factual storytellingand probably in fictional storytelling as well, is immediately related to, if not afunction of, the impulse to moralize reality, that is, to identify it with a the social
system that is the source of any morality that we can imagine. 83
In many ways, White is correct.

The chronicity of the Kōshoku ichidai otoko does

indeed make it an amoral text.

Events happen more or less serially because they do, notdue to some higher pattern—something the authors and critics who rediscovered
Saikaku’s work at the turn of the twentieth century called “realism.”

There is, however,no reason to see the narrative of this text as being not fully realized.
The Kōshoku ichidai otoko is a near perfect example of the narrative type uponwhich the Russian formalist notion of nanizyvanie (or “stringing together”) is based, forthis is a text wherein the life or journey of a hero serves as a device that incorporates intoa single framework a group of otherwise completely separate stories.

This form of

narrative holds a crucial place in the scheme of literary history forwarded by this group.
After all, Don Quixote is said by one of the most famous of this theory’s practitioners to

Press, 1987), p.5.
83

Op. cit., p.14.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 2

be the first novel.

199

On the topic of the evolution of the novel, Victor Shklovsky states:

The modern novel was preceded by the short story collection. I am stating this asa chronological fact, without necessarily implying a causal relationship between
these genres. 84
This schema can probably be revised: thread narrative and long-form fiction are bothforms of extended narrative, but they are not one and the same phenomenon; the first
appearance of thread narrative pre-dates that of long-form fiction, though this chronology
does not imply a causal relationship between the two.

Thread narrative evolves fromthe pre-existing genre of short story collections by joining atomistic narrative units into a
continuous narrative, but each of these is connected weakly to the overarching framework
and remains recognizable as a separate and fairly separable unit.

Long-form fiction

develops as an overall plot structure takes on an integrating function.

Narrative units

become sub-units, subsumed into a hierarchy of major hinge events and minor
supplementary ones that occur between the initial problem that starts the overall narrativeand its final resolution (or meaningful irresolution) that ends it.

The Kōshoku ichidai

otoko has very little in the way of either extended narrative or even expandable framing
devices. It is a succession of almost completely individualizible narratives connectedwith no real distinction between foreground and background, a series of beginnings andends, ticks and tocks. Thus, it is perhaps not surprising that this text, despite its great
popularity, was not the direct ancestor of early modern Japanese long-form fiction.

84

Viktor Shklovsky, Theory of Prose (Elmwood Park, Illinois: Dalkey Archive Press,
1990), p.65.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 2

200

Sons of the Man
In the Tang period, there was a Han Tuizhi. In theSong, Shui Xi was born and corrected the mistakesof the former. Moreover, Zhu Xi appeared andassisted Shui Xi. Yangzhi came on the scene torescue Zhu Xi. In a similar way, from the beginningof this year, in the capital, there has appeared anauthor called Miyako no Nishiki, and I think that hehas correct knowledge of Japanese prose and istrying to assist Saikaku.
Kyoto bookseller
Genroku Taiheiki (1700)
Miyako no NishikiThus far, this scholarly text has adapted a metaphor based on the theory of
Darwinian evolution as reformulated by Stephen Jay Gould to structure an account of theliterary narrative output of Japan’s early modern period.
seeming problem with this.

There is, however, one

Gould, though he would later soften his stance to somedegree, directly warned against all such projects:
I am convinced that comparisons between biological and cultural evolution andhuman or technological evolution have done vastly more harm than good—and
examples abound of this most common of all intellectual traps. Biologicalevolution is a bad analogue for cultural change because the two systems are so
different for three major reasons that could hardly be more fundamental.
First, cultural evolution can be faster by orders of magnitude than biologicalchange at its maximal Darwinian rate—and questions of timing are of the essencein evolutionary arguments. Second, cultural evolution is direct and Lamarckian inform: The achievements of the past are passed on by education and publication
directly to descendents, thus producing the great potential speed of culturalchange. Biological evolution is indirect and Darwinian, as favorable traits do notdescend to the next generation unless, by good fortune, they arise as products ofgenetic change. Third, the basic typologies of biological and cultural change arecompletely different. Biological evolution is a system of constant divergence
without subsequent joining of branches. Lineages, once distinct, are separate
forever. In human history, transmission across lineages is, perhaps, the major
source of cultural change. 85
85

Stephen Jay Gould, “The Panda’s Thumb of Technology,” Bully for Brontosaurus (NewYork: Norton, 1991), pp.63-65.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 2

201

Of these, the first and the third are basically undeniable, but this hardly undermines thepossibility of using a Darwinian framework to orient a study of literary history. It must
be kept in mind that, like all metaphors used in the human sciences, evolution is just that,a metaphor.

These two objections can be sidestepped simply by stating that biologicaland cultural evolutions are similar but not identical and that evolutionary processes inculture are, on the whole, more complex.

In literary evolution, a single text may be theresult of crossover production from a large number of different texts, structures fromseparate genres are often combined, and grafts can be passed down to the next generation.
Thus, literary evolution can occur more quickly because elements that could not be joined
under normal circumstances in nature can in culture. 86

This does have an important

effect on the way in which the Darwinian model can be applied to literary history.

Theease with which formal devices can move across generic lines would seem to undermine
the idea that the individual formal device is (along with genre) one of the two main
agents of evolution because a concept meant to organize would lead to chaos. 87

Instead,86

Then again, for reasons that will be discussed in this section, the evolution ofrecombinant DNA technology does not mean that we live in a post-Darwinian age, so
perhaps Gould’s first and third criticisms are, in fact, deniable.

87

Franco Moretti argues that genre and formal device should be seen as the two agents ofliterary evolution, most notably in an article about detective fiction and the clue entitled“The Slaughterhouse of Literature.” Yet the evidence presented would seem to show boththat the genre developed out of a series of individual texts before the present, necessary,visible and decodable clue evolved as well as that it took some time before this particularversion of the clue became the dominant formal feature of this type of narrative. In otherwords, the genre of detective fiction may have evolved for reasons that had nothing to dowith the clue, and it provided the pre-existing environment in which the clue would
develop. This seems to be the way of the world for all evolved phenomena. In the studyof literary evolution, environments are the primary concern. Normally, environments
chronologically predate structures. Moreover, even when the structure itself comes first,
the structure only becomes functional with the development of an environment that
Michael J. ScanlonChapter 2

202

this role is played by the text: texts beget texts, and these are organized into genres
according to overall similarity of structure as well as temporal and spatial proximity.
The fundamental mistakenness of the second of Gould’s admonitions, which isof greater consequence because Darwinian and Lamarckian models of evolution are
absolutely incompatible, becomes clear when text is taken as a basic unit of analysis.
Darwinian evolution is a dualist process wherein development occurs due to un-oriented
variation as well as directed and directing selection; Lamarckian evolution is monistic
process of directed variation in which structures advance according to a plan and canadjust to fit environments.

Thus, the efficiency of Lamarckian evolution would not be

restricted merely to matters of speed.

Since change is connected with functionality,

there would be no (or, at least, much fewer) “missteps.”

Even a cursory examination of

the archive shows that literary evolution occurs due to a system of trial and error, andfailures are prevalent. 88

With the great sales of the Kōshoku ichidai otoko, the literary

environment changed to favor similar books, and authors and publishers began to put
them out in greater numbers. However, what it was about the Kōshoku ichidai otoko
that accounted for its popularity was unclear to all parties, including the man who wrote
the text.

The next three pieces of narrative literature by Saikaku published over the

makes the structure advantageous.
Franco Moretti, “The Slaughterhouse of Literature,” Modern Language Quarterly 61:1
(2000), pp.207-227.
88

I mention here only those published texts which failed to find a market. There are also
probably innumerable cases of texts being selected against before ever making it to press.
For instance, even though Saikaku was the most famous author of fiction in his day, heleft behind enough non-published writings upon his death that several texts could be put
together and published under his name posthumously.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 2

203

subsequent three years seem to break the Kōshoku ichidai otoko into its constituent partson the levels of both content and form in order to find the secret of its success.
In the fourth month of 1684, a second piece of prose fiction by Saikaku wasbrought to market. Known in its day as the Kōshoku nidai otoko (The Erotic Life of aMan, Second Generation 好色二代男), it has a much flatter prose style and, if directconnections can indeed be drawn between the two texts, is an expansion on the
courtesan-centric type of stories collected in the second half of the Kōshoku ichidai otoko.
However, in this case, there is no hero whose presence in each section could thread
together the separate narratives.

Instead, it is a collection of short stories encompassed

by frame-narrative elements. 89

The abandoned son of Yonosuke appears in only the firstsection (where he, making his way back from the pleasure quarters early one morning,runs into an aged woman who narrates each of the separate stories that follow) and thelast (where he is reborn in the Buddhist Pure Land).

This text, which can be seen as anarrative version of a courtesan critique, was also highly successful.

Originallypublished by an Osaka house, it, too, went through several editions, including ones from89

It should be noted that frame-narrative elements also exist in trace amounts in the
Kōshoku ichidai otoko. The introductory section of the Kōshoku ichidai otoko ends:
He was, of his own accord, tormented by love. It is known from his notebook that,by the age of fifty-four, he fooled around with three thousand seven hundred
forty-two women and dallied with seven hundred twenty-five boys. From the time of
his minority according to the well ledge until now, when his vital fluids have dried
up—what a life he led!
こころと恋に責められ、五十四歳までたはぶれし女三千七百四十二人、少人のもてあそび七百二十五人、手日記にしる。井筒によりてうなゐごより己方、賢水をかへ
ほして、さても命ある物か。

Thus, Yonosuke’s story is being narrated retrospectively.
Ihara Saikaku, Kōshoku ichidai otoko, Ihara Saikaku shū, vol.1 (Tokyo: Shōgakkan,1971), p.103.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 2

the Edo region.

204

The next of Saikaku’s narrative texts to be published was a short story

collection on a supernatural theme but with no framing or threading devices.

All

evidence seems to indicate that it was a commercial failure: an entry for it appeared inonly one booksellers’ catalogue; relatively few books of this title were passed down to themodern period; no indications of any supplementary editions being put to market can befound.

His next work of fiction text met a similar fate.

The Wankyū issei nomonogatari, borrowing a plot from the kabuki theater, is a piece of fairly well-integrated
long-form fiction that relates the story of a rich merchant who loses his fortune, his sanity,and eventually his life due to his obsession with the pleasure quarters.

This sold in suchsmall numbers that only a single copy of it survived into the twentieth century, and thiswas lost in the Great Kantō Earthquake of 1923.
Literary development is unmistakably a Darwinian process, not a Lamarckianone.

Yet that such an obvious mistake could be made is itself an issue that must be

addressed. The error lies in an overestimation of human agency in cultural development.
In literary studies, this human agent is the author, and author and oeuvre have long been
the most common way of organizing literary studies.

An egregious example of thistendency can be found in Mori Senzō’s radical re-estimation of Ihara Saikaku’s output ofprose texts:
One: The [fiction] created by Saikaku is no more than a single book, the Kōshoku
ichidai otoko. I fearlessly assert this one fact.
Two: Nevertheless, scholars who are called scholars toe the party line andconsider Saikaku to have written every single one of various works, including the
Ichidai onna, the Gonin onna, and the Eitai-gura. Before mouthing the received
explanation, look at the xylographic editions of the Ichidai onna, the Gonin onna,
and the Eitai-gura! Isn’t it true that Saikaku’s name is nowhere to be found? How
do you gentlemen account for this fact? If there is no proof positive that these are

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 2

205

the work of Saikaku, how is it that they became the work of Saikaku? In what
way is it proven that the Ichidai onna and the rest are the works of Saikaku? If
you think it has been proven, I would like ever so much if you could show me
how.
Three: Saikaku was a haikai poet. He was not established to be a fiction writer.
It is a mistake to call Saikaku a fiction writer for ridiculously arbitrary reasons.
The Kōshoku ichidai otoko was not a novel. It was probably a unique
haikai-esque work. To call it haikai prose would cause no harm. 90
Saikaku was a haikai poet; therefore, he could only write haikai-esque prose.

This

theory never became accepted opinion, but even the ways in which it is criticized show
the continued importance placed on the figure of the author. Noda Hisao writes of thedifferences in prose style between the Kōshoku ichidai otoko and the Kōshoku nidai
otoko:
Style is not necessarily something fixed for an author. Authors typically try out
different things. Should one be speaking of Saikaku, it would be difficult to saythat only the style of his maiden work, the Kōshoku ichidai otoko, is his absolutestyle. 91
The main thrust of nearly all scholarship on early modern Japanese literary texts is anattempt to reconstruct the will and consciousness plans of the author, to try to elucidate
what the author was trying to write or the text was supposed to accomplish. Thus,
careers have been made excavating biographical information concerning famous authorsthat can be used to examine texts from his oeuvre, while prefaces and postscripts, which
are supposed to give nearly direct insight into the authorial mind, are the privileged
instruments for textual analysis. 92
90

Mori Senzō, “Watashi no Saikaku kenkyū no kore made,” Saikaku-bon sōkō (Tokyo:
Tokyo Bijutsu, 1971).

91

Noda Hisao, Nihon kinsei shōsetsu shi, Ihara Saikaku hen (Tokyo: Benseisha, 1990),
p.30.
92

Though prefaces and postscripts play almost no role in this study, they and theirrelationship to the main body of a literary text can be studied within the framework of
Michael J. ScanlonChapter 2

206

This is not to say that these scholars have no concept of the limits of authorial
freedom.

The deforming power of genre has long been obvious.

A good example ofthis awareness can be found in a recent analysis of the well-known Kōshoku sandai otoko(The Erotic Life of a Man, Third Generation, 1686), a literary text which was written andpublished by Nishimura Ichiruemon, an author-publisher that the Genroku Taiheiki calls“an adept of erotic compositions… [who] took up his brush in order erase Saikaku.” 93
The Kōshoku sandai otoko is made up of thirty-two completely separate short narratives
about erotic love, which are framed by a longish introduction that, after alluding to theerotic adventures of one Yumenosuke from his thirteenth year to his thirtieth, ends withhim finding his way to the hut of an ascetic. Thereupon, this otherworldly monk, before
removing the sliding paper walls of his domicile to reveal the stories that Yumenosuke
records to form the body of the work, addresses the would-be playboy:
That man of the first generation and the one of the second generation, all that they
were familiar with over their many years was merely the pleasure quarters. For
makeshift passion, they throw away their fortunes and pay no heed to thewarnings of their parents or society’s censure. They know nothing of the existenceof true love. You, the man of the third generation, there is no way that you will notlearn of this way. Come here! Take my hand and enter this room. When I remove
the paper screens on the south, east and west, an abundance of erotic wonders willappear before your eyes. Take them to heart. Afterwards, you should pull them out
and, entrusting your writing brush, write them down as ima wa mukashi (“thepresent; the past”) narratives.
多年世に一代男二代男とよばれしも皆傾城にのみなづみて、方便の情に身体をう

this theory. However, according to the logic of literary evolution, to analyze a literary text
by means of its preface is putting the cart in front of the horse. Both the preface and theliterary text must be put into the context of their given (and separate) genres. Once thedeviations from the norm for each are established, the text can be used to explain the
preface.
93

Miyako no Nishiki, Genroku Taiheiki, p.97.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 2

207

ち、親のいさめ、世のそしりをも不顧、是外に未真実の恋ある事を不知。今汝三代男といはれて此道を不知は有べからず。いざこなたへと。手を引て一間に入。
東西南の障子を開は諸国の好色目の前に顕然此ふしぎさも余りありて。のへ紙を取出し今むかしの物かたり筆に任せて書きとどむ 94

Yet the familiar figures of the erotic book genre—prostitutes and kabuki actors—findtheir way into a good deal of the stories that follow.

“Despite the establishment at thestart that the Kōshoku sandai otoko would deal with eros outside the pleasure quarters,”
writes Nakajima Takashi, “[stories related to famous courtesans were brought in] throughthe writer’s position which was trying to include in his work what could be called thecontemporary issues and the context of the courtesan critiques.” 95

Thus, even at a timein which the force of genre would seem at its strongest, the author (and his conscious
plans) remains at the center of literary evaluation.
Though this is a perfectly acceptable and established approach to the study ofliterature, in literary evolution, plans are a problem, and to pay attention to them is topartake in a creationist fallacy.

In biological evolution, scientists and farmers who

conduct genetic engineering are not gods, nor are they often mistaken for them.

This isnot simply because, as Doctor Frankenstein found out, planned function and actual
function can diverge. Rather, the unit of analysis—the organism—makes it readily
apparent that the plan is a matter of selection, not one of creation.

Organisms differingfrom the previous generation in such a way that fits the extremely finite environment of
the laboratory survive into the next generation; those that do not, do not. Scholars who
94

Kōshoku sandai otoko, Nishimura-bon shōsetsu zenshū, vol.1 (Tokyo: Benseisha,1984), p.361.
95

Nakajima Takashi, “Nishimura-bon no Saikaku mohō,” Shoki Ukiyo-zōshi no tenkai(Tokyo: Wakagusa Shobō, 1996), p.208.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 2

208

focus on the objects of culture have a more difficult time with this concept.

Geoffrey

Winthrop-Young criticizes Moretti’s use of the history of automobile design to illustratecultural evolution as follows:
It appears that following “an early period of experimentation, automobile design
stabilized by 1902 and did not change radically until 1959.” Just as there havebeen only two breakthroughs for the modern novel, there have only been two
basic car designs: the rest is variation of a basic pattern. Critics no less than car
salesmen have obscured this “ubiquity of imitation” by constantly flaunting thealleged uniqueness of their models. However, what Moretti does not mention isthat both innovations in automobile technology—the front-ended rear drive
système Panhard first developed in 1891 and later modified, and theIssigonis/Christie design featuring a transversely mounted front engine—were theresult of meticulous planning that took into account specific geographic, climatic,social, and financial conditions and were often geared toward particular adoption
environments. The longevity of these models… appears to be the result of highly
conscious, premeditated adaptation. 96
This meticulous planning, however, was done on the part of the design engineer, not thedesign, and designs simply do not evolve in a steady, linear manner. Engineers proceedby the same trial and error approach authors do because car designs—like literary
narrative—evolve according to a Darwinian logic.

Thus, the two agents of literary

evolution are text and genre, not author. On the other hand, to simply dismiss the author
entirely is not the answer.

Not only has biographical criticism proved itself to be auseful tool for textual analysis, but those approaches to literature that deny any role to theauthor suffer from nearly the same problem as those that overvalue it.

Note Suzuki

Toshiya’s discussion of the origins of the Kōshoku ichidai otoko:
When you look at the many various writings appearing about the atmosphere of
the pleasure quarters that are concerned with so-called stories of dandyism,
detailed articles on erotic customs, as well as love letter guides such as these, thedistance from erotic books (kōshoku-bon) is but a single step. The foundation had
96

Geoffrey Winthrop-Young, “How The Mule Got Its Tale: Moretti's DarwinianBricolage,” Diacritics 29:2 (1997), p.38.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 2

209

already been laid. The materials had already been prepared. The move into thedomain of literature required no more effort than the raising of a hand. The
atmosphere of the time and the proclivities of the reading world both in the end
took Saikaku and had him win the name of the founder of [the genre of fiction
known as] ukiyo-zōshi. 97
The ascription of evolution to the form-generating inner drives related directly tohistory—this is Lamarckianism. Like all forms of structuralism, Lamarckianism isbased on the naïve notion that the world is fully logical, rational and, therefore,knowable.
According to Darwinian theory, evolution occurs in specific places and,
therefore, specific environments.

Fitness to this restricted environment determines

initial survival, while fitness to wider environments determines large-scale success. In
literary evolution, texts beget texts, and generic success is determined by fit to larger
historical and ideological circumstances, but it is the author that represents the earliest
and most restricted environment where evolution can occur. The author’s mostimportant function lies in being the repository of the texts out of which new texts canemerge, though, of course, an author can be constituted by a single person or a group, andtexts may be of artistic or everyday genres, gathered actively or passively, directly or
indirectly. Life experience, attitudes, interests and passions can have what could becalled a climatological effect that can transform, distort, and variously modify texts.
However, the ability of authors to deform texts is not consistent.

During the long

periods of normal literature, the specific social position, tastes, and personal experiencesof individual authors are of little matter. At these times, texts within a genre are

97

Suzuki Toshiya, Kinsei Nihon shōsetsu shi (Tokyo: Meguro Shoten, 1922), p.233.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 2

210

produced with a fairly stable array of “various characteristic signs, figures, relationships,
and structures.” 98Those that deviate too greatly from these norms are selected against.

In episodic periods of rapid change, when the pressures of selection are weakened due tocatastrophes either internal or external to the domain of literature, however, theparticularized experience of an author does matter. 99
The fact that Asai Ryōi (d.1691), the author of the Ukiyo monogatari, washimself a disenfranchised samurai can be used according to Darwinian logic to help
explain the text’s extraordinary ending. As in car design, literary composition is aprocess not of creating something new out of whole cloth, but of selecting among anarray of fairly set possibilities and putting them together. As a text is being constructed,
fitness is in very real ways related to the personhood of the man writing the text. The
most typical endings of biographical narratives—victory, rebirth in the Buddhist Pure
Land, or defeat—were largely unfit to the author Asai Ryōi, a man who spent most of his
adult life trying to find a position that would restore his status as a full-fledged samurai.
Complete victory would resolve all issues; rebirth in the Buddhist Pure Land would have
simply transcended all mundane issues; utter defeat (and usually death) would cut off all
hope of a possible improvement in the situation. The escape to the land of the Daoist
immortals functions as a rebuke of contemporary society that also allows for the98

Michel Foucault, “What is an Author?” Language, Counter-Memory, Practice (Ithaca:
Cornell University Press, 1977), p.133.
99

It is probably for this reason that biographical criticism works much better for“masterpieces” than it does for “hackwork.” After all, at times of strong genre, authors ofradically backgrounds are writing similar texts, and this is something which would seemto undermine the very structure of causality that orients biography-based literary history.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 2

211

possibility of a return should there be a renaissance of the samurai ideal. The
commercial success of the Ukiyo monogatari in the greater environment cannot be traced
directly back to the conditions of this most narrow of environments. In many ways, thetext’s initial widespread success probably had more to due with the lack of competition
than with the specific way in which the Ukiyo monogatari dealt with the rōnin issue.
Within a half-century or so, new long-form genres of narrative, which engaged the rōnin
problem and resolved it, had developed, and the Ukiyo monogatari would survive only ina dwindling population at the edges of the domain of literature.
The specific experience of Ihara Saikaku can also be used to shed some light on
the Kōshoku ichidai otoko. Saikaku was a famous haikai poet, and the distinctive
haikai-inflected prose about which Nakamura Yukihiko and Donald Keene wrote wasimportant to some of its early readers. The preface to the Kōshoku jūninin otoko (The
Erotic Lives of Twelve Men 好色十二人男), written by man who studied poetry under
Saikaku, states:
My haikai mentor, the priest Saikaku, took his leave from a backlog of grading.
Despite the cold of the black window of night, with his inkstone pillow, he wrote
various erotic wares that were charming and interesting, moving andcommendable, committed to a constantly changing prose style. These werecompiled into a book, and it is famous.
予が俳の師難波俳林西鶴法師は。溜点の隙をうかがひ。考墨の窓の夜さむにも。
硯枕に好色の品々を面白く可笑。哀に又殊勝に。千変万化の文を尽し。書に綴て其名高し。 100

Yet it is important not to overvalue this biographical factor as it relates to the origins of
the Kōshoku ichidai otoko or ascribe to it a categorical functionality.

100

As a haikai master,

Shaiken, Kōshoku jūninin otoko, Koten bunko 214 (Tokyo: Koten bunko, 1965), p.5.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 2212

Saikaku was able to write the text, but that does not mean that he had to write it or that hewas the only one capable of producing such a style. Saikaku wrote several later prosetexts using a flatter style, and he was certainly not the first haikai poet to publish a prose
literary text. In fact, the extreme success this type of poetry was enjoying during thesecond half of the seventeenth century all but assured that every author of newly
published fiction texts was also a haikai poet. Instead, Saikaku’s biography matters
because his specific life experience probably played a role in the route the text took as it
moved from the most circumscribed environment of the author to the widest, that of thegreater reading public.
By the 1670s, Ihara Saikaku the heir apparent to the leadership of the
Osaka-based Danrin school of haikai poetry, which was the most powerful haikai
institution of the time and was growing in size and vigor over the second half of theseventeenth century. In haikai schools, communication between master and disciple hadoriginally been direct and personalized. Superiors would attend poetic banquets orgrade haikai sequences sent to them in letters. With the change in institutional scale
came a growing role for the printed book in producing and reproducing bonds between
inferior and superior as well as in improving one’s position within the ranks of the school.
Saikaku was one of the pioneers in this movement.

The first book printed solely inOsaka was a collection of ten thousand verses by one hundred sixty authors thatcommemorated a twelve-day haikai festival headed by Saikaku and held at the Ikutama
Shrine in Osaka in 1673, and it is more than likely that the book functioned as a mementoof the occasion rather than as a conveyor of a text to be read. By the 1682 publishing ofMichael J. ScanlonChapter 2

213

the Kōshoku ichidai otoko, Saikaku had been the author or compiler of seven haikai texts.
These poetry books circulated in a way that differed from fiction texts. In a letter fromthe third month of 1679 to one of his poetic associates, Chisoku, Saikaku wrote:
I issued as a book a recent compilation that I put together. I am sending two
copies. If you think you can use them, they are one monme two bun each. If they
are not necessary, send them back here again. It will not be a problem. As for thevarious things I print, I will send them in other letters.
私すき申候近年之付合、板行申候。二冊遺申候。是ニ而おぼしめしあはされ可被遊候。壱札ニ付一匁弍分づつ。入不申候はば、重て此方へ可被下候。くるしからず候。
いろいろ板行申候。たよりニ又々遺し可申上候。 101

Chisoku thereupon tried to sell these himself, something made clear in a letter hereceived from Tōyō, a haikai advisor of his mother and sister.
It is so very regrettable that you returned early on that rare occasion of yourmother and sister’s visit here. However, you were kind enough to have them taketwo copies of a thousand-verse sequence of Saikaku of Osaka as well as one copyof a compilation of his… For now, I will hold on to them, so I can send them if
there should be somebody who wants to procure them.
御袋様御内方様久々ニて御越被遊候所、早々御帰残念之至奉存候。然れば、大坂
西鶴千句二冊、付合一冊為御持被下候。… 先留置申候。取申候衆御座候はば、遺し可申候。 102

Some scholars believe that an underwriting system developed in which authors of haikai
texts undertook the costs of printing, and haikai books were reproduced not by publishers(who make money on the manufacture of a commodity) but by commercial printers (whomake money on the service of printing). 103

101

Even if that is not the case, Nakajima“Shotan,” Saikaku jiten (Tokyo: Ōfūsha, 1995), p.332.

102

Quoted in Nakajima Takashi, Saikaku to Genroku media, NHK Books 718 (Tokyo:
Nihon Hōsō Shuppankai, 1994), p.108.

103

Nakano Mitsutoshi, Edo no hanpon (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1995), pp.199-201.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 2

214

Takashi points out that haikai books certainly circulated within these coteries.104

Thishelped to almost guarantee a certain number of sales, and that helped to defray thenegative pressures associated with early xylographic commercial printing which had been
selecting strongly against formally innovative texts.

With both its text and illustrationsin the hand of Ihara Saikaku, the Kōshoku ichidai otoko was very clearly associated with
its author, and it is likely that the text was first printed as a book to be sold or distributed
to Saikaku’s haikai associates rather than published as a revolutionary prose work to be
put out on the open market.

In fact, in many ways, its qualities as a book tookprecedence over those of it as a text of literary narrative, for each and every one of its
fifty-four stories consists of five pages of text followed by a full-page illustration, and it
seems likely that individual stories were elongated or shrunk to fit the space requirements.
If the Kōshoku ichidai otoko was able to make it to the open market because it happened
to be a haikai-esque text associated with a famous poet, its function in the wider literary
environment was quite different, and the genre sharply diverged from its progenitor. 105

104

Nakajima Takashi, Saikaku to Genroku media, p.109.

105

It will be noted that I will continue to use the very concept of an author-based oeuvrethat I argue against here when referring to scholarly texts throughout this work. This is
not because I feel that “academic authors” are any different from “artistic authors.” We
are all just negative pressure, and the protagonists of evolution for all types of writing are
genre and text. However, though I tried to apply this logic when referring to academic
writing, my prose became too stilted and strange-sounding to survive even the incredibly
pro-Darwinian restricted environment that is me. What can I say? The metaphor isevolution, not alchemy! If the theory argued for in this text finds success, perhaps texts
written by later scholars will be able to adjust this.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 2

215

The Woman
Along about the Jōkyō [1684-1688] and Genroku[1688-1704] eras, there was a townsman named
Hirayama Tōgo in Osaka of Settsu Province. He
was well off, but his wife died early, and his only
child, a blind daughter, also passed away. He turned
over his business to a clerk and lived a life of
freedom, though he never took the tonsure. With awallet slung over his neck like a pilgrim, he would
wander about the country for half a year, then returnhome. He was extremely fond of haikai comic verseand studied under Isshō [1643-1707]. Later, hefounded his own school. He changed his name to
Saikaku and wrote such books as the Eitai-gura, theNishi no umi, and the Sejō shimin hinagata. He wassomeone who—afflicted by the world’s good andbad fortune, regret and hesitation, sickness andtroubles—knew their flavor well, someone who hada natural understanding of human feelings (ninjō).
Moreover, he had a way of life that cannot even be
seen in Daoism.
Kenbun dansō
Itō Baiu (1683-1745)“A very, very long and uninteresting narrative,” wrote an unknown reader on thepastedown at the front of the sixth volume of a copy of the Kōshoku ichidai otoko thatwas once owned by a lending library and bears much fewer marks of wear and tear thanthose of more recently produced pieces of commercial fiction held in the samecollection. 106

It was fairly common for readers to write in the books they rented orbought, and an examination of this body of writing might yield insights into the reading
practices of the early modern period.

However, reading is a very idiosyncratic activity,

and any attempt to draw specific conclusions about the reading habits of this particular
106

Nagatomo Chiyoji, Kinsei no kashihon’ya no kenkyū (Tokyo: Tōkyōdō Shuppan,
2001), pp.117-118.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 2

216

reader based solely on this comment would be dangerously conjectural, especially in lightof the fact that the note could have been jotted down at any point from the time of thebook’s first publication in the 1680s until it appeared in the Waseda University libraryholdings at the turn of the twentieth century. Yet the specifics of the graffito beg at least
an attempt at explanation, one that goes beyond simply seeing this as a reflection of thefact that Saikaku’s “masterwork” lost its popular audience fairly quickly after publication.
This might best be achieved by placing it in the context of the text’s genre and the book’ssocial space. The Kōshoku ichidai otoko, though it was very popular in itself andspawned a good deal of imitators, did not set the range of typical signs, figures, relations
and structures that help characterize the genre of erotic books.

Instead, texts with moregraphic pictures and lurid text put out by the Nishimura publishing house of Kyoto cameto dominate.

The shogunate would ban the publication of these books in the earlyeighteenth century, but the association of kōshoku with pornography remained.

The

specific book into which the note was written was part of the collection of a commercial
library located in Kinosaki, a famous hot spring town to the west of Osaka. Resorts likethis were zones of sensual pleasure, areas with a thriving sex trade, and lending libraries
were institutions that often traded in illicit books.

Thus, perhaps the most likely

scenario is that the reader, frustrated by the relative tameness of the Kōshoku ichidai
otoko, grew angry enough that brush was taken to paper.
That the Kōshoku ichidai otoko did not set the generic path is a matter of some
importance.

It is evidence that the text was part of the burst of formal diversificationthat occurs during a moment of great change rather than a work that helped usher in a

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 2

217

new era of stability. If this in some ways undermines the degree of evolutionary successtypically attributed to the Kōshoku ichidai otoko, it must also be remembered that the text
was also extraordinarily hearty in certain ways. Though popular culture soon passed itby, it retained an elite audience for large portions of the early modern and modern
periods. 107

Moreover, a number of texts arose from the same area of the evolutionary

bush soon after its publication.

Some of these were highly successful in their time, andthe number includes one that may have been even more enduring than the Kōshoku
ichidai otoko itself. This text is the Kōshoku ichidai onna (The Erotic Life of a Woman
好色一代女), which was published as a six-volume book in 1686 by the Ikeda-ya

publishing house of Osaka.

The text is a confessional narrative which combines

elements of both a short story collection and a thread narrative.

The body of the

Kōshoku ichidai onna is comprised of more or less separate and separable short narrative
units lined up chronologically to form the life story of the woman who is the text’s
protagonist.

These are contained in a double framework.

The primary narrator is theprotagonist, and the scene of her narration is depicted in the opening and closing units ofthe text.

However, the text also includes a witness who appears only at the very

beginning of the text whose function is to record the woman’s story in the form of the107

In literature, “failed” hopeful monsters—texts quite different in form than those thatthey follow and precede—occasionally enjoy a kinder fate than would be the case for
their biological equivalents in that some of these become “classics” read and advocatedby elite audiences. Since this version of literary evolution eschews matters of aesthetic
worth, it is hard to account for the hardiness of these texts, and I shall not forward any
undeveloped explanation here. This is not to say that the neo-Darwinian approach could
not fruitfully be applied to matters of literary canonization; it is simply that a single study
can only do so much, and I would prefer to concentrate on literary production.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 2

218

Kōshoku ichidai onna. The existence of this seemingly redundant narrator greatly
complicates the relationship between narrative and time in the text. In regard to thetypical relation between the two in the confessional form, Munemasa Isoo states:
The “confession” form is when the narrator tells of his or her past to the addresseeof the work. Therefore, the narrator is the same character as the protagonist of thework. In this case, it is inconceivable that a reporter as a third person could comebetween the addressee and the protagonist. This fact is self-evident. Further, if theaddressee does not remain outside the narrative looking in on the protagonist, but
at a single time places himself on the same position as the narrator, then he canlive that narrative as the protagonist. To say that the addressee lives the narrative
as the protagonist is the same as saying that the addressee passes the same time as
the protagonist. 108
The appearance of the final narrator largely prevents the reader of the text fromidentifying with the addressees within the text, and this accentuates the tripled time
structure of the narrative. There are three diegetic times in the text: the seventy or so
years of the woman’s life, the several hours of her narration of it in her hut, and the few
hours of the reporting of her narrative in an undisclosed time and place by theeavesdropping final narrator.

In comparison with a direct confession, the story of thewoman’s life is doubly contained, and the time of the Kōshoku ichidai onna is truncatedand flattened. The present in which the life’s story is told becomes of greater
importance than it would have been otherwise, and the story of the life, which would
ordinarily serve as link between present and past, is deemphasized.
A problemitization of time and its passage lies at the heart of the Kōshoku
ichidai onna.

According to an interpretation forwarded by Taniwaki Masachika, this isprepared for in the very request that elicits the woman’s tale. The recording narrator,
108

Munemasa Isoo, “Kōshoku ichidai onna no kōzō,” Saikaku no kenkyū (Tokyo:
Miraishi, 1962), p.7.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 2219

who is intrigued by the laments about love voiced by two men he runs into during a
festival in an area just west of the imperial capital, follows them to a small hermitage
with which the two are familiar and surreptitiously listens as an old woman greets themand asks the reason for their visit:“He suffers from love, and I am steeped in longing. We have never been able tosort out the many types of love. Having heard from someone that you know of
this way, we have come here. Please tell of your past as if it were now (imayō),”said [one of the young men] as he poured [some sake] into a cup and vehemently
pressed it on her. The old lady gradually grew distracted. For awhile, she
strummed upon the koto she always fiddled with and sang a love song. Then,
taken in by the mood, she told—as if dreaming—of her entire life's wantonnessand various escapades.
「それは恋に責められ、これはおもひに染み、いまだ諸色のかぎりをわきまへがたし。ある人伝へてこの道にきたるなれば、身の上の昔を今様に語り給へ」と、竹葉の一滴を玉なす金盃に移し、是非の断りなしに進めけるに、老女いつとなく乱れて、常弄びし糸筋ならして、恋慕の詩をうたへる事しばらくなり。そのあま109りに一代の身のいたづら、さまざまになりかはりし事ども夢のごとくに語る。

It is a strange request, for the story of an entire life (ichidai)—something which must
develop over time—is asked to be recounted without any time passing. Taniwaki’s
theory has not come into universal acceptance, and there are those scholars who useinter-textual materials that show the word imayō can mean in a fashionable ornon-didactic manner. 110
reading.

Intra-textual evidence, however, seems to bear out Taniwaki’s

The woman around whom the text revolves is highly resistant to change

wrought by time.

Her personality was set at birth.

Before she was ten, she started tohave erotic impulses, and as a woman of around seventy years she lives in a hut named
109

Ihara Saikaku, Kōshoku ichidai onna, Ihara Saikaku-shū, Nihon koten bungaku zenshū,
vol.38, Teruoka Yasutaka and Higashi Akimasa, eds. (Tokyo: Shōgakukan, 1971) p.432.

110

Nakajima Takashi, “Ichidai onna no jojutsu no kōzō,” Kinsei ukiyo-zōshi no tenkai(Tokyo: Wakagusa Shobō, 1996), pp.101-102.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 2

220“The Hermitage of Eros” (kōshoku-an).

This is not to say that she is completely

immune to the passage of time. As she grows older, she is forced to take less and lessdesirable jobs at lower and lower pay and, in the penultimate chapter, can no longer
attract a man.

However, in the first section, when she appears as a character

incorporated into the narrative of the eyewitness rather than as one populating theconfession that she narrates, the woman is said to be old, but well-dressed and “notugly” 111 —a description that belies the image she projects of herself in the last part of her
account. In addition, as the protagonist in her narrative, the woman has an ability tocontest or even reverse time.

In the third story of the sixth volume, Yahotsu no

tsukegoe, the narrator recollects that “though the years I had passed were alreadysixty-five, people would say, ‘You seem a bit over forty.’ Such is the benefit of being afine-skinned and small-framed woman.” 112

Likewise, in the second section of thesecond volume, the woman is employed in the brothels of Osaka, but the next section,
Seken-dera no daikoku (The Wife at Worldly Temple), begins:I, as one who reopens the sleeves that had been closed and returns to the figure ofold, can be said to be a female Tieguai. This is the benefits of being born with asmall build.
脇ふさぎを又明けて、むかしの姿にはへるは、女鉄拐といはれしは、小作りなる
うまれつきの徳なり。 113

Sleeves were closed after a girl had reached her majority, and Tieguai was a Daoist
magician capable of emitting an image of his younger self from his mouth. Thus, the111

Kōshoku ichidai onna, Nihon bungaku zenshū 38, p.431.

112

Op. cit., p.570.

113

Op. cit., p.473.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 2

221

woman is able to leave behind her life as a prostitute, go back to her hometown, return tovirginity, and become a fit wife for the head of a Buddhist temple.
The general lack of successiveness in time in the Kōshoku ichidai onna isdiametrically opposed to the time structure that can be found in the Kōshoku ichidai
otoko.

Since the woman’s story is told in the continual present, it is impossible for her

to dress fashionably, for fashion is simply the state of being in style at a given moment.
It needs a time that flows: what is fashionable can only be fashionable if were not always
so and will not continue to be so indefinitely. Though the hairstyles and clothing of theprotagonist described in each chapter refer to extra-textual fashions, they within the worldof text always serve to denote her status.

Thus, at any given time her outfit “inexorably

assigns a place, an age, a job, a condition from which the individual cannot extricate[herself] even physically. It pins down, it betrays, it boxes in.

It engenders aclassification; or rather it indicates that…the principle of classification is valid. Again,
this principle is fixed in time: it predicts and prescribes the immutability of everythingthat falls under its jurisdiction.” 114

The protagonist is forced to take on the costume

proper to each and every profession she enters throughout the text.

The woman herself

states this clearly in the Chōnin koshimoto chapter:Though I hated belts that tie in the back, I changed to fit the various conventionsof my roles. Thus, I made a sash of yellow, red, and brown in a mid-sized zigzag
pattern and tied my medium-sized shimada-style hair with disposable paper
chords…

114

Franco Moretti, “Homo palpitans,” Signs Taken for Wonders (New York: Verso Press,
1983), p. 113.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 2

222

我、後帯は嫌ひなれども、それぞれの風儀に替へて、黄唐茶に、刻み稲妻の中形、
115
身せばに仕立て、平髷の中島田に掛捨の元結…

Moreover, the heroine, though recognizing the existence of fashion in the wider world,
has little tolerance for those who dress in a way that does not fit their station in life—in
other words, those who dress fashionably.
[Hair styles] change with the times. The hyōgo style is dated, and the five-level
one is unsightly. In the past, they used to say that propriety in all things was thehallmark of a wife. Recently, men’s wives are no longer mild, they change theirappearance to that of a prostitute or a kabuki actor. Their sleeves are wide as they
say men’s are… 116
その時にかはり、兵庫髷ふるし、五段髷も見にくし、むかしは律義千万なるを人の女房気質と申し侍りき。近年は人の嫁子もおとなしからずして、遊女、かぶき者のなりさまを移し、男のすなる袖口ひろく…

This, of course, stands in complete contrast to Yonosuke whose attire in the section
corresponding to his sixteenth year is described as follows:
In the outrage that the blossoms fall from even the famous trees at Oshio
Mountain, a single year is begrudged. At that time, a wrestling style and sword
brandishing technique of a dandy by the name of Kenbō was in fashion. Another
trend of the time was to shave closely the hair at one’s temples, have two paper
cords for one’s topknot, and grow a mustache. Sleeves were tight and about nine
inches; sashes were multiple and brightly colored; and long sword scabbards weresharkskin. All men worthy of being called a man were like this, having theappearance of a person who lived in a castle. Compared to the present [style], thatof the past is thrown away.
小塩山の名木も落花狼藉、今一しほと惜しまるる。けんぼふといふ男達、その頃は捕り手、居合はやりて、世の風俗も糸鬢にしてくりさげ、二すぢ懸けの元結、上髭のこして、袖下九寸にたらず、染分の組帯、せかいらげの長脇指、ここぞとおもふ人大方はこれ、王城に住む人の有様、今にみくらべてむかしを捨つるぞかし。 117115

Op. cit., p. 488.

116

Op. cit., p. 504.

117

Kōshoku ichidai otoko, Nihon bungaku zenshū 38, pp.131-132.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 2

223

Swords—the ultimate distinguishing mark of the samurai—are not a status symbol, but asign of stylishness.

A world of purely successive time, wherein categorization is neither

possible nor meaningful, is the environment most fit for fashion. 118
In both the Kōshoku ichidai otoko and the Kōshoku ichidai onna, these marks ofstatus or style are brought into the narrative by means of description or digression.
Though these can be found throughout the Kōshoku ichidai otoko, they take up a
relatively small amount of the discourse of the text, while the majority of it is devoted tothe advancement of the plot of each narrative unit.
situation is reversed.

In the Kōshoku ichidai onna, theThe great majority of plots of the individual units of this text canbe summarized as follows: the woman enters into a situation, something sexual occurs,
the woman moves on. They are the plots of the simplest of all genres, pornography.
Plot also occupies less discursive space than description or digression in many of theindividual narrative units.

For example, the entire plot of the Kouta no denju onna

chapter consists of a single one-line equivalent sentence—“I, too, became one of themand sullied the water of my soul” 119 —that follows nearly fifty-eight lines describing thelife of a singing woman. 120

Furthermore, the “Inbu no bikei,” the last story of the first

volume, begins:
118

Notice, too, how journeys are present in the Kōshoku ichidai otoko but cannot befound in the Kōshoku ichidai onna. Though the individual narrative units take place in awide variety of locals, some quite geographically distant, the woman simply is wherever
the story takes place. She is never depicted on the road because movement in space is
impossible without the movement of time.

119

Op. cit., p.545.

120

Ihara Saikaku, Kōshoku ichidai onna, Shinpen Saikaku zenshū, vol.1, honbun-hen(Tokyo: Benseisha, 1999), p.590-592.
Michael J. ScanlonChapter 2

224

By the west gate of the Kiyomizu Temple, I heard someone playing the shamisenand singing:
Difficult is the floating world,
How pitiful, my lot in life!
I do not cling to the life,
Which I wish would turn to dew.
The voice was gentle, and she was a beggar woman. In the present, she wears
padded clothes in the summer; though she realizes its winter, she wears but asingle layer in the face of the ubiquitous fierce mountain winds. “In the past, what
type of person was she?” I asked and was told that, when the pleasure quarters
was located on Rokujō Avenue, she was a courtesan of the highest rank, known as
Katsuragi the Second. That fall, I had gone to see the autumn foliage of the cherrytrees and, while mixing with a good number of women, pointed at her andlaughed. It is hard to foreknow one’s karmic destiny. To my sadness, my parents
met with troubles. When someone asked them, they served as his guarantor
without thinking anything of it. The man disappeared, and my parents were introuble. In return for fifty ryō, I lost my freedom and was sold to a certain
Kambayashi of the Shimbara quarters. The master of the house, thinking myappearance as a worker in this unexpected profession at the age of sixteen
exceeded that of the sixteenth night moon in the capital, happily looked forward
to the future.
清水の西門にて三味線ひきてうたひけるを聞けば、「つらきは浮世、あはれや我が身、惜しまじ命、露にかはらん」と、その声やさしく袖乞の女、夏ながら綿入れを身に掛け、冬とは覚えてひとへなる物を着る事、はげしき四方の山風今、「昔はいかなる者ぞ」とたづねけるに、遊女町六条にありし時の、後の葛城と名に立つ大夫がなりはつるならひぞかし。その秋、桜の紅葉見に行きしが、それに指さし、あまたの女まじりに笑ひつるが、人の因果はしれがたし。我もかなしき親の難儀、人の頼むとて何心もなく商売事請にたたれし、その人行方なくてめいわくせられし金の替り五十両にて、我を自由とするかたもなく、島原の上林といへるに身を売り、おもひよらざる勤め姿、年もはや十六夜の月の都にならびなきとて、
親方ゆくすゑをよろこぶ。 121

and ends:
What is more, though I sold myself to men for whom I did not care, I did not yield
my body to them. As I worked treating men harshly and making them think me
cruel, gradually nobody came to see me, and I was free both day and night.
Thusly I fell from the highest rank and longed for the past. Disliking a man can
only be done when one is in great favor. When one becomes lonely, meeting acustomer is happiness, not excepting servants, mendicant monks, cripples, and121

Kōshoku ichidai onna, Ihara Saikaku-shū, Nihon koten bungaku zenshū, vol.38,
pp.446-447.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 2

225

harelips. When you think about it, there is no profession so sad in this world as
this one.
しかも又、すかぬ男には身を売りながら身を任せず、つらなくあたり、むごくおもはせ勤めけるうちに、いつとなく人我を見はなし、明暮隙になりて、おのづか
ら大夫職おとりて、すぎにし事どもゆかし。男嫌ひをするは、人もてはやる時こそ。淋しくなりては、人手代、鉦たたき、短足、すぐちにかぎらず、あふをうれ
しく、おもへば世にこの道にこの道の勤め程かなしきはなし。 122

These mere twenty-three lines in the original book contain the entire plot related to theprotagonist.

The middle one hundred forty-four lines describe the life, fashion, tastes

and manners of an upper-class courtesan and the men who visit them as well as give
example stories of both in action, including subsections that document prices andcompensation as well as describe clothing. 123
serve to arrest narrative time.

These sections interrupt the plot andIn other words, the formal function of description anddigression is to promise a static time, a “now” that will not change.
of flux and uncertainty is evident even these sections.

And yet the chaos

In the long digression that forms

the middle of the Inbu no bike chapter, stories unrelated to the plot of the main narrative(the woman’s life story) are included, different descriptive narratives pile one on top of
the other, and even a single strand is far from ordered. 124

Furthermore, the woman,although she must dress according to the norms of each of her professions, can and does

122

Op. cit., pp.454-455.

123

Kōshoku ichidai onna, Shinpen Saikaku zenshū, pp.515-521.

124

For example, in the Inbu no bike chapter, the long section (eighteen lines) describing
the dress and actions of a skillful male visitor to the pleasure quarters is made up of asingle lexical unit linked almost entirely with paratactic conjunctions (by either –te or
open-ended rentaikei forms). This gives a sense of breathlessness and barely maintainedorder.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 2

226move from one status to another without any real difficulty. In other words, thoughimmutability is promised, change cannot be completely suppressed.
This problematization of time and its passage could possibly be related to theworld of commerce.

Money and its accumulation lie at the heart of this text. It has

been said that the woman’s confession is not so much an account of a life or a series ofsex stories as an exploration of the ways in which a woman could earn a living in earlymodern Japan. 125

Prices and wages are also painstakingly documented throughout the

text, but nowhere is there a reflection of the great inflation or price fluctuations that
occurred in extra-literary reality during the seventy or so years of the woman’s life.
Objects of high quality appearing at the beginning of the confession have dearer prices
than those for shoddy merchandise listed at its close. Furthermore, the prices are given
unequivocally and with a great deal of assurance; there is no hint that these prices could
be anything else.

The effect is that the price given for each object listed seems

categorical: this is what the item costs, and that will never change.

A rhetoric of thepure present tends to surround all mass-produced commodities, perhaps because these areobjects that most often quickly depreciate in value.

Advertisements assure potential

customers that now is the time to buy and that prices will never be so low again.

It

could even be argued that, because the producers of these goods are extremely cognizant
and fearful of the passage of time, an attempt to efface or arrest time might be a nearlynecessary part of the discourse that surrounds mass-produced commodities. That this, in
125

Teruoka Yasutaka, Jinbō Kazuya, Taniwaki Masachika, “Kōshoku ichidai onna,”
Saikaku, Kanshō: Nihon no koten bungaku, vol.27 (Tokyo: Kadokawa Shoten, 1976),
pp.137-139.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 2

227

an extremely rare occurrence, made its way into the Kōshoku ichidai onna may even be
relatable to the state of the publishing industry at the end of the seventeenth century.
The popularity of commercial fiction was based on its fashionability and was, therefore,
short-lived. Given the relatively low ceiling of possible reader-customers for abestseller and the high initial investment required to carve the woodblocks necessary foreach individual text, the perishability of these texts was of great concern to booksellers,and it became a fairly widespread practice for unscrupulous publishers to take the blocks
of a text that was no longer selling, carve a new title, and re-publish it as if it were new.
This, however, is a partial answer at best.

The peculiar relationship between

the time structure of this text and print capitalism might explain why the Kōshoku ichidai
onna was fit for the two narrowest environments of the text: author and publisher.
Saikaku was heavily involved in the publishing industry in Osaka, and Okuda Sarōuemon
had invested his money in the costly preparation of what was probably seen as a highly
perishable commodity.

Thus, the above explanation may explain why the text was able

to make it to the wider environment.

However, in literary evolution, it is the widest

environment that is of the greatest importance, and here the reading flounders. A
forward-moving time is a prerequisite for the vast majority of most merchant activity.
Though Ogyū Sorai would castigate them as middlemen who reaped profit without
producing anything on their own, the basic function of merchants within the four-classsystem of Tokugawa society was supposed to lie in the equalization of local surpluses
and scarcities.

Credit was also playing an ever-increasing role in business.

In boththese cases, money is literally made on time, and a freezing of it would seem to make thisMichael J. ScanlonChapter 2

228

a text extremely unfit to a merchant readership. More important, however, is the factthat the Kōshoku ichidai onna was not a text that appealed only to a merchant audience.
To the contrary, archival evidence seems to indicate that books of this text were read bymembers of all classes. To explain the text’s success in this wider environment, it isbest to look for a different possible function of its temporal structure.
The request that brings forth the woman’s confession—“Please tell of your pastas if it were now”—is, of course, ludicrous.
presented synchronically.
ichidai onna.

The diachronic cannot meaningfully be

But meaningfulness is not of any importance to the Kōshoku

In an article about Samuel Beckett’s Watt, Richard Ohmann writes of thenarrator’s violation of the conventions of storytelling:[He] sets set the reader at odds with the text, in a way that produces disorientation
and amusement, but which, on a deeper plane, calls into question the very
possibility, or at least the reasonableness, of building narratives and trying to
make sense of human conduct, or, indeed, of maintaining society.126
In the case of the Kōshoku ichidai onna, exclusive focus on the present most definitely
results in disorientation and amusement.

It also directly undermines the efficacy of theconfessional form of narrative. Typical examples of this style of long-form narrative
directly link the past of the narrator to his or her present in order to guide the future of theaddressee (or reader). As such, the confessional narrative is absolutely dependent on theexistence of a forward-moving time over which the protagonist can learn from experience.
Yet the woman of the Kōshoku ichidai onna learns nothing, and her text is the confessionof an unrepentant soul. Her last words to her two listeners are:126

Richard Ohmann, “Speech, Action, and Style,” Literary Style, a Symposium, Seymour
Chatman, ed. (London: Oxford University Press, 1971), p. 274.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 2229

I realize that life is short, and my story has gotten long, hasn’t it? Well, well, thisconfession has cleared me of my beclouded-ness and purified my heart. I, the one
who has made this a pleasant spring's night for you, I am progeny-less, so why
would I hide anything? There is nothing to be gained from doing so. As for mylife, from the time the lotus flower in my bosom opened until it closed, eventhough it can be said I have lived the life, my heart was unstained.
みじかき世とは覚えて、長物語のよしなや。よしよしこれも懺悔に身の曇晴れて、心の月の清く、春の夜の慰み人、我は一代女なれば、何をか隠して益なしと、胸の蓮華ひらけてぼむまでの身の事、たとへ流れを立てたればとて、心は濁りぬべきや。 127

Given the specifics of the close to her lecture, done in a state of admitted drunken
disorder, in combination with the fact that her greeting in the opening section makes it
clear that the two addressees have visited her “Hermitage of Eros” before, it seems highly
possible that her account might be nothing other than a means of seducing the young men.
In other words, the whole of her narration could be seen as one more similar but different
adventure added to the “meaningless” thread narrative that is the woman’s life.
In the final instance, the temporal structures of the Kōshoku ichidai otoko andthe Kōshoku ichidai onna have the same function. Though in one time is nearly purely
successive while in the other it is largely frozen, both refrain from integrating
meaningfully a beginning, a middle and an end in such a way that causal links are drawn
between past and present, present and future.

Though freedom plays a large role in both,neither directly undermines or attacks the feudalism of early modern Japan.
contrary, both are radically disengaged from society and its problems.

To theInstead, they

reside in the realm of pure play, where actions are without consequence. In this way,
they mimic the function in Tokugawa society of the pleasure quarters, the social space

127

Kōshoku ichidai onna, pp.582-583.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 2

230

with which the vast majority of the texts included within the larger genre of kōshoku-bon
are concerned.

The pleasure quarters, which were officially licensed by the Tokugawa

shogunate, were walled areas in cities in which prostitution and other activities thatwould be outlawed in quotidian society were permitted. Visited by members of all thefour classes, the demimonde occupied a dominant place in the social imaginary of earlymodern Japan, probably because it was a place that offered respite from the values of
feudal society.

In these circumscribed places, relationships lay outside the family unit,

sex was not associated with procreation, status distinctions were relatively unimportant,and disputes were settled by the parties concerned rather than by the government.

Solong as they remained contained within limited geographic areas, these areas did notpresent a danger to feudal society so much as function as a safety valve.
The culture of play would serve as a fertile environment for a whole range oftexts and genres of prose literature produced over the Edo period, including the caricature(katagimono), the stylebook (share-bon), and the humorous book (kokkei-bon).

Thesetypes of narrative literature can be termed playful because the texts belonging to each did
not need to engage social issues or problems in a structural way.

That is not to say satire

and other rhetorical devices were never employed within this body of texts to criticize theideals or realities specific to early modern Japan.

It is simply that the texts of eachgenre tended to be short fiction, collections of framed short stories, thread narratives, or
plot-less dialogues.

In these texts, time and its passage either remain amoral or the

narrative structures are simple enough that their forms are not tied closely to the era inwhich they formed, and the literature of play escapes the negative pressures associatedMichael J. ScanlonChapter 2
with the selectionist rectangle. 128

231

Playful prose will be set aside for the remainder ofthis study. This is not to say that these types of comic literature were unimportant to
Edo literature or that a neo-Darwinian approach could not continue to yield new insights
into the development of these narrative forms. However, genres with long-form plot
structures would predominate for much of Japan’s early modern period, and thenovel—the literary phenomenon the rise of which orients this study—is also typicallyseen as a genre of long-form fiction.
The importance of the preceding chapter goes beyond what it reveals about the
beginnings of the playful genres of Edo literature.

It also serves the vital function of

showing the limits of the analytic tool that is the selectionist rectangle. Disclosure ofthat for which selectionist rectangles cannot necessarily account is every bit as importantas demonstrations of that which they can more fully explain. The chimera of absolutecoherence, a dependency on which has long been the Achilles heel of previously
dominant constructivist literary theory, has no place in this form of poststructuralism, oneof the hallmarks of which is its acknowledgement of imperfection and limits.

The

selectionist rectangle will prove useful because the larger and more complex narrative
structures of long-form fiction, wherein the meaningful passage of time plays a crucialrole, do develop within the contradictions and problems of a given time and place, andmapping a text of this type onto this analytic tool yields valuable insight into thenarrative’s “ideological unconscious.”

The problematic that functioned as the limiting

128

The same could be said for kaidan ghost stories, a type of fiction popular throughout
the Edo period.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 2

232

constraints within which nearly all long-form early modern Japanese fiction was written
was one between ninjō (人情) and giri (義理), terms which are normally translated into
English as “passion” and “duty.” Though there are good reasons for this choice ofwords, it should be noted that ninjō and giri had a much broader meaning in Edo-period
Japan, and more inclusive and accurate translations would be “human feelings” and“correct principles.”The focus of the final body chapter of this text will be an

investigation of this problematic and the way in which it conditioned the development ofearly modern long-form fiction.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 3

233
Chapter III

The Fruits of Feudalism

Ihara Saikaku was, in many ways, an evolutionary failure.

The statement mightseem shocking to modern eyes because Saikaku is almost always depicted intwentieth-century literary histories as an unalloyed genius, the greatest prose author of
the Edo period whose fiction played a crucial role in the development of the Japanesenovel at the end of the nineteenth century.

The assertion would, however, have been

completely understandable to the popular reading audience of early modern Japan. As
has been mentioned previously, the genre of kōshoku-bon diverged greatly from the earlytexts brushed by Saikaku, and those texts written in the second half of his
career—themed collections of exempla-like narratives on such topics as samurai
vendettas and bill collection on New Year’s Eve—fared little better.

The focus of suchtexts as the Budō denraiki (Records of Martial Legends 武道伝来記, 1687) and Seken
mune san’yō (Worldly Mental Calculations 世間胸算用, 1692) is still on the plots of eachseparate narrative unit. However, the extreme structural similarity of each atomistic
narrative seems to have led to a focus on the characters that carry out the actions of theplot, and the second decade of the eighteenth century—about twenty years after
Saikaku’s death—witnessed the evolution of a genre of fiction known as katagi-mono(caricatures 気質物), satiric character sketches of stereotyped figures familiar tocontemporary society. This rise of character proved to be the most crucial development
within the playful, comic genres of fiction.

A highly circumscribed set of characters

who were basically immune to transformation were made the speakers of dialogue in the
Michael J. ScanlonChapter 3234

nearly plot-less style-books (share-bon 洒落本) popular in the later eighteen century, andsubsequent, extended narratives of the humorous book (kokkei-bon 滑稽本) tradition
were organized either by following the journeys of a few of these static stock charactersthrough time and space or by focusing on a certain space through which many of thesestereotyped figures would pass. 1

Thus, it is perhaps not so surprising that Saikaku’s

texts did not maintain their popularity for long, and it was the first writer to pen one ofthese katagi-mono, Ejima Kiseki (江島其磧, 1666-1735), who actually enjoyed a greater
reputation during the Edo period itself.
Nearly the exact opposite seems to be true for Saikaku’s contemporary, theplaywright Chikamatsu Monzaemon (1653-1724). Texts written by him helped set thepatterns for the long-form fiction produced during the Edo period, and he was often
referred to as the “god of literature” in early modern texts.

In the modern period, he has

been called the “Shakespeare of Japan,” but the vast majority of scholars admit thecomparison is forced. The “problem” with Chikamatsu’s oeuvre has been summarized
neatly by Donald Keene:
Chikamatsu’s concern with giri [correct principles] and ninjō [human feelings]
deprived his sewamono [domestic plays] of some of the variety we expect of agreat dramatist. He could not repeat himself too obviously before a public thatdemanded novelty, but the theme of the lovers’ suicides with its “complications”
of giri and ninjō did not allow for much invention. 2
It is precisely the overwhelming evolutionary success of Chikamatsu’s early plays that
seems to limit the estimation of their author in modern literary histories. Literary
1

Nakamura Yukihiko, “Goki yomihon no suii,” Nakamura Yukihiko chojutsushū, vol.4(Tokyo: Chūō Kōronsha, 1987), pp.404-405.

2

Donald Keene, World within Walls, p.261.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 3

235

evolution often happens by fits and starts with long periods of stasis punctuated by shortintervals of great structural change. Yet modern literary studies almost all focus on the
exceptional, those texts written during moments of upheaval, and either ignore ordisparagingly dismiss the normal, those similar but different texts written during long
stretches of formal stability.

The most direct pressure for this scholarly omission would

seem to be the unfitness of the monistic generative theories that have heretofore
dominated the modern study of literary history to explain the phenomenon of stasis.
Few scholars address the widely known phenomenon, and those that do seem to suggestthat stasis is due to an active desire on the part of the contemporary reading audience for
redundancy. This seems farfetched. If readers simply sought more of the same, itwould be highly unlikely that the literary marketplace would be flooded with new,somewhat different versions of the same basic form.

The same exact texts could be readad infinitum, and booksellers would never undertake the risks involved with publishinguntested texts.

This chapter will focus on and try to account for the long period of

relative stasis that occurred in Japanese long-form literature from the end of theseventeenth century until the Meiji Restoration and the dawn of modern Japan in latter
half of the nineteenth. 3

3

I emphasize stasis as a corrective to the genre—modern literary history of early modern
Japan—to which this text belongs because texts of this type tend to focus almost entirely
on change and innovation. I am not arguing that narrative literature was completely
frozen, just that the similarities over this time far outweigh the differences.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 3

236

An organizational conflictNow, because it concerns one of the most ardent of
human desires, love poetry contains a remarkably
large number of masterpieces. Then again, greed isalso a major human desire, but to lust after profit isthe epitome of gross inelegance. Thus, people areashamed of this and do not compose [on this theme],
so there are no such poems. Even if someone wereto recite one, it would surely be found hateful.
Ashiwake obune
Motoori Norinaga (1730-1801)
That giri and ninjō were important to early modern Japanese fiction is somethingwhich is often taken for granted by scholars of Edo literature.

The terms can be foundin period criticism, and many modern academics, such as Minamoto Ryōen, haveemphasized the importance of this productive conflict within early modern Japaneseculture and civilization as a whole. This study differs from previous scholarship in two
basic ways. One is that it applies this dynamic as an analytic tool only selectively. As
was stated previously, it posits that this problematic did not condition the development of
the non-long-form playful genres of literary prose.

Even the longest comic

dialogue—such as the Ukiyo-buro (1809-1813) of Shikitei Sanba—or the most extended
thread narrative—such as the Tōkaidō-chū hizakurige (1802-1809) of Jippensha
Ikku—could develop without any influence from this ideological contradiction, andmodern critics who attempt to assign meaning to the pair’s presence or absence in texts ofthese types are, in many ways, clouding the issue.

The playfulness of these texts derives

from their potential to be written outside—to escape—the ideological and social
contradictions of their times. The other has to do with the benefits of placing thisdynamic within a selectionist rectangle.

Whereas previous modern scholarship has

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 3237

drawn attention to the possibility of a union of giri and ninjō, this study will emphasize
the function of the purely negative, the prospect of actions and characters devoid of bothhuman feelings and correct principle.

More important, because the giri-ninjō

problematic itself only becomes fully meaningful in relation to those contradictions
dominant during the late medieval period as well as the socialization-individuality one ofmodernity, it helps to overcome (or at least relativize) the epistemological limits ofmodernity and, thus, allows for a more purely historicist understanding of early modern
Japanese literature than has previously been possible.
The pull of the modern epistemological framework is clear in even the best
existing scholarship on Edo-period literature. Humanist scholarship, as part of a greater
tendency to universalize art and the human experience to modern standards, tends toconflate giri and ninjō with socialization and individuality, the pair of terms that form thedominant irresolvable conflict within bourgeois capitalist ideology.

In an introductory

essay to a volume of translations of Chikamatsu’s plays, Donald Keene writes:
Giri untouched by ninjō may seem inhuman. It suggests at times the sense of
gloire in Rancinian tragedies with its stern insistence on reason and duty. Giridenies the individual’s right to be happy at the expense of society. In so doing it
preserves society, as ninjō unchecked by giri must eventually destroy it.
Many Western readers find the manifestations of ninjō even harder to take thanthose of giri. Killing one’s child to save the child of one’s master makes a kind ofsense, unspeakable though the act is, but abandoning one’s children in order tocommit suicide with the woman one loves somehow seems contemptible. Koharu
abandons her old mother, doing piecework in a back alley, in order to die with
Jihei; Koman gives Yosaku her money and runs away with him, though she knowsthat this will mean a return of her father to a terrible dungeon. The human feelings
which dictate such actions seem reprehensibly self-indulgent, and make us
appreciate better the selflessness of giri. 4
4

Donald Keene, Major Plays of Chikamatsu (New York: Columbia University Press,
1961), pp.34-35.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 3

238

Individuality and human feelings might be seen as being more privately oriented values,
while socialization and correct principles could be thought of as being more publicly
directed ones, and the affinities between each half of the pairing might help to explain thecontinuity between the long-form fiction of the early modern period and that of themodern one in Japan. However, the incongruities about which Keene writes are a signthat there are real differences between the limiting conflicts of the two periods.

Neither

individuality and human feelings nor socialization and correct principles were one andthe same phenomenon.

It is perfectly legitimate for critics to show how the“masterpieces” of the Edo period can still be read fruitfully in the modern world.
However, as has been pointed out by Franco Moretti, the power of modern scholars tocreate this canon is remarkably limited.

In all but the most exceptional of cases,

professors of literature at elite universities simply legitimize market decisions,consecrating the success certain texts enjoyed among the common readers of the past. 5
Thus, there is great value in restoring the ideological environment into which earlymodern literature was written and first read to determine the function it performed thenand assess the reasons for its initial success.
Historicist scholarship of a Marxist bent, on the other hand, tends see thegiri-ninjō problematic as symptomatic of an underlying class conflict and often associates
the terms with the two extremes of the four-class division that organized early modern
Japanese society. Documentary evidence shows that this would not simply be a

5

Franco Moretti, “The Slaughterhouse of Literature,” Modern Language Quarterly(March, 2000), pp.209-210.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 3239

retrospective invention of ideologically motivated modern scholars.

The two terms had

clear gender and class associations within the early modern period: correct principle wasa masculine trait of the samurai, while human feelings were feminine and allied withmerchanthood.

That is not to say that women and merchants could not be seen as actingin accordance with correct principles.

It is simply that, when they did so, they were

often thought to be mimicking the ways of their social superiors. Likewise, it wasalways recognized that samurai could fall victim to human feelings, but this was often
considered to have been brought upon military families by the extravagant desires of thewomen of the house. 6

Thus, it might seem reasonable to consider human feelings to bepart of an emergent capitalist ideological structure that was suppressed by the dominantfeudal one of correct principles until the Tokugawa government’s hold on power
weakened with the accumulation of wealth in the hands of the merchant class and abourgeois revolution occurred with the Meiji Restoration of 1868.

At first glance, sucha narrative would seem almost perfectly suited to contain the history of Japanese
long-form fiction.

Most scholars see the most famous love-suicide plays of Chikamatsu

Monzaemon—narratives in which male merchants and their geisha paramours choose to
die together rather than live a loveless life in a duty-ridden society—as tragedies
motivated by the absolute incompatibility of human feelings and correct conduct. By
the early nineteenth century, however, the Tokugawa system was breaking down, and thedemands of giri were destroying ninjō in the extra-literary world so the same problematic
was being resolved in melodramatic fashion—the weak townsman hero, unable to act
6

A good example of this can be found in Ogyū Sorai’s Seidan.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 3

240

because of the conflict between his emotions and societal duty, is rescued, deus ex
machina, and lives happily ever after—in a vain attempt rescue the social and ideologicalstatus quo. Finally, the Shōsetsu shinzui (The Essence of the Novel 小説神髄, 1886), acall for a new type of narrative fiction made by Tsubouchi Shōyō that is often thought tohave catalyzed and perhaps even determined the development of the modern Japanesenovel, derides the highbrow long-form fiction of the Edo period for its preoccupation
with “encouraging virtue and chastising vice” (kanzen chōaku 勧善懲悪) according to the
Confucian code of correct principles and states repeatedly that human feelings, especiallylove, should be the basis of the modern, realistic novel.
There are, however, reasons to question this narrative.

The connection between

martial-Confucian values and the samurai class was not necessarily of long standing.
As Nakamura Yukihiko points out, loyalty—the cardinal samurai virtue within thebushidō code—is a rarity within the military writings (gunsho) genre at the beginning of
the seventeenth century. 7

Likewise, the ideal of detachment—the polar opposite ofpassion within Buddhist logic—was central to the image of merchants in the latemedieval period. 8More important is the fact that, in order to be a contradiction capableof functioning as a basic mechanism of selection, both giri and ninjō had to be generally
thought of as positive but irreconcilable values throughout early modern society.
inspection of the archive reveals this to be the case.

An

A code of a correct conduct

7

Nakamura Yukihiko, “Kana-zōshi no seikaku,” Nakamura Yukihiko chojutsushū (Tokyo:Chūō Kōronsha, 1987), p.51.

8

Testuo Najita, Visions of Virtue (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1987),
pp.18-20.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 3

241

couched in Confucian terms is often espoused within writings addressed to a specificallymerchant audience.

The Shimai monjo (Shimai Documents 島井文書, 1779) contains a

set of seventeen injunctions written by the merchant Shimai Sōshitsu in 1610 for theedification of his heir, the first of which begins:
It goes without saying that, throughout life, you should be faithful andconscientious. You should be filial and warm to your parents, Sōi, your brothers
and your relations. Outside of this, with your friends—and certainly in yourdealings with outsiders—you should respect others, be modest and polite. You
should never in the least conduct yourself in an impulsive manner. First of all,there is no use whatsoever in lying or—even when speaking ill of
someone—saying something that is like a lie…
生中いかにも貞心みちき候はんの事不及申。親両人宗怡両人兄弟親類、いかにもかうかうむつましく、其外知音之衆、しせん外方之寄合にも、人をうやまいへり
くたり、いんきん可仕候、ひろうずいゐのふるまい、少も仕ましくも。第一うそをつき、たとい人ののしりきかせたる事成共、うそに似たる事、少も申出事無用
9…

The reason for this is simple: the early modern marketplace quickly became awell-developed and complex one in which credit and merchant associations played alarge role. 10

Merchants who acted purely out of self interest risked ostracization,

something which all but guaranteed long-term failure, and the value of a code of behavior
linking people to their communities—even if that meant occasionally acting in ways
contrary to personal desire—was recognized throughout the early modern social order.
Conversely, it was very typical for Confucian texts addressed to the samurai elite to insist
9

Shimai Sōshitsu, “Shimai monjo,” Dai Nippon shiryō 12:22 (Tokyo: Tōkyō Teikoku
Daigaku Bungakubu Shiryō Hensankai, 1920), p.457.
10

Even Ogyū Sorai acknowledged this to be true. In his Seidan, the power of money tooverride class divisions—merchants were living a lifestyle that exceeded that of thedaimyō barons and were even buying ranks and family lineages from impoverishedsamurai—is decried, but the text recognizes the importance of associations and guilds tomerchant activity.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 3

242that governance was in many ways dependent on a knowledge of ninjō, even thoughhuman feelings were neither completely rational nor totally understandable.

The

Keizairoku (A Record of the Political Economy 経済録, 1729) of Dazai Shundai states:
To know human feelings means to know the real feelings of the people of therealm. These real feelings are things such as likes and dislikes, pains andpleasures, joys and sorrows. There is no difference between great men and little
ones, the nobility and the base born. There is also no difference between noble
and base when it comes to the love for mother and father, wife and child. These
all emerge from the authenticity of a heaven-endowed nature, and do not containthe least bit of falsehood. Thus, they are called genuine emotions… What’s more,
the noble have the feelings of the noble; the petty have the feelings of the petty;
samurai have the feelings of samurai; farmers, craftsmen and merchants have thefeelings of farmers, craftsmen and merchants; men have the feelings of men;
women have the feelings of women. Even though various feelings differ based on
the type of person, that which is called feelings always indicates something
without falsehood.
In enacting matters of government, if one is in keeping with human feelings,
then the people will follow readily. If one goes against human feelings, then thepeople will not follow. To keep with human feelings is to act so people are content,
calm, and joyful. To go against human feelings is to make it so people are hateful,pained, and sad. Heroic samurai, because they understand correctness well andhave the heart to stay on the Way, will hold back and repress feelings in order toremain obedient for awhile. However, since their hearts will never be at ease, it isinevitable that people who disobey the law and violate the prohibitions willappear in due course. The masses do not know correctness and have not the heart
to maintain course on the Way. They can neither hold back nor repress their
feelings. Because they are people who can only think of their own convenience, intimes of governments that go against human feelings, they do not obey in the least.
Even though they know the horror of punishments and penalties, they cannot bear
the grief and pain before their eyes and end up disobeying the law and violating
the prohibitions. Since long in the past, there has never been a case of agovernment that goes against human feelings being of long duration. The
governments of the ancient sages all were in keeping with human feelings.
人情ヲ知ルトハ、天下ノ人ノ実情ヲ知ル也。実情トハ、好悪・苦楽・憂喜ノ類ヲ云…人ニ此情無キ者有ラズ。大人小人、貴者賎者、少モ異ナルコト無シ。又父母妻子恩愛ノ情モ、貴賎、異ラズ。此等ノ情ハ、皆人ノ天性ノ誠ヨリ出テ少モ偽無
キ者ナル故ニ、是ヲ実情ト云…又貴人ニ貴人ノ情有リ。小民に小民ノ情有リ。士ニ士ノ情有リ。農工商ニ農工商ノ情有リ。男子ニ男子ノ情有リ。女子ニ女子ノ情有リ。人ノ品ニ因テ、夫々ノ情異ルコト有レドモ、情ト云ハ、凡テ偽無キ処ヲ指テ云也。

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243

凡政治ヲ施シテ、人情ニ協ヘバ、民従ヒ易シ。人情ニ悖レバ、民従ハズ。人情ニ協フトハ、人ノ好ミ楽ミ喜ブコトヲ行フ也。人情ニ悖ルトハ、人ノ悪ミ苦ミ憂ルコトヲ行フ也。士大夫ハ大抵義ヲ知テ道ヲ守ル心モ有ル者ナレバ、人情ニ協ハヌ政ニモ、情ヲ抑ヘ情ヲ制シテ姑ク従ヘドモ、本来心ノ安カラヌコトナレバ、自然ニ法令ニ違ヒ、制禁ヲ犯ス者モ出来ルコト必然ノ理也。小民ハ義ヲ知ラズ、道ヲ守ル心モ無ケレバ、情ヲ抑ヘ、情ヲ制スルコト能ハズ。一身ノ便利ノミヲ思フ者ナル故ニ、人情ニ悖タル政ニハ、決シテ従ハズ。刑罰ノ畏ロシキコトヲ知ラザ
ルハアラネネドモ、眠前ノ愁苦ニ甚カネテ、法令ニ違ヒ、制禁ヲ犯スナリ。昔ヨリ、人情ニ悖タル政ノ永久ニ行ハレタルハ有ラズ。古ノ聖人ノ政ハ、皆人情ニ協ヘタルモノ也。 11

Arguments for human feelings often noted that they were inevitable and genuine.

This

unto itself, however, is not sufficient for an understanding of why ninjō was a value
capable of contending with giri during Japan’s early modern period.

In order to bettercome to grips with this contradiction before using it to orient a study of early modern
long-form fiction, it might be a good idea to map out its general contours by showing theway in which the giri-ninjō problematic conditioned a different family of texts, those of
Confucian philosophy.
Confucian philosophy, of course, was one of the dominant ideological structuresin early modern Japan and, as such, served to organize the overall meta-structure that was
the Tokugawa ideology.

Thus, it is of the greatest importance to note that the vast

majority of the central texts of this type weigh correct principle more heavily than humanfeelings.

This is clearly visible in the Jinsilu (Reflections on Things at Hand

[Kinshiroku] 近思録, 1176), a late twelfth-century anthology co-edited by Lu Xuqian(1137-1181) and Zhu Xi (1130-1200) and a foundational text of the type of Confucianism
patronized by the Tokugawa shogunate in an attempt to legitimize their rule.

In this text,

11

Dazai Shundai, Keizairoku, Sorai gakuha, Nihon shisō taikei, vol.37 (Tokyo: Iwanami
Shoten, 1972), pp.24-25.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 3244

feelings are seen as being originally extrinsic to humanity, something which infects
people and brings about their ruin:[Man’s] original nature is pure and tranquil. Before it is aroused, the five moral
principles of his nature are complete. These are called humanity, correctness,
propriety, wisdom and faithfulness. As his physical form appears, it comes into
contact with external things and is aroused from within. Having been aroused
from within, the seven feelings (jō) emerge. These are known as happiness, anger,
sorrow, fear, love, hate and desire. As feelings become strong and increasingly
wild, his nature becomes damaged. For this reason, an enlightened man controls
his feelings, making them accord with the mean, and rectifies his mind in order tonourish his nature. The foolish man does not know to control them. His feelings,
given free reign, reach the height of depravity, shackle his nature and destroy it.
其本也、真而静。其未発也、五性具焉。曰仁・義・礼・智・信。形既生矣、外物
触其形而動其中矣、其中動而七情出焉。曰喜・怒・哀・懼・愛・悪・欲。情既熾而益蕩、其性鑿矣。是故覚者約其情使合於中、正其心、養其性。愚者則不知制之、
縦其情而至於邪壁、梏其性而亡之。 12and these forces are set in diametrical opposition to correct principles:
Master Mingdao said: Correct principles and external forces [of feelings] arecontinually vying with each other. To tell the difference between a gentleman andan inferior man, look at the degree of each. When correct principles (giri) grow in
intensity, then you know that the strength of the external force is weakened. He
who eliminates them completely is a great worthy.
明道先生曰、義理與客気常相勝。只看消長分数多少、為君子・小人之別。義理所
得漸多、則自然知得客気消散得漸少。消尽者是大賢。 13Hayashi Razan—the Confucian scholar whose connections with the Tokugawa rulershipallowed his private school to evolve into the official Tokugawa academy—was a followerof the Confucianism of Zhu Xi, and the modern scholar Minamoto Ryōen finds a similar
hierachized dichotomy in Razan’s writings. 14

A good example of this is a section on

12

Kinshiroku, Ichikawa Yasuji, ed., Shin’yaku kanbun taikei, vol.37 (Tokyo: Meiji Shoin,1975), pp.59-61.

13

Op. cit., p.306.

14

Minamoto Ryōen, Giri to ninjō (Tokyo: Chūō Kōronsha, 1969), pp.6-7.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 3245“the seven feelings” (shichi jō 七情) in his Santokushō (Excerpts on the Three Virtues 三
徳少, ca.1629):

If one is to speak of happiness, anger, sorrow, fear, love, hate and desire, there ispretty much no end to the breadth of people’s minds. They are like heaven or thesky. That which can ponder a thousand or ten thousand years of the past, it is themind. That which can know the principle of everything and anything, it too is themind. Even though it is so broad and large, it is inherent to the human body and is
not something extrinsic. This mind, before a single thought rises, is quiescent,correct, calm and bright. If something that should make one take pleasure comesalong, then one takes pleasure. Should there be something that should arouseanger, then one gets angry. If there is something due to which one should feelsorrow, then one feels sorrow. At times one should be afraid, one is afraid. One
loves whom one should love. One hates whom one should hate. If there are things
one should want or seek, then one wants or seeks them. This is the function of thehuman heart.
What’s more, it is happiness to enjoy all the successes of parents, siblings, wifeand child. It is happiness when they like what is good and hate what is bad. It isalso happiness to celebrate the governing of the state and the maintenance ofpeace in the realm. To be happy at things such as these is reasonable. Should one
rejoice in the pain of others or enjoy it when bad things happen to oneself, allthese are happiness that goes against reason. They are not justifiable happiness.
When one eliminates villains, drives off petty men, kills brigands, punishes
traitorous or ambitious people, or brings those who transgress before the law—attimes like these, it is reasonable to feel anger. Should one transgress against theinnocent or grow incensed when someone remonstrates or instructs, then it is notjustifiable anger. Further, it is not reasonable anger when one gets angrier andangrier and rages against someone who has done no wrong.
To be saddened at someone’s illness, to mourn someone’s death, and to be
anxious about people’s troubles—sadness is reasonable. To feel for brigands or bepained over the downfall of villains, these are like mourning the death of a rat.
These are not justifiable sadness.
To be in awe of one’s lord as a minister, to be in awe of one’s father as a son, tobe in awe of Heaven’s Way as a lord—such are reasonable fears. This type of fearcannot be said to be cowardice. It is having discretion before great things. To
worry about one’s situation going bad, to worry about making a mistake, and toworry about being injured when trying to do something—these are all reasonable
fears. It is unreasonable when one does such things as look out over a military
encampment and fear that things will not work out without a correct death or isafraid that one will not be able to succeed by doing something wrong.
To love one’s parents, to adore one’s lord, to think fondly of sages andgentlemen, and to be friendly with one’s siblings as well as one’s wife andchildren—these are reasonable loves. It is not reasonable to love when it’s being

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 3

246

close to petty men or being fond of villains. Favoring the bad people among thosewith whom one mixes, or parental blindness in the face of a child’s
badness—these and there ilk are love that goes against reason. They are notjustifiable love.
To hate vice, to hate insolence and incorrectness, to hate unfiliality anddisloyalty, to hate injustice, and to hate falsehood—all of these are justifiable
hatred. To hate good things, to hate sages, to hate good people due to envious
bitterness, or to hold grudges against those who outstrip one in wisdom, skill, or
ability—all of this is to hate against reason.
Desire is having a heart that hopes and seeks. When it comes to desires, there
are two types: those that are possible, and those that are not. To hope to be filial
towards one parents and to wish to be loyal to one’s lord, these are eminently
realizable. To hope to do good, to hope to avoid evil, to wish to be humane andcorrect, and to wish to not lie—these are all eminently realizable matters. It isreasonable to hope for these things. Wanting loftiness and richness not of thestation into which one was born, wishing long life beyond one’s fate—these are
not reasonable things for which to hope. Because that into which one is born issomething decided by Heaven, even if one were to seek [something different], it
would be hard for anything to come of it. For instance, it is like a short person
wanting to get taller, an ugly person wanting to become beautiful, or a skinny
person wanting to grow fat quickly. Even if one wants it, it probably will not
happen. To scheme for unrealizable hopes and to hope for unrealizable things are
the actions of villains and morons. Thus, in seeking after things that cannot be,they cause trouble, commit crimes, and as a result destroy themselves. It isreasonable not to want all these things.
The aforementioned happiness, anger, sorrow, fear, love, hate and desire—theseven feelings are the functioning of the heart. Nothing could happen if they were
not there from the start. Yet at times when even a single one of the seven goesagainst principle, the original heart is damaged, and the heart necessarily will
become improper. When the heart is improper, it cannot regulate the body. Whenbodies are unregulated, the state becomes unregulated. At times when these sevenfeelings are functioning in accordance with principle, the whole and original heart
will naturally be proper and bright. When the heart is proper, the body is regulated.
When bodies are regulated, the house is regulated. When the houses are regulated,
the province is regulated. When provinces are regulated, the realm is settled. Thus,
the Way of the sage is based on making proper this heart. There is a name for thisproper and bright heart—clear virtue.
喜・怒・哀・懼・悪・欲ヲワケテイハバ、凡、人ノ心ハ広大ニシテカギリナシ。
天ノ如ク虚空ノ如シ。千年万年ノ久シキ昔ヲ思フモ心ナリ。千里万里ノ遠キ所ヲ思フモ心也。アラユルヨロヅノ物ノ理ヲ知ルモ心ナリ。如此広大ナレドモ、人ノ身ニソナハリテ外ニアラズ。此心、一念モ起ラザルキハ、シヅカニ、タダシク、平ニシテ、アキラカナリ。喜ブベキコト来タレバスナハチヨロコビ、怒ルベキコ
ト至レバスナハチ怒リ、哀ムベキ事アレバスナハチ哀ミ、懼ルベキトキハスナハ

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 3247

チ懼レ、愛スベキモノヲバスナハチ愛シ、悪ムベキモノヲバスナハチ悪ミ、ネガ
イノゾムベキ事アラバスナハチネガフ、コレ人ノ心ノ用ナリ。
又父母・兄弟・妻子以下マデ、ナニゴトナクメデタキヲ楽シムハ、喜也。国家治マリ天下タイラカナルヲ祝フモ、喜也。此類ハ喜ブベキノ道理ナリ。若人ノ苦シム事ヲ喜ビ、アルイハ吾身ニ悪ヲスル事ヲ好ミナンドスルハ、皆道理ニソムキ
テ喜ブナリ。喜ブベキ道ニ非ズ。
悪人ヲノゾキ、小人ヲシリゾケ、盗賊ヲ殺シ、謀叛・野心ヲスルモノヲ誅罰シ、罪アル者ヲ法ニヲコナフ類ハ、ミナ怒ベキ道理ナリ。若罪ナキ者ヲ罪ニヲコナヒ、
意見・教訓スル事ヲ腹立スルハ、怒ルベキ道ニアラズ。又怒ヲタクハヘテ咎ナキ
人ヌムカヒテナヲモ怒ルハ、イカルベキ理ニ非ズ。
人ノ病アルヲアハレミ、人ノ死ルヲオソレ、諸人ノ迷惑スルヲウレフルハ、悲ムベキノ道理也。盗賊ヲアハレミ、悪人ノホロブルヲイタミ思フハ、鼠ノ死ヌル
ヲ悲ムガゴトシ。悲ムベキ道ニ非ズ。
臣トシテハ君ヲオソレ、子トシテハ父ヲオソレ、君トシテハ天道ヲオソレナン
ドスルハ、オソルベキ道理也。懼トハ臆スルヲ云ニハアラズ。大事也トツツシミ
テ思フヲ云也。我身ニ僻事アランカト思ヒ、アヤマチアランカト思ヒ、事ヲ行ハンニケガノアランカト思フハ、皆ヲソルベキ道理也。若、軍陣ニノゾミテ義ヲ代テ死デカナハザル所ヲオソレ、悪ヲシテ其事ノ成就セマジキ事ヲオソルルタグイ
ハ、道理ニアラズ。
父母ヲ愛シ、主人ヲシタイ、賢人・君子ヲナツカシク思イ、妻子・兄弟ヲムツ
マシクスルハ、愛スベキノ道理也。若、小人ヲシタミ、悪人ヲナツケントスルハ、
愛スベキ道ニアラズ。我トマジハルモノニハ悪キモノニテモヒイキヲシ、我子ノ
悪シキコトハ親ノ目ニ見ヘヌ類ハ、理ニソムキテ愛スル也。愛スベキ道ニアラズ。
悪ヲニクミ、無礼・不義ヲニクミ、不孝・不忠ヲニクミ、無道ヲニクミ、イツ
ハリヲニクムハ、ミナニクムベキ道也。ヨキ事ヲニクミ、賢人ヲニクミ、我ガ為ニ私ノウラミアレバ善人ヲモニクミ、又我ヨリマサルルル智・芸・能アル者ヲソ
ネミネタムハ、皆是理ニソムキテニクム也。
欲トハ、ネガイヲモフ心也。人ノネガフテナル事ト、ナラヌ事トノ、二ノ道アリ。親ニ孝ヲセントネガイ、君ニ忠ヲセントネガフハ、イカホドモノナル事也。
善ヲセントネガヒ、悪ヲセヌヤウニトネガヒ、仁義ヲセントナガイ、偽ヲイハヌ
ヤウニトネガフハ、ネガフテイカホドモナル事也。是ネガイ思フベキ道理也。若生レツク所、モトヨリサダマレル天命ナレバ、ノゾムトモカナイガタシ。タテェ
バ、丈ヒクキモノノ丈タカクナラントシ、ミネアシキ人ノミメヨクナラントシ、
ヤセタルモノノ俄ニコヱントスルガ如シ。ネガフトモカナフベカラズ。ナラヌネ
ガイヲクワダテ、カナハニノゾミヲナスハ、悪人・愚人ノザナルユヘニ、アラヌ
事ヲ思イカケテ、僻事ヲシ悪ヲツクリテ、ソノハテハテハ身ヲホロボスナリ。是皆ネガウウマジキ道理ナル故也。
右ノ喜・怒・哀・懼・悪・欲ノ七情ハ、心ノ用ニシテ、モトヨリナクテカナハ
ヌモノナレドモ、七ツノ内一ツナリトモ、理ニソムキテナス時ハ、本心ノササハ
リトナリテ、心カナラズタダシカラザルナリ。心タダシカラネバ身モヲサマラズ、身ヲサマラネバ国家モヲサマラズ。此七情ヨク理ニ叶ヒテ用ル時ハ、一心ノ大体、ヲノヅカラタダシクアキラカ也。心タダシケレバ身ヲサマル。身ヲサマレバ家ヲサマル。家ヲサマレバ国ヲサマル。国ヲサマレバ天下ヲサマレバ天下タイラカナ
リ。サレバ聖人ノ道ハ、其心ヲタダシクスルヲ根本トス。此タダシクアキラカナ

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248

ル心ヲ、名ヅケテ明徳ト云ナリ。 15

Human feelings are good, but only as long as they do not interfere with a sacrosanct
communal and familial order. Though this insistence that all ninjō that violates giri
needs to be eradicated was criticized by Kumazawa Banzan and Ogyū Sorai as inhumane
and untenable, correct principle in the absence of human feeling—duty—was recognized
as a possibility during the early modern period, and it forms one of the sections of theselectionist rectangle.
Figure 5: Selectionist Rectangle for Ninjō-Giri Problematic within Confucian Philosophy
affection
Human feelings

Correct principles

passionduty

Not correct principles

Not human feelings
calculation

If it was the ultimate irresolvability of giri and ninjō that enabled them tofunction as the chief mechanism of selection in early modern Japan, it is just as importantto realize that the two were not absolutely incompatible.

It was often pointed out inperiod texts that some human feelings—far from being inimical to proper conduct andcommunal harmony—could actively support correct principles and, thus, serve as a basisof public and domestic stability.

Common are statements like the one that can be foundin Itō Jinsai’s Gomō jigi (The Meaning of Words in the Analects and Mencius 語孟字義,
15

Hayashi Razan, Santokushō, Fujiwara Seika Hayashi Razan (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten,1975), pp.181-184.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 3249

ca.1685):
People talk of human feelings, human desires, and the collective feelings of therealm. These all have this meaning: the eyes responding to forms, the ears
responding to sound, the mouth responding to tastes, and the four limbs
responding to rest—these are nature. The eyes’ desiring to look upon beauty, theears’ desiring to hear fine music, the mouth desiring to eat delicious things, andthe four limbs’ desiring to obtain rest—these are feelings. The closeness between
father and son is nature. A father wanting his son to be good, and a son wanting
his father to live a long life—these are feelings. Again, it is said: “Liking what isgood and hating what is bad—this is a feeling common throughout the world.”
Inferring from passages like these, when you look at them, the meaning of humanfeelings becomes clear.
Mencius said: “People are not the same because of feelings.” The meaning of
his words is that people—depending on whether they are great or petty, sloppy orquick—each have his preferences. Thus, these are called feelings. The “feelings ofthe myriad of things” spoken of in the Yijing (Book of Changes) is of the same
meaning. Mencius also said: “When looking upon a brute, that which they think isthat he never had any inborn ability. What could the feelings of such a person be!”The meaning of his words is: the whole realm is the same in liking being held inhigh regard by others; the whole realm is the same in hating being looked down
upon. When one is singled out and thought of as an animal—this is not somethingpeople want. Therefore, [Mencius] asked: “What could the feelings of such aperson be!” [Mencius] also said: “Because there are feelings, people are able to be
morally good.” This is exactly that.
人常に人情と言い、情欲と言い、あるいは天下の同情と言う、みなこの意なり。
目の色における、耳の声における、口の味における、四肢の安逸における、是性。
目の美色を視んことを欲し、耳の好音を聴かんことを欲し、口の美味を食らわん
ことを欲し、四肢の安逸を得んことを欲す、是情。父子の親は、性なり。父は必ずその子の善を欲し、子は必ずその父の寿考を欲するは、情なり。又曰く、「善を好みし悪を悪むは、天下の同情なり。
」おおよそこの類を推してこれを見れば、情の字の義おのずから分曉ならん。孟子の曰く「物の斉しからざるは、物の情なり」と。言うこころはあるいは大あるいは小、あるいは緩あるいは急、物おのおの好むところ有り。故にこれを情と謂うなり。易にいわゆる「万物の情」と、是この意。孟子又曰「人その禽獣なるを見て、以為えらくいまだかつて才有らざる者と。
是あに人の情ならんや。
」言うこころは人のために栄とせらるるは、天下の同じく好むところ、ひとのために辱しめらるるは、天下の同じく悪むところなり。人われを指してもって禽獣とせば、人の欲するところにあらず。故に曰く、「是あに人の情ならんや。」と。又いわゆる「乃ちその情のごときは、すなわちもって善をな16すべし。
」と、即ち是この意。
16

Itō Jinsai, Gomō jigi, Itō Jinsai Itō Tōgai, Nihon shisō taikei, vol.33 (Tokyo: Iwanami
Shoten, 1971), pp.56-57.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 3

250

The valorization of human feelings in this particular text is often attributed to the fact that
the Gomō jigi was written by a townsman (chōnin 町人) and supposedly read by alargely merchant audience.

Yet the statement is not so different from the section of

Hayashi Razan’s Santokushō quoted earlier, and it should never be forgotten that, even
there, pure duty was but a last resort. Feudal bonds were never supposed to be coldly
contractual. To the contrary, the ideal relationship between lord and vassal, ruler andruled in early modern Japan was to be based on affection with superiors fulfilling the roleof fathers and inferiors that of sons.

Both public and private order should have been

maintained because human feelings coincide with correct principle, and proper behavior
would be a natural human response. 17

Thus, affection—the synthesis of giri andninjō—is the complex term of this selectionist rectangle.
Not all the human desires, however, could be included in this category. One ofthese was romantic love.
based on affection.

Intimate relationships, like all others, were supposed to be

However, it was obvious that this was not always the case and thatan alternative, passion, had the potential to disrupt domestic harmony and, thus,
communal order.

The Jisilu warns:

Men and women have the order of superiority and inferiority. Husbands speak,
and wives obey. These are constant principles. If people follow their feelings anddo exactly as they desire, acting simply for the sake of enjoyment, men will becaught up in desire and lose their strength, while women become accustomed toenjoyment and forget about obedience. Thus, there will be misfortune, and no
profit.
男女尊卑之序、夫婦有唱従之理。此常理也。若従情肆欲、唯説是動、男牽欲而失18
其剛、婦馴説而忘其順、則凶而無所利矣。
17

Minamoto, p.49.

18

Kinshiroku, p.580.
Michael J. ScanlonChapter 3251This text, for the most part, tries to eradicate everything that might damage public anddomestic harmony, so passion has no positive value whatsoever in it.
texts do not go as far.

Other Confucian

The Shūgi gaisho (Supplementary Writings on Accumulating

Correctness 集義外書, ca.1679), a text written by Kumazawa Banzan, contains thefollowing response to a proposal advocating a ban on homosexual affairs:
In Nakae Tōju’s Okina mondō, homosexuality is called overwhelmingly incorrect,
and people are shamed and cautioned against it. To these things, I respond: in thegreat lands of India, China and Japan, [homosexuality] is a social practice, and it
has long been something like a custom. Even if it were defended against, there
would never be an end to things. Even if it is contrary to reason, one does notlabel incorrect something that is widespread and of long standing. As for the factthat it is not reasonable, it can be called a case where principle is pushed to thelimit. If you think it lies outside reason, then you alone should not do it. It is not
right to disparage others.
中江藤樹の翁問答によりて、男色を甚不義なりといひて、人をはづかしめいましむ。予これによつて云、大国天竺我国共に世の習となり、風俗のごとくなる事久し。ふせぐともやむべからず。たとへ道理にそむける事にても、世中おしなべなし来たりて、とし久しき事をば不義といはず。道理にあらぬことは、理をきはむる論に当てはいふべし。道理にあらぬとしらば、我のみせざるにてたれり、人をそしるべからず。 19

Passion should never be outlawed because any attempt to do so is doomed to
failure—“the force of human feelings cannot be stopped” 20 —and would only serve toexpose governmental weakness.

The Shūgi gaisho, however, does not stop there.

This

type of passion is actively supported because such strong feelings might be themotivation of soldiers who sacrifice themselves on the field of battle. This was in noway typical.

Texts of Confucian philosophy were almost always concerned with

19

Kumazawa Banzan, Shūgi gaisho, Banzan zenshū, vol.2 (Tokyo: Banzan Zenshū
Kankōkai, 1941), p.186.
20

Op. cit., p.184.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 3

252

quotidian existence, and such proactive advocacy of passion is rare within this family of
writing. More common are statements like the one in Dazai Shundai’s Seigaku mondō(Dialogue on Sagely Learning 聖学問答, 1732):
Desire between men and women is a great desire of humanity. If it were left free,people would be no different from beasts, so the sages established the ritual of
marriage and strictly separated men and women to prevent licentiousness. To haveextraneous affairs with someone not one’s own wife or concubine was defined asa ritual violation. The Buddha completely cut off relations between husbands andwives and banned desire between men and women; this did not stop at physically
avoiding these things, but even took it to be a sin to have such thoughts in one’s
heart. In the Way of the [Confucian] sages, even if one looks at another’s wife,
thinks in his heart of her as a beautiful woman, and takes pleasure in her
appearance, as long as he does not commit a ritual violation, he is considered to
be a gentleman who observes ritual. “Controlling the heart by means ofritual”—this means the following. This controlling the heart, it means keeping
things on the level of thought.
男女の欲は、人の大欲にて、是を縦にすれば、禽獣と異なること無き故に、婚姻の礼を制し、男女の別を厳にして、人の淫乱を防たまう。自己の妻妾に非ずして、外に淫するを、非礼とす。釈氏は一向に夫婦を絶し、男女の欲を禁じて、身に其の事を行ぜざるのみならず、心中に其の念を起すも罪とす。聖人の道には、外の婦女を見て、心に美女なりと思ひ、其の色を悦ても、身に非礼を行はざれば、礼を守る君子とす。
「以礼制心」とは、是をいふなり。心を制しといふは、只其の心
21の欲を、思ふままに遂ざるをいふ。

Passionate feelings are allowable, but only as long as they are not acted upon.

This

semi-tolerance is also evident in the way in which the study of poetry was advocated inthis corpus of texts.

An understanding of human feelings was considered to be aprerequisite for legitimate worldly success, especially in the realm of governance, and astudy of poetry was considered a preferred means to achieve this.

However, it was also

recognized that a large number of poems—including a good number in the Shijing (Bookof Poetry 詩経), a text supposedly compiled by Confucius that became one of the most
21

Dazai Shundai, Seigaku mondō, Sorai gakuha, Nihon shisō taikei, vol.37 (Tokyo:
Iwanami Shoten, 1972), pp.125-126.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 3

253

important texts in the Confucian canon—were on the topic of love. The most common
resolution to this conundrum was the “promoting virtue and chastising vice” (kanzen
chōaku 勧善懲悪) approach advocated in the texts of Zhu Xi and his direct followers, atheory which stated that passionate love poems were written to provide negative
examples, models of behavior that should be avoided.

In short, human feelings that

could not be reconciled with correct principles were presented in literary texts precisely
for the purpose of strengthening correct principles in the extra-literary world.

But even

the Gomō jigi of Itō Jinsai, which argues against this orthodox approach, goes out of its
way to insist that the poetry of the Shijing elucidates human feelings but has never caused
any “evil practices” (hei 弊). 22

Passion is natural and should be recognized, but it is not

to be experienced directly by the proper Confucian gentleman.

Nevertheless, passion,

as a “valid” pure human feelings, forms the counterpart to duty in the selectionist
rectangle. 23
Another feeling that cannot be contained within affection is a strong ambition for
selfish profit, and the attitudes towards it display little of the ambivalence associated with
passion.

Cunning attempts to fulfill these desires that interfere with the public order are

malevolent and illegitimate; those who carry out these actions are purely evil.

This ismade abundantly clear in the Jisilu:
Mencius argued that that which separates [Sage King] Shun and [Robber] Zhi issimply the difference between correctness (gi) and profit (ri). The difference
about which he talks, that which keeps them apart, is not very much at all. Their22

Itō Jinsai, Gomō jigi, p.97.

23

In the first volume of Hiraga Gennai’s Fūryū Shikōden, it is written: “That which is the
epitome of human feelings is first of all erotic desire.”

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 3

254

point of contention is but a hair’s breadth. The difference between correctness andprofit is simply that between public and private. Should one depart even a little
from correctness, then it will be about profit. This thing called calculation, it
happens because there is such a thing as profit and loss. If there were no profit
and loss, then what use would there be for calculation? [Concern with] profit andloss is a constant feeling in the realm. People all seek out profit and avoid loss. A
sage is not concerned with profit and loss. He looks only at whether, according tocorrectness, he should or should not do something. This allows him to stay within
his [Heaven-granted] lot.
孟子弁舜跖之分、只義利之間。言間者謂相去不甚遠、所争毫末尓。義与利只是個
公与私也。僅出義、便以利言也。只那計較、便利是為有利害。若無利害、何用計較。利害者天下之常情也。人皆知趣利而避害。聖人則更不論利害、只看義当為不当為。便是命在其中也。 24

It was this calculating ambition that was most closely associated with conduct that
violates human feelings and correct principles, and it was most certainly a pejorative term.
In Ogyū Sorai’s Seidan (Talks on Government 政談, ca.1725), a general deterioration of
morals and the public order is blamed on an excess of greedy desires among the elites ofthe samurai class and the ability of the merchant class to devise, implement and routinizemeans by which the financial resources of their social betters are usurped.

Though thelion’s share of the blame is placed elsewhere, those rōnin causing unrest are denigrated asfollows:
In particular, the masterless samurai of the military class are people who know not
the work of craftsmen or merchants and can [only] make their way in the world
by counting on their relatives and neighbors. Recently, the morals of the militaryclass have deteriorated. They have lost their feeling of trust, and only theirthoughts of profit have grown strong. As will be discussed in volume three, thisarises from the people above. With no one to look after them, they have a difficult
time getting by and are led astray by bad social customs. Now, it has become thecase that they lie constantly and commit various other villainous deeds.
殊に武家の浪人と言者は工商の業をも知らず、親類近付の力にて計り世を送る者
なるに、近来武家の風儀悪くなり、人に頼もしき心消失せ、只利勘の心強なる。

24

Jisilu, p.393.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 3

255

是又三巻目に云ふ如く、皆上たる人の心より起りたることにて、見継ぐ人なき故
渡世困り、世間の悪き風俗に引れて偽りばかりなど種々の悪事をすることに今は成なり。 25

The Towazu katari (Unasked for Narration とはずかたり, 1728) by Nakai Shūan(1693-1758) both defends the merchant class, a group known for its skill at making profit,
against accusations that its members were incapable of true human feelings as well as
argues that calculation can be done within the bounds of correctness and be for the public
good. 26

And yet the distrust of profit for profit’s sake can be found even in the writingsof the merchant-philosopher, Itō Jinsai.

In an essay of his entitled “Daigaku wa Kōshi

no isho ni arazu ben” (Arguing that the Great Learning is Not a Writing of Confucius 大
学は孔子の遺書にあらず弁) that is included in some versions of the Gomō jigi, it is

written:[The Daxue (Great Learning)] also says: “Thus, a state should not consider profit
to be profitable; correctness can be said to be profitable.” But even this issomething spoken from a profit-seeking mentality. Mencius said: “Why must theking always speak of profit? There are only humaneness and correctness.” Thus,
when it comes to a gentleman practicing the Way, he reveres only correctness. In
so doing, he puts no thought into profit’s profitability. At such a time that hebasely has the mentality which takes correctness as being profitable, would it end
there? He will without fail abandon correctness and grasp for profit.
In general, the length of the Warring States period (403-222 B.C.) was a
prolonged [period] of degeneracy, and people all took pleasure in profit. From
king, lords and ministers down to the common people, all cared to hear only of
profit. Therefore, even those who were called devoted Confucian scholars wereconstantly fretting over the fact that they could not sell their craft and necessarily
tried to force themselves on others by means of [speaking about] profit. To gettheir craft used there were quotations such as “There is a great way in the
production of wealth” and “Take correctness as being profitable.” As for theDaxue, it is blatantly obvious that it is not a writing of Confucius.
25

Ogyū Sorai, Seidan, Ogyū Sorai, Nihon shisō taikei, vol.36 (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten,1973), p.285.

26

Tetsuo Najita, Visions of Virtue (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987),
pp.92-93.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 3

256

又曰く、
「これを国は利をもって利とせず、義をもって利とすと謂うなり」。是亦
利心をもってこれを言う者なり。孟子の曰く、「王何ぞ必ずしも利を曰わん。亦仁
義有るのみ」。それ君子の道を行うや、ただ義是尚ぶ。しこうして利の利たることを知らざるなり。いやしくも義をもって利とするの心有るときは、すなわちその
卒りや、義を捨てて利を取らざることなし。けだし戦国の間、陥溺の久しき、人みな利を悦ぶ。しこうして王公大人よりもって庶人に至るまで、ただ利のみこれ聞かんこれを欲す。故に被服の儒者といえども、毎にその術の售れざることを憂い、必ず利をもって人に啗わしむ。いわゆる「財を生ずるに大道有り」、又曰く、「義をもって利とす」、けだしこの術の用うるなり。大学孔子の遺書にあらざること彰彰全然として明きらかなり。 27

Thus, it is self-serving calculation that functions as the neutral term in this version of theselectionist rectangle because it was typically seen as a violation of both giri and ninjō. 28
An extremely important question remains: why was it that passion was largely
tolerated while calculation was not?
each disrupts the public order.

One possible answer may lie in the way in which

Passion, as it was codified in early modern Japan, wasseen as a purely destructive phenomenon. Those overwhelmed by it to the point thatthey cause public disorder are simply annihilated, burned up by the flames of their love.
Calculation, on the other hand, was part of a specifically anti-feudal ideal, a world basedon pure competition in which each person did whatever was necessary to get ahead.
This emphasis on talent-based competition coincided with an obvious disjuncture in the27

Itō Jinsai, Gomō jigi, pp.104-105.

28

There would, of course, be Confucian texts that argued that calculation and an interestin profit could serve the public good, especially among those texts about merchantactivity that were written by and for merchants. However, these tended to rehabilitate thepair by arguing that a desire for profit, as long as it was calculated to remain limited andfair, did not necessarily have to violate correct principles, rather than advocate the social
benefits of purely self-interested competition and ambition. Moreover, it must always beremembered that these texts flourished in a highly circumscribed environment that was inmany ways atypical. These pro-profit texts should probably be seen as the exception thatproves the rule rather than as counterevidence that undermines the theory forwarded here.
(See Tetsuo Najita’s Visions of Virtue.)

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 3257

relationship between Tokugawa world and worldview. This is readily apparent in anargument forwarded in Ogyū Sorai’s Sorai Sensei Tōmonsho (Master Sorai’s Responsals
徂徠先生答問書, 1727) that points out the unsuitability of the Song Confucianism of Zhu

Xi and his followers to contemporary Japan:
The era of the Three Dynasties was an era of feudalism. From after the Qin and
Han up to the Tang, Song and Ming—these were all times of centralized
governments. Ages of feudalism and ages of centralized governments on thewhole have different laws and regulations. In a feudal society, the realm is divided
up among feudal lords, and the emperor barely governs directly. Vassals of thesefeudal lords have stipends and hold fiefs from generation to generation. Throughsome truly exceptional men are employed, social position is for the most part
fixed. Gentlemen and worthies are always gentlemen and worthies; the feudallords are always feudal lords. People’s minds are settled, and it is a calm society.
Laws and regulations are rudimentary, and high and low are governed throughfeelings of gratitude and obligation. They put foremost the development of a senseof shame. The feudal lords and worthies govern the provinces and districts as theirown possessions.
In a centralized state, feudal lords are not set up, and gentlemen and worthies
are so for one generation. They have no fiefs, but all take rice allotments, andthese are meager. They take on large numbers of followers and gain power
through this. The men who govern provinces and districts are called governors
and chiefs, and they are all like magistrates and are rotated every three years.
Their power and authority are weak, and their way of establishing laws andregulations differs from that of the Three Dynasties in strictness. The emperor
entrusts them with the provinces and districts and furthermore transfers themevery three years. Thus, it has become a custom that their first priority is to showquick results. Because there have been occasions on which a man has risen from
commoner status to become prime minister, a success-seeking mindset is
widespread among gentlemen and worthies. This is the great distinction between
the Three Dynasties and all subsequent periods.
In the ancient past, Japan was also a centralized state, but these days it has
become a feudal one. Therefore, the explanations of the Tang and Song
Confucians are difficult to adopt.
三代之時分は封建之世にて御座候。秦・漢以後は。唐・宋・明間でも皆郡縣之代
にて候。封建之世と郡縣之世とは。天下の制法の総体別にて御座候。封建之世は。
天下を諸侯にわりくれ候而。天子之直御治めは僅の事に候。諸侯の臣は。皆世録にて代々知行所を持候而有之候。尤賢者を挙用る事にて候へ共。大体は人の分限に定り有之候而。士大夫はいつも士大夫に候。諸侯はいつも諸侯に候故。人の心定り落着候世にて候。法度も粗く候て。只上下の恩義にて治まり。廉恥を養ふ事

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 3

258を先といたし候。 諸侯も大夫も。皆わが物に致し候而国郡を治め候事にて御座候。
諸侯立てず士大夫皆一代切に候。知行所も無く皆切米取に而緑薄く候。下司を多くつけ候而。それにてはたばりを持候事に候。天下の国郡を治め候太守・縣令
と申候は。皆代官之様なる物にて。三年替りに候故。威勢薄く候間。法度之立様
三代と替り厳密に候。天子之之国郡を預かり候而して。しかも三年替わりに候故。
急に験の見え候事を第一に致し候風俗に候。士民より起こりて宰相までも立身いたし候事成立候事故。士大夫之立身を求め候心盛んに候。是三代と後世との大段の分れにて御座候。
日本も古は郡縣にて候へども。今程封建に罷成候故。唐宋諸儒教の説には取用がたき事共御座候。 29

This is an argument that specifically advocates feudalism by contrasting this familial
brand of government to an inhumane system which approximates the social Darwinism ofHerbert Spencer.
system.

Yet it draws attention to the weakest point of the Tokugawa feudal

Ideology is only functional if it makes the way the world is (or could easily be)seem as if it is the way the world should be, and the fact that talent did not necessarily
coincide with inherited status was an obvious and acute problem during the Tokugawa
period.

It was engaged by a great many Confucian texts written by a wide variety ofphilosophers from the beginning of the early modern age in the seventeenth century to its
close in the second half of the nineteenth. 30

Though a great many solutions to the29

Ogyū Sorai, Sorai sensei tōmonsho, Ogyū Sorai zenshū, vol.1 (Tokyo: Mizusu Shobō,1973), p.434.
30

A good example of this is Sorai’s Seidan, a text submitted directly to the Tokugawa
government. In it, the societal degeneration caused by competition is decried, and a
proposal meant to rectify the situation calls for the establishment of a system of fixedranks each of which would be tied to a strictly enforced lifestyle and code of behavior.
This was supposed to have a calming effect on human feelings, especially greed andambition. The text, however, does not end there. A good deal of space is taken up
detailing the way in which talent can be incorporated into the system to guard against
ossification, a particularly acute problem due to the combination of the facts that talent ismost free to rise during eras of war and chaos as well as that the contemporary period
was one of peace. In other words, even a text that foregrounds the importance of orderand fixity recognizes the importance of talent as well as the disorder and movement
associated with it.
Michael J. ScanlonChapter 3259

problem would be proposed, and governmental reforms—all of which emphasized theimportance of promoting men of talent—occasionally carried out, the talent conundrum
would remain unresolved.

Though the attribute of talent was considered to be a positive

phenomenon, the coincidence of peace and feudalism in early modern Japan constituted
perhaps the most unfavorable conditions possible for men of greater ability to flourish.
So long as shogunal rule and the Tokugawa ideology remained operative, talent would
present a problem, and a system that would resolve it, though imaginable, was largely
taboo and considered to be wrongheaded or evil. 31
The approach taken thus far has been based on of Foucauldian discourse analysis,a detailing of “the functional conditions of specific discursive practices.” 32

The method

has been employed as an expedient means for the plotting of the boundaries of thegiri-ninjō problematic because the functionality of individual texts is not of grave

31

As will be discussed later, it is possible that the relative success enjoyed in earlymodern Japan by Ming and Qing fiction might have been due to the fact that thelong-form Chinese colloquial fiction of these periods was also conditioned by a humanfeelings-correct principle problematic. However, as was noted in a quotation included
earlier in this section, the social systems of Ming and Qing China were very different
from that of Tokugawa Japan, and talent may not have presented as large a problem toMing and Qing China as it did to Edo-period Japan. The discrepancy in the fit between
ideology and history in each country might help to account for the differences between
the long-form fiction of China and Japan over these epochs. This is important for two
reasons. One is that it is necessary to keep in mind that the same basic ideologicalparadigm can allow for a great variety of literary forms. The other is that everything I say
about early modern Japanese long-form literature related to compromise, closure and theeveryday in narrative may not be true for the long-form literature of Ming and Qing
China. (I am not an expert in pre-modern Chinese literature, and it is not my place tomake any strong comments on the subject.)32

Michel Foucault, “What is an Author?” Language, Counter-Memory, and Practice(Ithica, NY: Cornell University Press, 1977), p.114.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 3

260

concern to it.

In literary evolution, however, the text is the primary unit of analysis

precisely because it is what gives the most immediate context to and guides the functionof the discourse of which texts are made up.

The selectionist rectangle based on

giri-ninjō is only itself useful if it can be shown to give shape to individual texts, not byproactively forming their structures internally, but by establishing a framework ofconstraint that helps set the limits within which they develop. A good illustration of thisis the Genji monogatari Tama no ogushi (The Genji Narrative: Little Bejeweled Comb 源氏物語玉の小髪), a commentary on the Genji monogatari written by the Kokugaku

Nativist scholar Motoori no Norinaga (1730-1801) in the last decade of the eighteenth
century.

The text is often taken to be a revolutionary one within its genre for reasonslaid out by Thomas Harper:[D]idacticism—first Buddhist and then Confucian—had been one of the principle
modes of Genji criticism for about six centuries by the time of the publication of
Genji monogatari Tama no ogushi. Nor had the influence of this point of view
begun to wane by Norinaga’s time. Though occasionally critics of one persuasion
attempted to confute the other—such as when Keichū scoffed at Confuciancomparisons of Genji with the [Chun Qiu (Spring and Autumn Annals 春秋)] andTameakira rejected the notion that Murasaki was the incarnation of the
Boddhisattva Kannon—this was but part of the jostling that took place as the
Confucians edged the Buddhists from the center of the stage. The didactic critics
made many important contributions to our understanding of the Genji, but seldom
were they made at the expense of the postulate that the Genji owed its greatness inpart to the fact that it had moral lessons to teach. The first work of criticism toreject unconditionally both Buddhist and Confucian didactic interpretations of the
Genji was Motoori Norinaga’s Genji monogatari Tama no ogushi. 33
The non-didacticism of Norinaga’s text might seem obvious from a section near the very
beginning of the text:
Well, what is the purpose [of fiction narratives]? Why do we read them? The vast
33

Thomas Harper, Motoori Norinaga’s Criticism of the Genji monogatari, PhD
Dissertation: University of Michigan (1971), pp.116-117.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 3261

majority of narratives have everything of the world. The good and the bad, therare and the charming, the interesting and the moving—all of these make theirappearance in writing, and to this pictures may be added. When we are idle, theyamuse us. On occasions when we are upset or worried, they comfort us. They arethings that teach us of the way of the world and make us sensitive to themoving-ness of things. Thus, that all narratives are written mostly on the relations
between men and women is for the same reason that love poems are numerous in
the anthologies of all ages—nothing so deeply engages the feelings of humans aslove.
さてそはいかなる趣なる物にて、何のためによむものぞといふに、大かた物語は、
世の中に有とある、よき事悪しき事、めづらしきことをかしきこと、おもしろき事あはれなる事などさまざまを、書あらはして、そのさまを、絵にもかきまじへなどして、つれづれなるほどの、もてあそびにし、又は心のむすぼほれて、物おもはしきをりなどの、なぐさめにもし、世の中のあるやうをも心得て、ものノア
はれをもしるものなり、かくていづれの物語も、男女のならひの事を、むねとお
ほく書たるは、よよの歌に集共にも、恋の歌の多きと同じことわりにて、人の情のふかくかかること、恋にまさるはなければ也。 34

and one at the beginning of the “Larger Purposes” section:
As for the main point of this narrative, since long ago there have been various
explanations, all of which do not seek the mindset of that which we call narrative
fiction. They argue using the idiom of those everyday Confucian and Buddhist
writings. This is not the intention of the author. Although occasionally there
happens to be similarities or points of accord between it and the Buddhist or
Confucian texts, it is not the case where one should seize on these and say thatthey speak for the work as a whole. Its overall import differs sharply from thattype of thing, and all narrative fiction has a single significance that is distinctive
to narrative.
此物語のおほむね、むかしより、説などあれども、みな物語といふもののこころ
ばへを、たづねずｓて、ただよのつねの儒仏などの書のおもむきをもて、論ぜられたるは、作りぬしの本意にあらず、たまたまかの儒仏などの書と、おのづから
は似たるこころ、合へる趣もあれども、そをとらへて、すべてをいふべきにあらず、大かたの趣は、かのたぐひたは、いたく異なるものにて、すべて物語は、又別に物がたりの一つの趣のある事にして、はじめにもいささかいへるがごとし、35

The concept of non-didacticism, however, is not as self evident as it might first appear,

34

Motoori Norinaga, Genji monogatari Tama no ogushi, Motoori Norinaga zenshū, vol.4(Tokyo: Chikuma Shobō, 1969), p.174.
35

Op. cit., p.183.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 3262

and the selectionist rectangle can be used to explicate it more fully.
That the Genji monogatari Tama no ogushi was written within the giri-ninjō
problematic is evident in a section that comes in the middle of the same “Larger
Purposes” part of the commentary:
In the Yūgiri Chapter, it is written:
When it was others who were burning with ardor, it was irritating, and it
looked and sounded as if they had lost their grip on reality. But, this was afirst-hand experience, and it really was an unbearable occurrence. “Howstrange!” he seemed to think. However, as much as he turned things over in
his mind, nothing could come of it.
These are Yūgiri’s thoughts. At times when he had observed others consumed by
love, he did not think them sane, was irritated, and thought it should never happen.
Now it was he who was in love, and he thought that it really was an unbearable
occurrence.… In coming into contact with the undeniability of love, he naturallycame to feel sympathy for others in a myriad of situations not up to [the level of]this and came to understand the moving-ness of things.
It is also written: “Indeed, in matters of this vein, one cannot follow theadmonitions of others or even one’s own will.” These are the words of the samegentleman [Yūgiri]. They always say that it is only on the way of love that one
cannot follow the admonitions of others or even one’s own will. It is because it
has become a personal experience that he has come to realize that it really is likethat. Because this gentleman is as serious minded as he is, things came to this…
The previous phrases of this sort—“‘How strange that I feel this way,’ he thought
despite himself” and “as much as he turned things over in his mind, nothing could
come of it”—show the profundity and undeniability of the moving-ness of things
on the way [of love]. It is something that, coming into contact with it, he is drawn
to impossible transgressions and naturally takes part in behavior that goes against
reason. In the case of Prince Genji, these are the Utsusemi affair, the Oborozukiyo
affair, the Fujitsubo affair, and others like these. When they have to do with love,these types of absurd and violent matters are now the epitome of the profoundmoving-ness of things. Thus, [the author Murasaki Shikibu] purposefully writes
of improper love in order to show the depth of feelings therein.
夕霧巻曰く「人のうへなどにて、かやうのすき心、思ひいらるるは、もどかしく、
うつしごころならぬことに、見聞しかど、身のうへにては、げにいとたへがたるべきわざなりけり、あやしや、などかうしも思ふらむと、おもひかへし給へど、えしもかなはず。」夕霧君の心也。恋に思ひいらるるを、人のうへに、見聞たる時
は、うつし心とも思はれず、もどかしくて、いとあるまじきことと思ひしに、今わが身のうへに、恋をして、思へば、げにたへがたかるべきわざ也と、おもひしれる也… 恋の心の忍びがたきにつけては、さらぬとろづの事にも、人の心の思Michael J. ScanlonChapter 3263

ひやられて、物のあはれをしるなりけり。
又曰く、「げにかやうのすぢにてこそ、人のいさめをも、みづからの心にも、したがはぬやうに侍りけれ」。同じ君の詞也。恋の道ばかりは、人のいさめにも、みずからの心にも、したがはぬ物と、世にいふは、まことにさること也と、我が身のうへになりて、思ひしれるよし也、此君は、さばかりのまめ人なるだに、かくぞ有ける、人のいさめをもといふ下に、詞おちたるか… 上件の文どもに、「あやしの心やと、われながらおぼさる」、又「思ひかへし給へど、えしもかなはず」、などあるをもて、此道のもののあはれの、ふかくたへがたきほどをしるべし。されば此すぢにつけては、さるまじきあやまちをも引いで、ことわりにそむけるふるまひも、おのづからうちまじるわざにて、源氏君のうへにて、空蝉君の事、朧
月夜君の事、藤壺中宮の事などのごとし。恋の中にも、さやうのわりなくあながちなるすぢには、今一きはもののあはれのふかきことある故に、ことさらに、道ならぬ恋をも書出て、そのあひだの、ふかきあはれを見せたるもの也。 36

As in the Confucian texts quoted above, passion is a purely private human feelingcompletely outside correct principles and disruptive of domestic and public order.
However, in this text, the value hierarchy is inverted, and passion is set forth as an ideal
quality that marks good characters. The giri-centric, “promote virtue and chastise vice”
approach to literature dominant in Confucian texts is directly attacked:
As for the aim of this narrative, to say that it is to promote virtue and chastise vice,or to state that it was nothing other than an admonition against eros, is to be
horribly strained. The intentions of its creator are not like that. Further, it is lessthan likely that it could serve as an admonition [for those reading it]. Prince Genjiis first of all created as the model of a good person, someone superior to others in
all respects. Those who observe him should realize that the spirit and deeds of thisman are always good. Nevertheless, many are the times in which love throws him
into disorder, including one that has no parallel. Yet those who observe this aremost likely to wonder if, since this behavior can be done by even such a good
person, can it be all that bad? Among women, the Fujitsubo Empress is aparticularly fine person and praised. A woman who reads about her is likely to be
attracted by her character and emulate her, yet what can be said about [the author]
writing about her affair with Prince Genji? If we were to speak logically, it seems
possible that this might invite feelings of lust. How, then, is [the narrative] anadmonition? What’s more, writing of those who do good meeting with good
fortune and those who do bad meeting with ill fortune—this is certainly
promoting virtue and chastising vice. You might think that Kashiwagi andUkifune and the like do lose their status due to romantic love. But what, then, canbe said about Prince Genji? He is a man who is often thrown into disarray on the36

Op. cit., pp.216-217.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 3

264

road of love, including an egregious upsetting of the imperial line. Within theprevailing logic, the gods should hate him deeply, and he should meet withhorrendous misfortune. Yet he enjoys all the good fortune this world has to offer:
he has children who become emperor, empress and minister of state; he himself
attains the honorary title of abdicated emperor (daijō tennō). Upon seeing that
nothing of this world is denied him and that his descendents flourish forgenerations, who would be inspired to abstain from eros? It did happen that hesuffered a temporary setback in mid-life. [The author] writes in such a way that,thinking this to be a matter of the Kokiden Empress’ crooked scheming, everyone
everywhere grieves, and the very gods and buddhas blame her. If we were to drive
the point, could it not be said that this lord through eros becomes an abdicatedemperor? Can one really say this is chastising vice?
此物語の本意を、勧善懲悪といひ、殊には好色のいましめ也といふは、いみしき
しひごと也、つくりぬしの意、さらにさることにあらず、又よむ人も、さらにさるいましめにはなりがたし、そのゆゑは、まづ源氏君をば、よろづにすぐれて、よき人の本に作りたれば、見む人も、此君のしわざ心を、何事もよしと心得つべし、然るに此人殊に恋のみだれおほく、中にはたぐひなき不義もあるを、身む人は、かかるよき人にだに、さるふるまひのあなれば、なにかはくるしからん、とやうに思ふ心こそつきもすべけれ、又女にては、藤壺中宮は、殊によき人にして、はめたれば、これをよまむ女も、その心ばへを、ならひしたふべきわざなるに、源氏君との事を書るをば、以下にとかいはむ、ことわりをもていはば、中々に好色をいざなふかたこそ有もすらめ、いかでかそのいましめにはなるべき、又よき事をしたる人は、さいはひあり、あしき事をせし人は、わざはひにあふさまに書たらむにこそ、勧善懲悪にあらめ、かの柏木君浮船君などの、恋によりて、身をうしなひたるなどをもて、さも思ふめれど、さては源氏君をば、何とかいはむとする、さばかり恋のすぢには、みだれおほくして、殊にいともかしこき、みかどの御たねをさへ、みだり奉りたる人なれば、よのつねの論をもていはば、神も深くにくみとがめ給ひて、いみしき禍にもあひ給ふべきに、よのかぎりめでたく栄えて、帝と后と大臣とを、御子にもち給ひ、その身太上天皇の尊号をさへ得給ひ、
大かた此世にあかぬ事なく、末末までさかえたまうふを見ては、たれかは好色をつつしむ心をばおこさむ、中ごろしばししづみ給ふこと有しは、弘徽殿大后の、よこさまにかまへ給へるすぁざとして、天の下の人みなかなしみ、神仏もとがめ
給ふさまに書たれば、いよいよ好色のいましめにはなりがたく、懲悪の意さらになし、なほしひて、ことわりをもていひはげまさば、此君は、好色によりて、太37
上天皇にはなり給へるにあらずや、かくてもなほ懲悪といはむとするか。

Further, correct conduct devoid of human feelings is presented as problematic.

Thoughthe text lists several examples of minor characters that could be placed inside this sectionof the selectionist rectangle, the most noteworthy is the one nominated in following
37

Op. cit., pp.222-223.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 3

265

selection:
Well, it is often said that monks are insensitive to the moving-ness of things. In
the Kashiwagi Chapter, it says:“I ask you to take pity on me,” says Genji.
The Third Princess replies, “I have heard that people in my condition are
insensitive to the moving-ness of things. And how much more so I, who havealways been so…”
This is something that takes place after the Third Princess has cut her hair [whentaking the Buddhist precepts]. Genji`s statement means: “Even though you havebecome a nun, please understand my feelings and be moved by them.” The
Princess’ reply could be translated: “I have heard that all people who have taken
the tonsure like this are insensitive to the moving-ness of things. But it is worse
for me, who am a worthless soul originally insensitive to that which is moving?
What would you have me say?” This occurs because it was long said that monks
are insensitive to the moving-ness of things.
Well, now, the reason monks are said to be insensitive is because the Way of theoriginal Buddha involved doing things like completely forsaking the bonds ofaffection with father and mother, wife and child; taking on a regrettable guise;
forsaking home and fortune to take refuge in the wilderness; renouncing the tastes
of meat and fish and the sounds of song and sex. These were all the most difficult
things for the human heart to bear. Were his heart weak from being sensitive to themoving-ness of things, then these would have been near impossible to carry out.
Thus, his was a Way on which he had to strengthen his resolve and be insensitive
to the moving-ness of things. Counseling people or guiding them [on the Way]
would have been most difficult were he weak willed and thinking about themoving-ness of the things of this world. Therefore, even though it may appear in
the short term that he was insensitive, he taught because he was moved by thelong-term sufferings of delusion. By the standards of Buddhism, he in reality was
deeply sensitive to the moving-ness of things. [Buddhism] is at heart the same as
the Confucian teachings and the like.
“They found the sharp devotion of the Ajari Adept to be harsh andhateful”—this is written in the Shiigamoto Chapter when the daughters of theEighth Prince are beside themselves with sadness upon his death, and the
Adept—disregarding the feeling between parent and child—coldheartedly tells
them that they should take up the spirit of the Way and abandon their feelings ofattachment. They find him too resolute, his advice this harsh and hateful. It is dueto things like this that people say monks are not sensitive to the moving-ness ofthings.
さて法師を、物ノアはれしらぬものにいへることあり、柏木君巻曰「なほあはれとおほせと聞こえたまへば、かかるさまの人は、もののあはれもしらぬものとこ
そ聞しを、ましてもとよりしらぬことにて云云、これは女三宮の、かざりおろし
給へる後の事にて、源氏君の、出家はし給ひつれども、なほわが心ざしをば、あMichael J. ScanlonChapter 3266

はれとおぼせと、聞こえ給へば、宮の御答に、すべてかく出家したる人は、物のあはれはしらぬ物也と聞侍るを、まして我は、もとより物のあはれはしらぬ、いふかひなき身なれば、何とかは御いらへは聞こえさせんと也、これ法師は、もののあはれしらぬものに、いひならへるによりてなり。
そもそもかくほうしを、もののあはれしらぬものにいふなるよしは、先仏の道
は、はなれがたき父母妻子の恩愛を、きよくふりすて、おしき身の形をやつし、家をもたからをもすてて、山林にこもり、魚肉の味声色の楽をたちなど、すべて
人の情の、しのびがたきかぎりなれば、心よわく物のあはれをしりては、おこな
ひがたきすぢなれば、しひて心づよく、あはれしらぬものになりて、おこなふ道也。又人をすすめみちびくにも、此世のもののあはれを思ひ、心よわくては、物しがたし。そはしばしあはれしらぬやうなれど、長きよの闇にまどはむことを、
あはれみてのをしへなれば、其道よりいへば、まことは物のあはれを深くしれる也。儒のをしへなども、その心ばへは、同じことぞかし、椎が本巻に、亜闍梨の、
あまりさかしきひじり心を、にくくつらしとなんおぼしけるとある。これ宇治の八宮の、かくれ給へるほど、その姫君たちの、いみしくかなしくおぼせるに、亜闍梨の、仏の道の意をもて、執着の心をはなれしめむとて、おやこのあはれをか
へりみず、つれなきさまに聞こえしらするを、あまり心づよく、にくくつらしと38
おぼせるにて、ほうしの物のあはれしらぬといふは、大かたかやうになる故也。

The holy man takes a coldly doctrinaire approach to a Buddhistic code of correctprinciple, a form of correct principle that was recognized as being dominant at the time of
the Genji monogatari’s production. Obviously, this Buddhist priest is not considered to
be a good character, much less a model of behavior.

However, neither is he depicted asa villain or evil in any way. In the end, Norinaga’s text portrays him as simply being
misguided.

It should also be noted that the presence and function of this holy man isclearly of greater importance to the eighteenth-century commentary than to theeleventh-century narrative.

In the Genji monogatari itself, this Buddhist priest is themost minor of characters who appears but briefly, while in the Tama no ogushi he isincluded in the central discussion of the Genji monogatari, and his behavior is linked
with some of that text’s most important characters in one of its most central stories aswell as the narrative of Śākyamuni Buddha, the originator of the Buddhistic code of38

Op. cit., pp.206-207.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 3
correct principle. 39

267

Correct principle, though not the mark of a superior person, was stillvital to the epistemological structure that helps orient the Genji monogatari Tama noogushi.

It is simply that, in this text, human feelings are the mark of extraordinary men

and women, while correct principle is a necessary evil for the maintenance of thatmundane order from which these heroes and heroines stand out.
The value inversion of the giri-ninjō problematic in the Tama no ogushi explains
its non-didacticism to a great extent.

Taken alone, however, it is not sufficient. The

text, after all, does provide negative examples, models to be avoided at all costs.

Thetext clearly states that, if good characters are marked by their sensitivity to themoving-ness of things (mono no aware もののあわれ), the worst crime possible is thefalsifying of emotion for personal gain.

Further, the main villain of the text, theKokiden Empress, is described as follows:
Regarding the fact that being insensitive to the moving-ness of things wasconsidered bad, it says in the Kiritsubo Chapter:
At a time when the sound of the wind or the cry of an insect would plunge[the Emperor] into a fit of melancholy, the moon was captivating, at least to
the Kokiden Empress who had not made her way to the imperial quarters insome time now. Deep into the night she had music made. This unrelenting anduncompromising lady must be carrying on like this to show that nothing wasamiss. The ladies-in-waiting, who were witness to his condition, listened inhorror.
This is the manner of one who is not sensitive to the moving-ness of things. It wasa time when “the sound of the wind or the cry of an insect would plunge [theEmperor] into a fit of melancholy,” how could anyone with a heart be captivatedby the moon, much less hold a concert? It is like they say—all moons can appear
either charming or threatening, it depends on the viewer. “Carrying on like this to39

Though the dominant form of “correct principle” in Edo-period Japan can be
categorized as Confucian, there were also recognized alternative versions of legitimate
giri. Daoist and Buddhist ones had histories in Japan dating back centuries before thedawn of early modernity, and a Shinto-based version would evolve in the writings of
Kokugaku Nativist scholarship.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 3

268

show that nothing was amiss” shows her disregard of the emperor’s sorrow. “Hiscondition” refers to the sight of the grieving Emperor…
For the most part, the narrative sets aside Genji’s illicit affairs. They are noteven said to be all that bad. As in the foregoing citations, it terms evil andinsensitive all those who think Genji to be bad and try to hurt him. This is because
Genji, being sensitive to the moving-ness of things, is considered to be a good
person. If one were to talk according to the standards of Confucianism or the like,
as is typical in orthodox arguments, the Fujitsubo Consort would have to be calleda worse person than the Kokiden Empress. Yet the former is better than the rest of
the world and a model for a good person, while Kokiden, who carried on no illicit
affairs, is an extraordinarily evil person. This can be said because [texts of]narrative fiction take a sensitivity to the moving-ness of things as their center andconsider it to be a mark of goodness.
さてもののあはれをしらぬを、あやしきことにしたるは、桐壺巻云、「風の音蟲のねにつけても、物のみかなしうおぼさるるに、弘徽殿には、久しううへの御つぼ
ねにもまうのぼり給はず、月のおもしろきに、夜ふくるまで、あそびをぞし給ふなる。いとおしたち、かどかどしきところものし給ふ御方にて、事にもあらず、
おぼしけちて、もてなし給ふなるべし。此ごろの御けしきを見奉るうへ人女房などは、かたはらいたしと聞けり。
」物のあはれをしらぬ人のやう、かくぞ有ける。
帝は、風のおと虫の音にも、ものをかなしくおぼしめすころしも、心あらむ人は、月をおもしろしとは見給ひなんや。まして御あそびなどし給ひなんや。すべて月は、見る人から、えんにもすごくもといへるごとくなるに、ここに月のおもしろ
きにとは、こきでんの御心をもて書る也。ことにもあらず、おぼしけちてとは、帝のかなしみ給ふを、事ともし給はぬ也。此ごろの御けしきとは、みかどのかな
しみ給ふみけしきをいふ也…
そもそも此物語のあるやう、源氏君の不義の事をばおきて、さしもあしきさまにもいはず。ただ源氏君のかたさまに、心よからず、あしくあたれる人をば、みな物のあはれしらず。あやしき人としたること、上の件のごとし。そは源氏君を、
もののあはれしりて、よき人とするが故也。もしよのつねの論のごとく、儒の道などのこころばへをもていはむには、藤つぼの中宮などをこそは、弘徽殿大后よりも、あしき人にいふべきを、それをば、よにすぐれて、よき人のほんにいひて、不義などはおはしまさぬ。こきでんなどをしも、かくいみしくあしき人にいへるは、物語は、物のあはれをしれるかたを、むねととりて、よきこととすればぞか
40
し。

Though this text would seem to imply it, it is important to realize that Kokiden was not
typically seen as a paragon of feminine virtue within Confucian commentaries on the
Genji monogatari, for most early modern commentaries categorize Kokiden as an

40

Op. cit., pp.204-206.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 3269

irredeemable villain. Her concert would be seen as part of a cunning attempt to hurt her
husband by making light of his grief upon the death of his low-ranking paramour, Genji’smother.

Actions like these, though technically permissible, are not merely contrary tohuman feelings.

They also openly violate correct principle. From both the Nativist

and Confucian points of view, Kokiden is evil because her self-serving ambition places
the character in the neutral section of the selectionist rectangle based on the giri-ninjō
dynamic. 41

This puts the valorization of human feelings at the expense of correct

conduct in this text—as well as a good deal of Nativist exegetical writings on literary andhistorical texts—into proper perspective. Though it can be seen as a form of opposition
to the dominant Confucian ideological structures of the early modern period, an emphasison human feelings was most certainly not intrinsically revolutionary.

Rather, protest bymeans of passion was a form of rebellion provided for by the system as a whole, anallowable resistance that could be managed fairly easily. 42
In the final instance, the non-didacticism of the reading of the Genji monogatariforwarded in the Tama no ogushi stems from the way Norinaga’s text treats bonds ofaffection, the complex term of the giri-ninjō selectionist rectangle.

This space is barely

41

The association of Kokiden with a Confucian code of wifely behavior might make itseem as if the author of the Tama no ogushi would, were he to make use of the analytic
tool, like to place her character in the section for correct principles devoid of humanfeelings on the giri-ninjō selectionist rectangle. However, the actions from the Genjimonogatari with which she is associated in the Tama no ogushi—all of which have to dowith her violating codes of proper behavior in order to further her own ends—show that,within Norinaga’s text, the Kokiden Empress fits into its neutral position.
42

In other words, although Nativist writings were used to legitimize the actions taken by
the revolutionaries who brought about the Meiji Restoration and the resulting bourgeois
capitalist state in the later nineteenth century, there is no necessary structural linkage
whatsoever between this school of philosophy and the rise of Japan’s modernity.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 3

270

filled within the “Larger Purposes” section of the Genji monogatari Tama no ogushi.
The closest possible candidate can be found in a discussion of the conundrum faced by
Ukifune, who is torn between the loves of Kaoru and Niō:
The way that Ukifune is drawn in so quickly by Prince Niō, while keeping Lord
Kaoru on the side, is all too frivolous and feckless, and could perhaps be thoughteven a little hateful. However, when you read what is written at length about her
feelings afterwards, it would seem that one would have to be moved. In the
Ukifune Chapter, it is written:“How can I possibly receive him?” she thought, ashamed and frightened evenwhile alone. As she began to think to herself about the appearance of that man
who had been so forceful, she remembered that she was about to meet this one.
She was forlorn. [Niō] had said that he had lost interest in those women whom
he had been seeing for years, and it was true. Afterwards, she heard that,
because he had taken ill, he had none of his wandering ways, and a great fuss
was being made in prayers for him. Wondering about what he might bethinking was very painful.
This man had a distinguished air about him as well as an appearance of
depth and liveliness. When speaking of that long period of neglect, he said
little and did not bow down speaking of love and sadness. Instead, in awell-mannered way he talked of the pain of a loving someone whom hecannot meet often. It was better than when people talk a lot, and she was
moved. He was the type of man who could seize upon a person’s thoughts.
Extraordinary was his charming appearance, and he had—to an unmatcheddegree—a disposition such that one could trust him over time. “When word of
my unforeseen change of heart leaks, it will be extraordinary. Things will bebad,” she thought, and she grew dark with despair as she thought about how
frivolous and wrong it was for her to be touched by the one ardent enough tolose his sanity as well as how this one might condemn and forget her…
The degree of emotion in her heart is such that even a tiger or wolf would weep
for her.
又浮船は、薫君をおきながら、匂宮に、たやすくなびきたるほどのさまは、あまり心かろくあだあだしく、すこしにくくさへおぼゆれども、後にその思へる心を、かきつづけたるをよめば、又あはれさやらんかたなし。そのおもへるやう、浮船巻云「いかで見え奉らむとすらんと、そらさへはづかしう心うき、我はとしごろ
見る人をも、皆思ひかはりぬべきここちなむするとのたまひしを、げに其の後、御ここちくるしとて、いづくにも々、例の御有様ならで、御す法などさわぐなるをきくに、又いかに聞ておぼさむとおもふも、いとくるし、此人はたいとけはひ
ことに、心ふかくなまめかしきさまして、久しかりつるおこたりなどのたまふも、
ことおほからず、恋しかなしとおりたたねど、つねにあひ見ぬ恋のくるしさを、
さまよきほどに、うちのたまへる、いみしういふにはまさりて、いとあはれと、Michael J. ScanlonChapter 3271

人の思ひぬべきさまを、しめたまへる人がら也。えんなるかたはさる物にて、行
末長く、人の頼みぬべき心ばへなど、こよなくまさり給へり、思はずなるさまの心ばへなど、もりきかせ給はむとき、なのめならず、いきしくこそあべけれ、あやしううつしごころもなく、おぼしいらるる人を、あはれと思ふも、それはいとあるましく、かろきことぞかし、此人にうしとおもはれて、わすれ給ひなん心ぼ
そさは、いとふかうしみぬべければ」云々。
43…などある心のほど、まことにとらおほかみだにも、なきぬべきあはれさ也。

In this section, Kaoru exemplifies affection, while Niō is all passion.

However, neitherof these characters is important unto himself within the logic of this argument; they are
only presented to show the difficulty of Ukifune’s position. This does not mean that
instances of affection or characters notable for their combination of giri and ninjō cannot
be found in the Genji monogatari.

In fact, it is precisely this that is stressed withinprevious didactic commentaries, be they of a Nativist bent or a Confucian one. The
Genji monogatari Shinshaku (A New Understanding of the Genji Narrative 源氏物語新釈, 1758), a Genji commentary written by Kamo no Mabuchi (1697-1769), Norinaga’s

Nativist predecessor, chides Ukifune for not choosing Kaoru immediately, andKumazawa Banzan’s Genji gaiden (Supplementary Instructions on the Genji 源氏外伝,
1677) says of the relationship between Genji and Murasaki:Though her looks might not be up to those of others in the capital, people withgood hearts are the types that get better as you look upon them more closely.
Good-looking people with bad hearts, even if they look good as a stranger, aretypes that look worse and worse as you become familiar with them. Spouses are
intimate friends. The physical attraction of looks is a matter that lasts for a monthor two at the outset for young people. Afterwards, they settle into a mutual
friendship of the heart. The looks of a person with a good heart will naturally be
not base.
都て形はおとりても、心よき人はそひよりしみまさりするものなり。かたちよくても心よからぬ人は、よそよりみてはよけれども、馴るるに随ひてみおとりする者なり。夫婦は内にしての友なり。色かたちをいふは、わかきどちその始、一二43

Op. cit., pp.221-222.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 3272

ヶ月の間の事なり。後には互いに心を友とするにうちつくものなり。心の能人は、
44
かたちもおのづからいやしからず。

Didactic texts are interested in resolving problems or even showing that problems nevershould have existed in the first place. Norinaga’s text, on the other hand, is much moreinterested in the problems themselves, and his Tama no ogushi does not argue against
affection so much as it simply ignores it.
That the Genji monogatari could be read within the giri-ninjō problematic isundeniable. However, the Genji monogatari Tama no ogushi goes further, claiming thatthe piece of eleventh-century fiction should be read in this way because it was Murasaki
Shikibu who held this passion-centric worldview and providing a good deal of
corroborating documentary evidence for this theory.

This is simply not correct,

something evident in the giri-ninjō reading’s absolute inability to explain the overarchingplot of the Genji monogatari.

The Genji monogatari’s eponymous protagonist could at

various times be placed at either in the passion section (when he is in pursuit of women)or the affection one (when he takes care of women after his ardor calms), and thecharacter displays is no progress from one to the other as the narrative unfolds.
beginning to end, he simply oscillates between the two positions.
written within a completely separate problematic. 45

From

The Genji itself was

It was Norinaga’s commentary, not

Murasaki’s narrative, that was shaped by the giri-ninjō problematic, and his “proof” only

44

Kumazawa Banzan, Genji gaiden, Banzan zenshū, vol.2 (Tokyo: Banzan Zenshū
Kankōkai, 1941), p.461.
45

As was pointed out to me by Yoneda Mariko, a doctoral candidate in the Faculty of
Letters at Osaka University, the Genji monogatari was probably written within a conflict
between beauty (bi 美) and usefulness (jitsu 実).

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 3273

shows the indirect connection between literature and literary criticism. Literary texts
serve as an intermediate environment between an analytic text and the age of its
production, one that in some ways serves as a limiting pressure on literary criticism.
But that is all.

The imperfection in the fit between commentary and literary work needs

not be lamented, but it does show the distance between the world of the Genji monogatariand that of early modern Japan, and this might help to account for the limited popularityof Murasaki’s text during the Edo period.

In early modern Japan, the Genji monogatari

was not often read from beginning to end simply as a piece of long-form fiction that
could meaningfully engage contemporary reality so much as read as a classic, often inchapbook form, or studied in piecemeal fashion by would-be poets as a model forcomposition.

The forms of long-form narrative that would dominate the literary

environment due to their commercial success were the ones evolved during the period inwhich the giri-ninjō problematic was already strong, and it is an analysis of these thatwill make up the rest of the body of this study. 46

46

My thesis is simply that the giri-ninjō problematic was dominant during Japan’s earlymodern era so the vast majority of texts which belong to genres first evolved in the Edo
period were conditioned by it. I imply neither that this conflict was the only one operative
during this epoch nor that there are no texts written in Edo-period Japan which wereconditioned by alternative problematics. For instance, Chikamatsu Monzaemon’s Shusse
Kagekiyo (Kagekiyo Victorious 出世景清, 1686) probably fits better into the logicallimits of a conflict between feelings and transcendence—a problematic that was strongest
during the Muromachi period—than into those of one between giri and ninjō. It is justimportant to keep in mind that a text like the Shusse Kagekiyo is an exception, not therule.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 3

274

A tragic void
Jōruri takes the human heart as its seed and takes
form in a myriad of scenes. People in the course of
their lives are stimulated by actions and events, sothey use the seen and unseen, and create. When you
look at domestic ones that valorize romantic love(koi) and the historical ones that clarify correctprinciples (giri), could there be anyone who has
lived even a short while who does not like thisWay? That which can cause people to feel without
the application of energy, which can move even amother-in-law who detests the bride, which cansoothe the heart of a stingy father—it is this Way.
Chikuhō koji (1756)
Naniwa Sanjin
On the sixth day of the fourth month of 1703, a one-act play entitled Sonezaki
shinjū (Love Suicides at Sonezaki 曽根崎心中) written by Chikamatsu Monzaemon
opened in the Takemoto-za theater of Osaka.

The play was an immediate andoverwhelming success. The theater, which had been in difficult financial straits, became
profitable; the lead chanter, who performed the dialogue and narration of the play while
seated to the right of the stage as puppets acted out the drama at its center, became a star;other theatrical companies began to perform the play; a stream of similarly plotted plays
began to flow from the brushes of Chikamatsu and his competitors.

The play is set

within the contemporary quotidian world, and its plot is relatively uncomplicated.
Tokubei, a clerk in an Osaka soy sauce shop, meets his love, the courtesan Ohatsu, andrelates recent happenings.

The owner of the soy sauce shop has tried to force Tokubei tomarry into his family, but Tokubei refuses due to his love for Ohatsu.

His greedy

mother, however, has accepted the dowry money, and Tokubei is forced to travel to hishometown and force her to return it. While on his way to return the money to his

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 3

275

employer, however, he loans the money to his friend, Kuheiji, who promises he will
return it to him the next day and even has Tokubei write out a contract to which he affixes
his seal.

Just as Tokubei finishes with his account, Kuheiji noisily makes his way into

the pleasure quarters. When Tokubei asks for the return of his money, Kuheiji denies
ever having borrowed it.

Confronted with his promissory note, Kuheiji exclaims that hehad lost track of his seal during the time in which Tokubei was away, and the haplessTokubei is accused of theft and forgery.

Tokubei tries to attack him, but is abused for

his efforts, and ends up leaving in utter defeat. The next scene begins with Ohatsu andTokubei engaged in a conversation which is interrupted when Kuheiji enters andannounces that he is going to buy out Ohatsu’s contract. Tokubei, who has hidden
himself beneath Ohatsu’s robes, hears this and signals to her that he wants to commit alover’s suicide with her. The final scene depicts their journey from the Dōjima pleasurequarters to the Sonezaki Shrine and their suicide there.
A temporal integration that meaningfully links past to present, present to future
is clearly operative in this play, and this is the precise function of long-form plots. Theylink beginnings to middles to ends in extended narrative. Thus, actions taken in the pastby Tokubei are the cause of his predicament in the present, and this helps to determine his
future.

The importance of time and its meaningful passage to this text does not end

there.

Matsuda Osamu points out that it was time—specifically the inability to make ascheduled payment—that is the most direct cause of the hero’s flight from the quotidian
world in love-suicide plays. 47

47

Moreover, in the Sonezaki shinjū, the michiyuki scene—a

Matsuda Osamu, “Kaisetsu Kōshoku ichidai otoko e no michi,” Kōshoku ichidai otoko,
Michael J. ScanlonChapter 3

276

journey through both time and space as well as the poetic tradition that is said to function
as the means by which a common and weak man becomes heroic—begins with anindication of time’s passing, the ringing of a temple bell.

Whether this serves toaccentuate the break between the normal time of life and the extraordinary one of deathor simply to indicate the cause of the deaths, a conspicuous awareness of time and astrong sense of temporal integration are what makes this narrative possible and lie at its
heart.

The play is also clearly written within the giri-ninjō problematic.

As many

previous scholars have noted, the hero, torn between his passion for Ohatsu and the cold
duty he feels towards his manager and the public order in general, escapes by leaving thisworld. Most of these same scholars also categorize this play as a tragedy. 48
is something obviously wrong with this.

Yet there

Tragedies engender feelings of fear and awe in

the audience because tragic narratives have plots in which two positive values are placed
into an inevitable conflict within the consciousness of a single character. The tragic
hero tries to unite them, but necessarily fails, and the plots conclude with either the ruinof both values or the triumph of one in such a way that the worth of both is called into
question. 49

In the Sonezaki shinjū, however, the suicide of Tokubei and Ohatsu is

Shinchō Nihon koten shūsei 48 (Tokyo: Shinchōsha, 1982), p.271.
48

Obviously enough, I use tragedy in an Aristotelian sense, which both is a still valid
usage in twenty-first-century scholarship and was prevalent at the end of the nineteenth
century when it was translated into Japanese as higeki (悲劇) and first associated with
Chikamatsu’s love-suicide plays.
It should also be noted that, within the field of Chikamatsu studies, there is somedebate over whether or not this text is a true tragedy. (See Andrew Gerstle’s discussion ofthis in his “The Concept of Tragedy in Japanese Drama.”)
49

Franco Moretti, “The Great Eclipse,” Signs Taken for Wonders (New York: Verso,1988), pp.42-82.
Michael J. ScanlonChapter 3

277

completely underdetermined.

The play could easily have ended differently.

DonaldKeene notes: “the sad conclusion of the [Sonezaki shinjū] could have been averted if only
somebody had proved Kuheiji was lying. (A revised version of the play, possibly written
by Chikamatsu himself, added a scene in which Kuheiji’s guilt is disclosed.)” 50
reworked Sonezaki was hardly a unique exception.

This

The early eighteenth century

abounds in domestic plays (sewamono 世話物) in which similar conflicts between
passion and duty were resolved happily, including seven such pieces written by
Chikamatsu.

Moreover, as should be apparent in the close of the Sonezaki shinjū, theconflict between giri and ninjō ends in a most un-tragic fashion:“Hail Amida Buddha! Hail Amida Buddha! Hail Amida Buddha!” [he says] as hecuts into her deeper and deeper, his arm going tired. When he sees her weaken, he
stretches out his arms, twists the blade deeper and deeper, but strength has left hisarm. The Four Sufferings and Eight Sufferings of her death throws—the sadness
could never be put in words.
“Must I lag behind you? Let us draw our last breathe together!” [he says],taking the razor and stabbing it into his throat, until it seems that the either thehandle will break or the blade will snap. He digs away, and his eyes grow dim. At
dawn, on the fated hour of his death, his painful breathing stops.
Who will tell this story? It is heard by the underlying wind [of gossip] in the
Sonezaki woods, and this transmits it. High and low alike hold memorial services.
There is no doubt that the two will attain Buddhahood in the future. They havebecome models of true love.
南無阿弥陀仏、南無阿弥陀仏、南無阿弥陀仏と。刳り通し、刳り通す腕先も、弱るを見れば、両手を押べ、断末魔の四苦八苦、あはれと言ふもあまりあり。
我とても遅れうか、息は一度に引き取らんと、剃刀取って喉に突き立て、柄も折れよ、刀も砕けと、抉り、くりくり目もくるめき、苦しむ息も暁の、知死期につれて絶えはてあり。
誰が告ぐるとは、曽根崎の森の下風音に聞こえ、とり伝へ、貴賎君集の回向の種、未来成仏疑ひなき、恋の手本となりにけり。 51

50

Donald Keene, World within Walls, p.259.

51

Chikamatsu Monzaemon, Sonezaki shinjū, Chikamatsu Monzaemon shū, vol.2, Shinpen
Nihon koten bungaku zenshū 75 (Tokyo: Shōgakkan, 2000), pp.42-43.
Michael J. ScanlonChapter 3

278

The suicides are not a sign of passion’s defeat in the face of the demands of duty.

To thecontrary, they constitute an act of passion in its purest form, and the audience is assured
that the two achieved rebirth in Amida’s Pure Land where the petty demands of thequotidian world are inoperative, so this moment becomes eternal.

The original functionof the Pure Land in the Amidist faiths—to provide a space free of the pressures ofordinary life in order to enable the faithful to escape all attachment—is inverted with thefinal, total victory of ninjō over giri. As in the Genji monogatari Tama no ogushi
analyzed earlier, passion—human feeling in its purest form—is held up as the ultimate
value, while correct principle is nothing more than a necessary evil for the smoothfunctioning of the everyday order. 52

Tokubei and Ohatsu are not defeated characters

destroyed by the mundane world, but victorious ones who decide to reject the demands ofquotidian existence for the transcendent value of romantic love.
It should also be noted that the action taken by the hero to resolve his
predicament is completely disproportionate to the dilemma facing him.

His problem

stems from his trusting nature, and his mistake was both understandable and unlikely tohappen again. Tokubei could have learned his lesson.

In addition, even though

Tokubei would have had to pay for his misstep with a loss of freedom that comes withmarrying into a superior’s family and would no longer be able to see his love interest,
such a violent end, so graphically portrayed, seems excessive.

Tokubei was set to52

The similarity between the two texts is not because one directly influenced the other.
Rather, it is a convergence due to the fact that they were both written under the same
basic selective pressures of the giri-ninjō dynamic.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 3279

become the heir to a thriving business, and the topic of lovers who cannot meet had along history of being romanticized within the previous literary tradition. The
avoidability and excess of the ending are important because they are hallmarks of what
Franco Moretti has called “moving literature” 53 —something which could also be termed
sentimental narrative—because texts of this type provoke a different reaction in theirreaders: tears.

It is not surprising that the last line of a later love-suicide play written by

the same author is a statement saying all who hear of the lovers’ plight are reduced totears, 54 and there is evidence that real readers and audience members had a similar
reaction, including the following poem of the Sode botan (Peony Sleeve 袖牡丹, 1731), a
collection compiled by the haikai poet Chiseki:
Master of masters!
Master of masters!
The lies of Chikamatsu
Pool into real tears

名人々々
めいじん々々
近松がうそは誠に泪ぐむ 55

In no way is the lack of tragic gravitas unique to the Sonezaki shinjū. There were, infact, no tragedies written within the giri-ninjō problematic during the whole of Japan’s
early modern period. Those works that end well for the protagonists are melodrama,
and those that conclude with their destruction should be classified as sentimental
narratives. 56
53

Franco Moretti, “Kindergarten,” Signs Taken for Wonders (New York: Verso, 1988),
pp.157-181.

54

The play, which will be analyzed in detail below, is the Shinjū ten no Amijima.

55

Nagatomo Chiyoji, Kinsei Kamigata Jōruri-bon shuppan no kenkyū (Tokyo: Tōkyōdō
Shuppan, 1999), p.13.

56

The lack of tragedies in plays written within the most central problematic of Japan’s
early modernity does not mean that tragedies are nowhere to be found in the pre-modern
Michael J. ScanlonChapter 3

280

Japanese tradition. There are many tragedies within the corpus of nō drama. This was
possible because many nō plays—despite the fact that the texts that make up this genre
cannot be said to possess long-form plot structures—seem to have been written within aconflict between feelings and transcendence, a problem perhaps conditioned by the
positive importance of feelings within art—the plots of many nō texts are outgrowths offamous stories of the previous literary tradition—and the centrality of detachment within
the teachings of Buddhism.
A reading of the famous nō drama Matsukaze (松風, ca.1410) might serve to clarify
matters. The text begins with a wandering monk arriving at the shores of Suma andasking a local about a pine tree to which a poem-slip has been attached. When told that it
is a memorial to two sisters—Matsukaze (which could mean either “wind in the pines” or“waiting wind”) and Murasame (which means “passing rain”)—who had passed away
centuries before, the monk says a prayer for the repose of their souls. The action then cuts
to a scene in which the two sisters, as they gather seawater in order to make salt, sing of
their plight. Having fallen in love with the court noble and famous poet Nariwara no
Yukihira, who had been exiled to Suma, the two are doomed to wander the earth as spirits
because they are able to overcome neither their love for him nor the overwhelming griefthey felt upon being abandoned by him upon the completion of his sentence. The sisters
bring the water they have gathered to the salt house, which the traveling monk
approaches to request shelter. Initially rebuffed, he is allowed to enter when Matsukaze
learns that he is a monk. Upon entering, he talks of the legend of Matsukaze andMurasame and asks about their strong reaction to his words. The two then relate theirstory, and Matsukaze puts on the robe Yukihira left behind as a keepsake. The playconcludes with Matsukaze alone after she, deluded, persists that a pine tree is her beloved
despite the counsel of her sister.
In short, the play begins with both sisters tortured by their long-held feelings of love
for Yukihira and the knowledge that they can only escape this suffering by transcending
them. By the end of the play, Murasame has accomplished this and has left her sisterbehind to fend for herself, but the seemingly absolute logical incompatibility of these two
positive values has—in a manner typical of tragic heroes—driven Matsukaze insane.
Bereft of both real feeling and true transcendence, Matsukaze would be located in theneutral section of the selectionist rectangle at the terminus of the narrative. A happy
ending is not offered, nor would it seem even possible.
If tragedies were possible within the feeling-transcendence problematic, this in noway implies that all narratives developed within it were tragic. There was, after all, asolution to this seemingly categorical conflict: Bodhisattva compassion. This concept,
which has long been the focus of much exegetical effort within Buddhist writings, isbasically an aspiration on the part of fully enlightened beings to aid others escape thepains of samsara that does not bring about the sufferings associated with attachment. A
vast number of plays in the nō repertoire end with the suffering protagonist achieving
enlightenment and, thus, becoming able to combine legitimate feelings with propertranscendence. By the dawn of the early modern age at the latest, even the performance
tradition of nō drama had evolved in such a way that tragedies took up relatively little ofa day’s stage time. The Hachijō Kadensho (Writing the Teachings of the Flower, in Eight
Chapters 八条花伝書), a piece of nō criticism written in the second half of theMichael J. ScanlonChapter 3281

This assertion holds true even for the text held up by modern scholars as the
exemplary tragedy of its genre, the Shinjū ten no Amijima (Love Suicides at Heavenly
Amijima 心中天の網島), another love-suicide play written by Chikamatsu in 1720 to be
performed by the chanter Matsuyū of the Takemoto theater. 57
the Sonezaki pleasure quarters of Osaka.

The first act is set within

The courtesan Koharu waits for her customer

explaining that her feelings for the paper merchant Jihei are not as deep as the slanderous
rumors spread by the merchant Tahei—Jihei’s rival for Koharu’s attentions—would haveit.

Suddenly, Tahei bursts into her room and, mistakenly thinking her arriving customer

to be Jihei in a samurai disguise, accosts him. Tahei is soon vanquished, and Koharu
begins to confide to the “samurai” that she wishes to break the promise she made with
Jihei to commit a lovers’ suicide with him.

Jihei, who has been eavesdropping, tries toattack Koharu for her betrayal only to be subdued by Koharu’s guest.

Tahei suddenly

appears again on stage to abuse Jihei, but, having been wrestled down by the supposed

seventeenth century, stipulates that a typical program consists of six plays in thefollowing order: god play, warrior play, woman play, demon play, morality play, and an
auspicious play. Tragedies, such as Matsukaze, were mainly included within the third
category, and it is possible to see them as somehow constituting the “center” of nō as aperformance art, but it could just as easily be argued that the theatrical tradition insulated
audience members from the tragedies of its repertoire to a great degree. The day’s
program is contained within two almost plot-less pieces of praise, and the possibly tragicpieces were surrounded by what tended to be melodramatic narratives that resolve theconflict happily.
57

Though it lies outside the main argument of this section, the genealogy of the Shinjū
ten no Amijima should be made clear. The direct ancestor of this play is said to be theUmeda shinjū (Love Suicides at Umeda 梅田心中, 1706), a jōruri text written by adifferent playwright, Ki no Kaion (1663-1742). Thus, even though the texts analyzed inthis section were all the products of Chikamatsu’s brush, the general theory discussed in
the previous chapter holds true. Texts beget texts, and these are organized into genres.
Authors play only an indirect and secondary role.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 3282

samurai and kicked by Jihei, leaves to gales of laughter.

The alleged samurai is thenrevealed to be Jihei’s brother, Magoemon, who says he disguised himself to show Jihei
that his love for a prostitute was misplaced. Jihei proclaims his hatred for Koharu andsays that all ties between them have been sundered.

The act closes with Magoemon

reading a letter in the possession of Koharu and swearing to her that he will tell no one ofit.

The second act is set in Jihei’s home.

Jihei and his wife, Osan, are visited by

Magoemon and Jihei’s aunt, who is Osan’s mother.

The guests question Jihei about

rumors they have heard concerning a customer buying out Koharu’s contract.

At first

confused, Jihei realizes that the man redeeming Koharu is probably Tahei and swears that
all relations between Koharu and him have been broken.

Satisfied with the sealed oath

he writes for them, the two leave, whereupon Jihei collapses in frustration, and Osan asks
why he still has feelings for the courtesan. Jihei explains that his mood is due to his
defeat at the hands of his rival, Tahei, a man whom the lying Koharu had always said she
hated to the point that she would rather die than marry him.

Osan suddenly grows paleand explains that Koharu only pretended to want out of her pledged suicide because Osan
had asked her to do so. She begins to gather the last of her clothing together so that
Jihei may sell it to ransom Koharu and save her from certain death, when her
father—Jihei’s uncle—enters and sees what is happening. At first, he tries to make Jihei
divorce his daughter, but both husband and wife refuse, so he drags his daughter home.
The third act begins in the Sonezaki pleasure quarter where Magoemon is searching forhis brother. Jihei avoids detection, however, and he and Koharu make their way to
Amijima where they commit suicide.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 3283

Affection—the combination of human feelings and correct principles—plays amuch larger role in the Shinjū ten no Amijima than in the Sonezaki shinjū.

Whenanalyzed according to a giri-ninjō selectionist rectangle, it is the space of the complex
term that is most highly populated. It is obvious that some characters—Osan,
Magaemon, her mother (his aunt)—should be placed in this section.

However, it is also

important to keep in mind that Osan’s father, despite his brusque treatment of Jihei,
should also be included in this category. After all, his deepest desire is for Jihei to act
according to the conventional code of correct fatherly and husbandly conduct, andeverything he does is out of a parental love for his daughter. Of greater importance isthe role affection plays in exacerbating the dilemma faced by the hero, Jihei. As has
been mentioned before, in the Sonezaki shinjū, Tokubei is torn between the pulls of
passion for his lover and the cold duty he feels towards his master and the mother forwhom he no longer cares.

Thus, his decision to commit suicide is relatively easy, for heis not forced to leave behind or hurt anyone whom he loves. Jihei, on the other hand, istorn between the passion he feels for Koharu and the affection he feels for his
family—feelings that are intensified because he married into his uncle’s family so thebonds of marriage are strengthened by the pull of blood ties. 58

The last scene of the lastact begins:“Well, no matter how long we walk about, there will never be a fixed place,saying ‘Here’s the spot for death.’ In a pinch, this will do,” [says Jihei], and hetakes her hand and sits on the ground.
“Yes, it is true. Though you say that, when it comes to dying, all places are the58

It is worth noting, however, that the text makes it clear that Jihei has lost any passion
he may have once felt for Osan. The wife complains that her husband has not slept withher since he fell in love with the courtesan.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 3284

same, but there is something I’ve been thinking about on the way. Were our[bodies] to lie side by side in death, there will be news that Koharu and Kamiya
Jihei committed a lovers’ suicide. If that is so, I was begged by Osan, and she will
think I treated as scrap paper our exchange—her asking me not to kill her husband
and me saying that I would not kill him and would break off all contact. She will
believe that I seduced her beloved husband into a lovers’ suicide and think that I
was, indeed, a one-night prostitute, a liar who knew nothing of correct principle.
It is worse that Osan, just Osan, have feelings of bitterness, envy and contempt
towards me than a thousand or ten thousand strangers. This I worry about. My
future of delusions is all due to this. Kill me here, and change the place [of yourdeath].” [presses Koharu] as she leans against him.
Jihei joins in her tears and her pleading, “Ah, these are nothing but foolishconcerns. Osan has been taken back by my father-in-law. I’ve given her her leave.
Stranger and stranger, what correct principle could there be for a divorced
woman? As you had been saying on the way—you and I are two people withvows to be husband and wife in the next life, the following, and all the ones after
that. Should we die, our pillows next to each other, who could criticize? Who
could be jealous?”“But whose work is your divorce? You are more foolish than I. Will our bodies
accompany us to the next world? Dying apart, even if our bodies are pecked at bykites and crows, our spirits will be intertwined. To heaven or hell, take me withyou,” [she says] and collapses into tears.
“You’re right, you’re right. Our bodies are earth, water, fire, and wind. Upon
death, they revert to emptiness. But they won’t decay despite five or sevenrebirths, our souls as husband and wife. Want proof? Here it is,” [he says], whips
out his short sword, and lops off his black locks at the base of his topknot. “Look,
Koharu. So long as I had this hair, I was Osan’s husband, known as Kamiya Jihei.
When I cut it off, I became a priest who left behind the Three Worlds [ofDelusion], a monk who is unmoved by family or treasure. Since there is no wife
named Osan, neither is there any correct principle for you to take on.”In tears, he casts it away.
“What joy,” [she says,] and Koharu takes up the short sword and ruthlessly andwithout regret cuts off her Shimada coiffure—the hair she had so often washed,combed and stroked—and casts it aside. How moving is the tangle [of their locks]
in the susuki grass of the barren field touched by the midnight frost!
なう、いつまでうかうか歩みても、ここぞ人の死の場とて、定まりし所もなし。
いざ、ここを往々場と、手を取り、土に座しければ。
さればこそ、死に場はいづくも同じことと言ひながら、私が道々思ふにも、二人は死に顔並べて、小春と紙屋治兵衛と心中と沙汰あらば、おさん様より頼みにて、殺してくれるな。殺すまい。挨拶切ると取り交せし、その文を反故にし、大事の男をそののかしての心中は、さすが一座流れの勤めの者、義理知らず、偽り者と、世の人千人、万人より、おさん様一人のさげしみ、恨み妬みもさぞと思ひ
やり、未来の迷ひはこれ一つ。私をここで殺して、こなさんどこぞ所を変へ。つMichael J. ScanlonChapter 3285

いと脇でとうちもたれ、口説けば、ともに口説き泣き。ああ愚痴なことばかり。
おさんは舅に取り返され、暇をやれば他人と他人、離別の女になんの義理道すがら言ふとほり、今度の今度、ずんど今度の先の世までも、女夫と契るこの二人、枕を並べ死ぬるに、誰が謗る。誰が妬む。さあその離別は誰が業。私よりこなさんなほ愚痴な、体があの世へ連れ立つか。所所の死にをして、たとへこの体は、鳶、烏につつかれても、二人の魂つきまつはり、地獄へも、極楽へも、連れ立ってくださんせと、また伏し沈み、泣きければ、
おおそれよそれよ、この体は、地水火風、死ぬれば空に帰る。ご生七生朽ちせぬ。夫婦の魂離れぬしるし、合点と、脇差ずはと抜き放し、元結際より我が黒髪、
ふつふつと切って、これ見や小春、この髪のあるうちは、紙屋治兵衛といふおさんが夫。髪切ったれば出家の身、三界の家を出て、妻子珍宝不随者の法師。おさんといふ如房なければ、おぬしが立つる義理もなしと、涙ながら投げ出す。ああ
嬉しうござんすと、小春も脇差取り上げ、洗ひつ、梳いつ、撫でつけし、酷や、惜し気もなげ島田、はらりと切って投げ捨つる。枯野の薄、夜半の霜、ともに乱るるあはれさよ。 59

The gesture is makeshift and empty, neither Jihei nor Koharu truly believes it has released
them from their bonds of affection to Osan and her children. The two decide to die inwhat could be imagined to be different places—he on the sluice gate, she by thestream—to honor their obligation to Osan, and Jihei is soon reminded of his children:“Death is never trifling, whether it comes by hanging or throat cutting. Do not let
your mind wander to unimportant things so that your final thoughts are disturbed.
Pray to the Buddha and do not take your eyes off the moon moving westerly,
westerly. Just don’t let the Western Paradise slip from your mind. If you have any
regrets, voice them now, then die,” [says Jihei].
[Koharu replies,] “I have none at all, none at all. But, truly, you must worry
about your two children.”“My, what a strange thing to have blurted out! You make me cry all over again!
I can almost see—how adorable!—their sleeping faces, peaceful and without acare in the world, even though their father is now about to die. This, and this alone,
I cannot forget.”
首くくるも喉突くも、死ぬるにおろかのあるものか。よしないことに気を触れ、最期の念を乱さずとも、西へ西へと行く月を、如来と拝み目を放さず。ただに仕方を忘りやるな。心残りのことあらば、言うて死にや。なんにもないない。こなさん、さだめてお二人の子たちのことが気にかかろ。あれひよんなこと言ひ出して、また泣かしやる。父親が今死ぬるとも、何心なくすやすやと、かはいや寝顔

59

Chikamatsu Monzaemon, Shinjū ten no Amijima, Chikamatsu Monzaemon shū, vol.2,
Shinpen Nihon koten bungaku zenshū 75 (Tokyo: Shōgakkan, 2000), pp.427-428.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 3286

見るやうな。忘れぬはこればっかりと、 60

Thus, Jihei is allowed to forget neither the affection he feels for his family nor the pain
his suicide will cause them.

Nevertheless, he, in the end, chooses to die for his passion.

In the early modern period, Jihei’s suicide was not typically seen as a betrayal,
nor was he often looked down on for what might seem to be an incredibly selfish act.
To the contrary, the difficulty of this choice and his ability to make it are exactly whatmake him heroic.

He is, however, a sentimental hero, not a tragic one. The sadconclusion of the Shinjū ten no Amijima is more highly determined than that of theSonezaki shinjū, but this later text is also clearly a sentimental narrative, not a tragedy.
The play concludes as the morning services are being held at the Daichō-ji Temple:
Her encouragement becomes a source of strength. “Hail Amida Buddha,” he says,
thinking that the invocations of the sacred name carried by the wind are urging
him on, and plunges in Amida’s Saving Sword. Though restrained, she falls
backwards, writhing in pain. Why? The tip of the blade has missed her windpipe,and her final karmic destiny is to not be able to die. He, too, is thrown into
confusion and suffers. He recovers his wits, drags her close, and plunges his
sword into her up to its hilt. He, in pain, bores in and twists the blade in thewound. Her life fades away like an unfinished dream at dawn.
He puts right her corpse—head to the north, face to the west, body lying on its
right side—and throws his haori coat over her. His tears unexhausted on thesleeve he leaves behind, he pulls the sash to him and fastens a noose around his
neck. The sound of the closing prayer—“Believers and unbelievers, alleverywhere equally…”—reaches its end, and he steps off the sluice gate, saying,“May we be reborn on the same lotus! Hail Amida Buddha!”
It is as if he were a gourd twisting in the wind, but his breathing passage is
gradually closed, and his breath stops in front of the damming sluice gate. Herehis ties with this life are snapped.
The fishermen find him in their nets and variously say: “Someone’s died! Wow,
someone’s died. Come here! Come here!” The narrative is spread by their voices.
People say that they who were caught in the net of the Buddha’s vow immediately
gained deliverance and became buddhas, and tears form in every eye of those who
see the Love Suicides at Amijima.
60

Op. cit., p.429.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 3287

女が勇むを力草。風誘ひ来る念仏は、我に勧むる南無阿弥陀仏。弥陀の利剣と、ぐつと刺され、引き据ゑてものりかへり。七転八倒、こはいかに、切つ先喉の吭をはづれ、死にもやらざる最後の業苦。ともに乱れて、苦しみの。
気を取り直し引き寄せて、鍔元まで刺し通したる一刀ゑぐる苦しき暁の、見果てぬ夢と消え果てたり。
頭北面西右脇臥に羽織うちさせ、死骸をつくろひ、泣ひてつきせぬ名残の袂、
見捨てて抱へをたぐり寄せ、首に罠を引つ掛くる。寺の念仏も切回向。有縁無縁乃至法界、平等の声を限りに、樋上より、一蓮托生、南無阿弥陀仏と、踏みはづ
し、しばし苦しむ。
生瓢、風に揺らるるごとくにて、次第に絶ゆる呼吸の道、息堰き止むる樋のくちに、この世の縁は切れ果てたり。
朝出の漁夫が、網の目に、見つけて、死んだ、やれ死んだ。出合へ出会へと声
声に、言ひ広めたる物語、すぐに成仏得脱の、誓ひの網島心中と、目ごとに、涙をかけにける。 61

The audience cries because the ending was hardly inevitable. As in the case of theSonezaki shinjū, a melodramatic ending in which the two are rescued was imaginable.
Had Jihei more money and a greater degree of familial understanding, the suicides could
have been avoided, and Jihei and Koharu could have lived on.

It was just such a

conclusion—Magoemon bursting onto the scene immediately before the suicides arecommitted and announcing that Osan’s father has become aware of Tahei’s evilmachinations and has decided to buy out Koharu’s contract so she and Jihei can maintaintheir love affair—that brings a 1778 adaptation of the play, Shinjū Kamiya Jihei, to its
end. 62
61

The Shinjū Kamiya Jihei is obviously not a bildungsroman.

Jihei survives, but

Op. cit., pp.430-431.

62

The lack of suicides at the end of this play written by Chikamatsu Hanji (1725-1783)
should not be directly linked to changes in late eighteenth-century ideology or history.
Even during the heyday of love-suicide plays, melodramatic plays with happy endings
were more common than sentimental ones with sad conclusions. Furthermore, theTokugawa government issued a directive in the first half of the eighteenth century
proscribing love suicides in newly produced plays. From a Darwinian perspective, thislaw was a strong negative pressure that selected against the suicide shukō plot device, but
it is just as important to note that it did nothing to prescribe any legitimate endings, suchas the one that can be found in the Shinjū Kamiya Jihei. The same holds true for laws
regulating the publishing industry, such as those that banned erotic books and stories
Michael J. ScanlonChapter 3288

not because he learns to make compromises in order to live in this world, nor because his
feelings for Koharu mature from a fiery love of passion to a more solid one of affection.
Jihei lives on, never having to give up his passion, because the situation changes. Thisis a crucial point: passion can interfere with domestic and public order, but it does notnecessarily have to do so.

The conflict between duty and passion is merely

circumstantial and, therefore, cannot support tragedy.
The neutral section of the selectionist rectangle is, as it had been in the Sonezaki
shinjū, filled by a villain whose main attributes are a calculating greed and a firm belief
in the power of money to corrupt.

This is clear in the exchange Tahei has with Koharu

and her “samurai” client:“Even if you won’t listen to me, the sound of my gold coins will make you hear.
What good karma you must have! Out of the many men in Tenma and the rest of
Osaka, you have Jihei the paper dealer, father of two children, with his cousin fora wife and his uncle for a father-in-law. Every sixty days he is chased after bywholesalers wanting to settle accounts. Him paying the ten kanme to ransom you,this it is like that praying mantis who tried to stop a carriage with its pincer. Me, I
have no wife and no child, no father-in-law, no parent, and no uncle. I am a man
known as Unencumbered Tahei. I cannot match Jihei when it comes to bragging
and boasting in the pleasure quarters. Only when it comes to having money does
Tahei win. Were I to push with the power of money—Well, how about it,men?—what might I conquer?” [says Tahei, who continues,] “Tonight’s customer
is Jihei, isn’t it? I’m taking over, I’m taking over. I, Unencumbered, am taking
over. Bring in sake, hostess, bring in sake!”[The hostess replies,] “What on earth are you saying? Her customer for theevening is a samurai, and he’ll be showing up any minute. Please amuse yourself
somewhere else.”
Nevertheless, he has a playful look [and says,] “Well one has swords, while theother doesn’t. But, whether a samurai or a townsman, a customer’s a customer.
Even those with swords don’t have five or six. For the most part, their swords are
two: a sword and a short sword. Even if it’s a samurai, I’m taking Koharu…”
about current affairs. They could select against certain pre-existing forms, and this may
have allowed new forms to develop or previously recessive ones to rise to prominence,but these laws did not proactively create these new forms, nor can they be directly
credited for the success of those forms that would later rise to dominance.
Michael J. ScanlonChapter 3289

He storms about yelling out [his mocking song based on the nembutsu chant].
Meanwhile, there is a man at the gate hiding—at night—under an amikasa wicker
hat.
“Well, Wastepaper’s made it. My, great disguise! Why don’t you come in,
Wastepaper? If it’s that my ‘namu Amida butsu’s are scary, I’ll just take thatamikasa hat of yours!” [Tahei says and] drags the man in to get a better look at his
appearance. It is a genuine samurai with a dark expression who glares through hisamikasa hat, his eyeballs like gongs. Neither a “hail” nor an “Amida” areforthcoming, and he gasps—“Aaahh”—but does not quail, saying, “Well, Koharu,
I am a townsman. I’ve never worn a sword, but I am pretty sure that the glint of
the mound of new silver at my place could twist and turn a mere sword. As forthat man from the wastepaper shop whose capital is as thin as cheesecloth trying
to contend with me, it’s the height of insolence! I’m off to saunter past Sakura
Bridge to the Nakamachi district. If I meet Scrappaper somewhere along the way,
I’ll trample him underfoot. Let’s go, let’s go.”
聞きともなくとも、小判の響きできかせてみせう。貴様もよい因果ぢゃ。天満、大坂三郷に男も多いに、紙屋の治兵衛二人の子の親、如房はいとこ同士、舅は叔母婿。六十日六十日に問屋の仕切りにさへ追はるる商売、十貫目近い金出して、請け出すの、根引きのとは、蟷螂が斧でござる。我ら、如房、子なければ、舅な
し、親もなし、叔父持たず、身すがらの太兵衛と名を取った男、色里で僭生言ふ
ことは治兵衛めにはかなはねども、金持つたばかりは太兵衛が勝った。金の力で押したらば、なう連れ衆。何に勝たうもしれまい。今宵の客も治兵衛めぢゃ、貰ほ貰ほ。この身ずがらが貰うた。花車、酒出しや出しや。え何おしやんす。今宵のお客はお侍衆。おつけけ見えましよ。お前はどこぞ脇で遊んでくださんせと。
言へども、ほたえた顔付きにて、はて刀差すか差さぬか。侍も町人も客は客。なんぼ差いても二本。侍ぐるめに小春殿貰うた…
暴れわめく門の口、人目を忍ぶ夜の編笠、はああ塵紙わたせた。はて、きつい
忍びやう、なぜ入らぬ。塵紙。太兵衛が念仏怖くば、なむあみ笠も貰うたと、引きずり入れたる姿を見れば、大小くすんだ武士の正真。編笠越しにぐつと睨めたる。まん丸目玉は叩き鉦、念とも仏とも出でばこそ、はああと言へども、怯まぬ顔、なう小春殿。こちは町人、刀差いたことはなけれど、おれが所に沢山な新銀の光には、少々の刀も捩ぢゆがめうと思ふもの、塵紙屋めが漆漉しほどな薄元手で、この身ずがらと張り合ふは慮外千万、桜橋から中町くだりぞめいたら、どこぞでは紙屑踏みにぢつてくりよ。皆おぢやおぢやと、身振りばかりは男をみがく。
町一杯に、はばかつてこそ帰りけれ、 63This self-proclaimed voice of merchant-hood was, however, hardly a typical merchant.
The play makes clear that his riches simply flowed to him from his hometown.

63

BecauseOp. cit., pp.389-391.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 3

290

he does not have to make his living by interacting with customers and wholesalers, Tahei
is able to engage in behavior in violation of correct principles without it bringing him to
financial ruin.

Furthermore, this villain plays a decidedly undersized role in the

narrative as a whole. As Donald Keene has pointed out, Tahei makes “a comicallymaladroit exit” 64 relatively early in the text.

Jihei’s suicide was due to generalcircumstance, not the maneuverings of a singular villain.

This comes to be of thegreatest importance in light of the fact that, even though there are no characters within theplay who can be fit into the section of the selectionist rectangle for correct principles
devoid of human feelings, duty plays a vital role in this narrative.

Never concretized,

duty becomes omnipresent, and its pull is all the more powerful for this. A world of
unnamed customers and wholesalers demand a strict adherence to a code of proper
merchantly behavior with no exceptions being granted to those in love. Jihei, who has
long since run out the money necessary to support his passion while meeting the demandsof duty, is powerless to fight back against this situation.

Thus, in the final instance,

calculation plays but a catalytic role, and affection has only an exacerbating function.
The problem engaged by the Shinjū ten no Amijima is the same as that of the Sonezaki
shinjū: the conflict between duty and passion.
Domestic plays, be they sentimental or melodramatic, were an important type ofearly modern narrative. It is, however, vital to keep in mind that they were not thedominant form of jōruri narrative. That position was occupied by what was known ashistorical drama (jidaimono 時代物), five-act plays set outside the quotidian time and64

Keene, World within Walls, p.259.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 3291

space of early modern Japan. One of the most successful of these plays was the
Kokusen’ya kassen (The Battles of Coxinga 国姓爺合戦), a 1715 play also written by
Chikamatsu Monzaemon that enjoyed an unprecedented seventeen-month theatrical run
after its debut and spawned a large number of similar but different texts written both forthe jōruri theater as well as for the direct fiction market.

The complicated plot of thisnarrative has been outlined by Donald Keene as follows:This play opens in the Chinese court. The villainous Ri Tōten, urging the emperor
to accept humiliating conditions of peace with the Tartars, gouges out his left eye
as proof of his absolute loyalty. Later we learn that this gesture was in fact asignal to the Tartars that he would betray the country to them. The Tartars soon
arrive in force. The loyal minister Go Sankei attempts to defend the emperor andempress, but he stands alone against the enemy hordes. The empress, who is
momentarily expecting to give birth, is struck by a bullet and dies. Go Sankei is
so determined to preserve the succession that he performs a caesarean operationon the dead empress and delivers the baby. Realizing, however, that the Tartars
will never relent in their search for the missing heir if they find the empress’ bodywithout an infant in her womb, he kills his own baby and pushes it into theempress’ abdomen. “Noble child,” he cries, “you have been blessed by fortune!
You were lucky to have been born at a time when you could die in place of theprince destined to be our emperor.” In the meantime, Go Sankei’s wife has safely
escorted the emperor’s sister, Princess Sendan, to the coast, before she herself iskilled by the Tartars.
In the second act we see Watōnai, the future [Kokusen’ya]. He is a fisherman
who lives on the coast near Hirado. The boat bearing Princess Sendan is washedashore on that very coast, and she informs him (he understands Chinese because
his father came to Japan from China) of the disasters she has witnessed. Watōnai
and his parents leave at once for China, resolved to oust the usurpers. In thesecond scene we see Watōnai and his mother struggle through a bamboo forest in
China, heading for the castle where his half-sister lives. Suddenly a great tiger
springs out on them. Watōnai grapples with the beast, but it is subdued only when
his mother points at the tiger a sacred charm from the Great Shrine at Ise. A forceof Chinese soldiers appears, and this time Watōnai and the tiger join to conquer
them.
The third act, by contrast, is devoted mainly to the “human” situation andinvolves little fantasy. Watōnai’s half-sister, Kinshōjo, is the wife of General
Kanki, the lord of the Castle of Lions. At first she is delighted to learn that her
long-lost family has arrived from Japan, but before long she is forced to mediate
between Watōnai’s insistence that Kanki join him, and Kanki’s refusal to beMichael J. ScanlonChapter 3292

swayed by a request emanating from his wife’s family. She kills herself, freeing
Kanki to join Watōnai. Kanki gives Watōnai the new name [Kokusen’ya], Lord of
the Imperial Surname.
The fourth act is taken up by supernatural doings. Go Sankei, wandering in themountains with the baby prince he has saved, encounter two immortals who
reveal to him in a vision the triumphs [Kokusen’ya] has won all over China. Fiveyears flash by in a moment. Now Go Sankei is joined by [Kokusen’ya]’s father
and by Princess Sendan, who has returned from Japan. They are quickly
surrounded by Tartars, but a miraculous bridge of clouds spans the gorge before
them and they cross safely. When the Tartars follow them onto the bridge it
collapses, and they plunge to their deaths.
The last act depicts [Kokusen’ya]’s decisive battle with the Tartars and his
victory. Ri Tōten is killed and the young prince is enthroned as emperor. The playconcludes: “This joy they owe to the divine, and the saintly virtues of theEmperor of Great Japan, a land endowed with perpetual blessings which willprosper forever. [All pray that by this benefaction the five grains will continue toripen in abundance, and the emperor’s reign will endure a hundred million
years.]” 65This play can also be analyzed using the giri-ninjō selectionist rectangle. However, it
becomes clear that it is the vertical axis—the relationship between the neutral andcomplex terms—which orients its narrative.
The Kokusen’ya kassen is clearly a narrative that pits good guys against badguys.

The heroes are Watōnai and all those who join his league fighting to restore theMing empire.

Each and every one of these characters fights not for his own personal

gain as mercenaries or would-be rulers, but as proper feudal subjects who engage inbattle for the sake of their beloved lord, the infant crown prince of the Ming dynasty.
Human feeling devoid of correct principle and correct principle devoid of human feelings
play little role in the narrative.

Watōnai is prone to a rage which causes him to rushheadlong into hopeless situations that has the same self-consuming effect as lustful65

Keene, World within Walls, pp.564-565.
The sentence in brackets is the last line of Keene’s translation of the play, which wasomitted from his plot summary.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 3

293

passion in the domestic plays. 66
self-destructive impulses. 67

Yet he can be reasoned with and is able to resist his

Times in which the pull of duty causes characters to act in a

way contrary to their desires can be found in such incidents as General Kanki’s initialrefusal to join Watōnai.

Yet he, like every other character placed in a similar position

within the Kokusen’ya kassen, takes advantage of the first opportunity to escape thesebonds of duty with honor intact in order to unite correct principle with human feelings by
joining Watōnai’s righteous crusade against the Manchu usurpers. 68
to show where duty cannot be found.

It is also important

Go Sankei’s killing of his infant son in order to

66

The fact that rage was a possible fit for the ninjō, not giri section of the selectionist
rectangle can best be seen in the protagonists of a sub-genre of narrative known as
murderer plays (or criminal plays). Characters such as Yohei in Chikamatsu’s
Onna-goroshi abura jigoku (Woman-Killer and the Hell of Oil 女殺油地獄, 1721) rage
against the dictates of correct principle, but not in a way such that a new, alternative
world based on a non-feudal value system is being advocated. Instead, their actions
become more and more egregious and self-destructive until they are simply consumed bythem. It is important to realize that these characters are not heroic villains marked by
calculation, but criminal heroes, who like Tokubei and Jihei transgress against the publicorder in a “respectable” way. (Though relatively few in number, there are calculatingprotagonists in early modern Japanese narrative, but these men tend to undergo a sudden
conversions upon witnessing social injustice and, combining human feelings with correctprinciples, become champions of feudal ideals.)
It should also be noted that the neutral term can also house characters notable for theircowardice. Such figures, however, either play extremely minor roles in the narrative or,like Yoshiaki in Chikamatsu’s Tsu no kuni meoto ike (Man and Wife Lake in Tsu
Prefecture 津国女夫池, 1721), have epiphanies similar to those undergone by thecalculating villain-protagonists mentioned above.
67

Another character with a structurally similar role is Watōnai’s wife, Ryūkakun, whoflies into jealous rages thinking her husband is carrying on an adulterous love affair with
the Chinese princess who has washed ashore, but later heads off to China as a sister inarms with this self-same princess.

68

This synthesis of giri and ninjō is the extraordinary time equivalent of the “warm giri”
Minamoto Ryōen talks about in his analysis of sewamono domestic plays and other texts
set in ordinary time. It could, I suppose, be referred to as “hot giri.”

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 3294

save the crown prince is definitely not an example of affection for one’s kin losing out toa feeling of duty to one’s lord.

The loyal minister is instead torn between two bonds ofaffection, wherein—as is typical in early modern plays involving the sacrifice ofchildren—the more public bond is stronger than the more private one.
Against this group stands the villainous Ri Tōten and his Manchu allies. The
cunning desire for self gain of this character is obvious the scene in which he reveals his
treachery:[The emperor says,] “Truly, the rust on a blade does emerge from the sword andcorrodes it; the fire on a cypress-covered mountain emerges from the cypresses
and burns them. I now have come to realize that the hatred and amity [onereceives] emerges from oneself. I, not making use of the advice of Tei Shiryū[Watōnai’s father] or Go Sankei, was taken in by your flattery. Posterity willremember me for having lost my country and my life. How dumb was I not tohave known that food delicious in the mouth causes harm once in the stomach! As
you must know, my child has been in my wife’s womb for ten months now. The
birth cannot be long off. Let [the child] see the light of sun and moon. Just thiskindness,” begs [the Emperor] in tears.
“What? No, never! For what reason did I gouge out my precious eye? Not outof loyalty, nor due to correct principle. It was to throw you off guard and join in
the Tartar conspiracy. A single eye became a fief. Your head will be a province,”says [Ri Tōten] as he grabs [the Emperor], pulls him near, and chops off his headin one fell swoop.
げに刃の錆は刃より出でて刃をくさらし、檜山の火は檜より出でて檜を焼く。仇も情けも我が身より出づるとは、今こそ思ひ知られたれ。鄭芝龍呉三桂が諌めを用ひず。おのれらがへつらいにたぶらかされ。国を失ひ身をいしなひ、末代に名をながす。口に甘き食物は腹中に入って、害をなすと知らざりし我が愚かさよ。
汝らも知るごとく夫人が胎内に、十月にあたる我が子あり。誕生も程あるまじ。
月日の光を見せよかし。せめての情けとばかりにて御涙、にぞくれ給ふ。
ああならぬならぬ。大事の眼を刳り出したはなんの為、忠節でもぎりでもない。
君に心をゆるさせ韃靼と一味せんため、目玉一つが知行に成り。君の首が国になると、取って引き寄せ、御首を水もたまらず打ち落とし 69

The nature of villainy in domestic plays and historical plays is close enough that Koharu,
69

Chikamatsu Monzaemon, Kokusen’ya kassen, Chikamatsu Monzaemon shū, vol.3,
Shinpen Nihon koten bungaku zenshū 76 (Tokyo: Shōgakkan, 2000), pp.266-267.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 3295

in the Shinjū ten no Amijima, refers to Tahei as a Japanese Ri Tōten.

Yet it is readily

apparent that villains play a much more central role in historical plays than they do indomestic ones.

In the Shinjū ten no Amijima, much of the narrative plays out after Tahei

has been dispatched.

The Kokusen’ya kassen, on the other hand, ends a scant few lines

after the ambitious Ri Tōten is put to death by Watōnai in conjunction with Kanki and Go
Sankei.

This is absolutely typical of historical plays.
One of the chief reasons that endings almost immediately follow the death of thevillain is the unsuitability of this type of hero to the post-villain world. Watōnai and Ri
Tōten, though obviously different in many ways, 70 have one disturbing trait in common.
Both use their talents to rise in the world: Watōnai’s martial prowess takes him from amere fisherman to the possessor of a highly coveted title, while Ri Tōten uses his
deviousness to rise from a minister within the Chinese bureaucracy to the administrator
of a portion of the Manchu empire.

Watōnai’s rise in the world was by no means an

intrinsic threat to the martial-Confucian ideals of the Tokugawa ideology. As Ogyū
Sorai pointed out in his Seidan, the chief benefit of war is that it tests the talents of men
and allows those with ability to rise in the world, while an era of prolonged peace leads to70

Andrew Gerstle once wrote an article about a group of Chikamatsu plays with the title“Hero as Murderer.” A more apt description might have been hero as moron. Though
there are some clever and wily heroes to be found within early modern Japanese
long-form fiction, Watōnai is hardly the only one to lack foresight and self-preservation
skills. In fact, many of the most popular early modern Japanese heroes are prone tocharge headlong into deathtraps. This heroic recklessness is often ascribed to theemphasis placed on sincerity in the Japanese spirit. A more likely, though indirect, cause
is the role calculation played in villainy. The pressure to make the hero be as
un-villain-like as possible probably helped condition the near-humorous thoughtlessness
on the part of many of the most famous martial idols of early modern Japan.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 3296

the ossification of the social order, moral decline, and governmental corruption.
Watōnai’s rise is allowable because it is accomplished during a time of war and is done
for the sake of a proper feudal cause.

However, when the threat of a new, malevolent

social order based on calculating greed has been put down, and a legitimate government
founded on correct principles in harmony with human feelings has been restored inperpetuity, Watōnai’s adventures must immediately come to an end lest he disrupt the
public order and, thereby, risk his status as a hero. 71

The end of the villain brings about

an end of narratability. 72
71

If one keeps in mind that the giri-ninjō selectionist rectangle could shape the structuresof long-form narrative in early modern Japan only because it was the chief lens throughwhich Edo-period Japanese made sense of the world, the differences between thequotidian and extraordinary versions of it can help to account for the astonishing degreeof interest in (and argument surrounding) the deeds of the famous Akō rōnin, a band of
forty-seven men who lay in wait for nearly two years before avenging the death of theirlord by killing his enemy in 1703 and were put to death on orders of the Tokugawa
government two months later. If judged by the giri-ninjō selectionist rectangle forextraordinary times, these were clearly heroes, exemplars of the Warring States bushidō.
(It is hardly coincidental that the most famous literary retellings of this story set theaction in the late medieval period, a time of war, and were, thus, able to depict these men
as nearly perfect heroes.) The acts of the historical Akō rōnin, however, were done inpeacetime and, thus, could also be judged by the domestic version of the rectangle. When
this was done, they could fit into either the pure ninjō section as romantic, but ultimately
self-destructive, Robin Hood-like heroes or even the neutral section as villains who
schemed to kill one of the shogun’s loyal ministers. Their acts fell into the final,
irresolvable differences between the two “meaning-making” mechanisms, so different
people could—and did—offer different interpretations with none ever driving the rest to
extinction.

72

There would, of course, be sequels and prequels to this story written over the years,
including one written—against the advice of the theater owner for whom he worked—by
Chikamatsu Monzaemon during the height of the original play’s popularity. This
drama—entitled Kokusen’ya gonichi kassen (The Latter-Day battles of Kokusen’ya 国姓
爺後日合戦)—begins with a restoration of a crisis that initiates another period of
extraordinary time. Another unscrupulous minister of the Ming Emperor has sprung up
and taken control of the kingdom, and it is again Kokusen’ya who leads the fight to put
down this rebellion. Moreover, just as in the Kokusen’ya kassen, the play ends once peaceand order are restored.
Michael J. ScanlonChapter 3

297

The texts analyzed thus far were some of the most popular texts of the puppet
theater in early modern Japan and have come to form the center of the jōruri canon as it
is studied in modern times.

Previous criticism has, in many ways, been correct toconcentrate on explications of the differences between these texts and the mass of similar
but different ones that were written and performed but soon forgotten in an attempt toshow why these particular plays and not others were able to become “classics.”
however, is most definitely not the reason for their inclusion in this study.

This,

Rather, thepresence of analyses of these literary narratives is all but necessary because it allows thisscholarly text to engage some of the issues basic to the genre to which it belongs, that ofmodern literary histories of early modern Japanese literature. For the purposes of thisstudy, it is also vital to note that it was the pre-existing generic context that helped
condition both the structures of these “masterpieces” as well as their initial popularity.
Long-form narrative written within the giri-ninjō paradigm was not new to the eighteenth
century.

The encyclopedic study of early jōruri conducted by Wakatsuki Yasuji showsthat the basic plot structures of early modern long-form fiction appeared in rudimentary
form in the puppet theater over the second quarter of the seventeenth century. 73

Thesecond half of that century is also considered to be one of great evolution within the earlymodern Japanese theater because elements evolved separately in the kabuki and jōruri
traditions began to cross over. Perhaps spurred on by the shogunate’s banning ofyouthful male actors from the stage, kabuki plays, which had largely focused on songs

73

Wakatsuki Yasuji, Ko-jōruri no shin-kenkyū, vol.1 (Tokyo: Shingetsusha, 1928),
pp.186-189.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 3298

and improvised dialogue within set vignettes, 74 began to include long-form plot
paradigms evolved in the jōruri tradition, while jōruri came to include more dialogue,
and the plots of its individual pieces would become more complicated and specialized astime went on.

Within both types of theater, long-form plot types developed,

differentiated and diversified, so that most of the basic plot paradigms of early modern
long-form narrative were already in existence by the turn of the eighteenth century.75

Itis also important to keep in mind that the turn of the eighteenth century did not coincidewith the start of an era of complete structural ossification, for the first half of the century
witnessed the evolution of a hybrid domestic-historical type of play as structures fromdomestic plays would be incorporated into those of historical ones. Nevertheless, a long
period of relative stasis had been entered by the turn of the eighteenth century.
Developments would happen within the basic parameters of the previously establishedplot paradigms, and this would continue until the Meiji Restoration of 1868 and theconsequent rise of Japanese modernity.
Critics such as Donald Keene lament the artistic stagnation in jōruri drama after
the death of Chikamatsu in 1724 and attribute the continued popularity of the jōruri
theater to developments within the arts of puppetry and chanting. 76

However, it needs

74

See the “Gei kagami” (Mirror of the Art 芸鑑) section of the Yakusha hanashi (Actor’s
Analects 役者論語) first published in second half of the eighteenth century but perhaps
written as much as a half century or so earlier.

75

Wakatsuki, Ko-jōruri no shin-kenkyū, vols.1 and 2 (Tokyo: Shingetsusha, 1928 and
1929), pp.449-463 and 1668-1678.

76

Keene, World within Walls, pp.275-278.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 3299

to be remembered both that some of the most popular individual texts of the
tradition—the Sugawara denju tenarai kagami (Mirror of Sugawara’s Secret Teachings
on Calligraphy 菅原伝授手習鑑, 1746), the Yoshitsune senbon-zakura (Yoshitsune andthe Thousand Cherry Trees 義経千本桜, 1747), and the Kanadehon Chūshingura (TheWriting Primer Treasury of Loyal Retainers 仮名手本忠臣蔵, 1748)—were formulaic
texts written during this time as well as that plays written by Chikamatsu himself werenormally performed only in revised form. 77

In other words, the jōruri tradition

remained vital after the death of its genius author as well as the end of radical
development, and the stage during the latter three quarters of the eighteenth century was
dominated by texts with new, slightly different versions of pre-existing structures.

Thisis typical of the literature produced during the long periods of stasis that come between
short intervals of great formal development.

Success leads to imitation, one text

replaces another to which it is highly similar, and drastically divergent texts are crowded
out of the marketplace. The underlying “cause” for this stasis is the success that thearray of typical signs, figures, relations and structures which mark the genre had inengaging and resolving the giri-ninjō problematic in which it evolved.

So long as thebasic irresolvable conflict between the two remained central to the overall ideologicalenvironment, there was no “need” for new forms, and the pre-existing long-form
narrative structures would represent formidable competition to any newly evolved forms.
These factors combined to constitute an enormously strong negative pressure selecting
against large-scale innovation.
77

Thus, the basic long-form plot structures that had

Ibid.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 3

300

evolved and risen to dominance within the domain of performance culture sometime overthe seventeenth century would retain their position until the end of the early modern
period itself.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 3

301

Connecting the dots
From 1686, when he was asked by Takemoto
Gidayū and wrote a new one called the Shusse
Kagekiyo, he began making a name for himself inJapan—his first writings were for the Takemoto[theater], and he went on to write several hundred
new pieces in his lifetime. From this point forward,
authors’ names were attached to advertising signs
and printed books—he was the originator of this.
Because originally Chikamatsu wrote from a deeply
held desire to convert the masses, [his writings]
differed from previous books of fiction(sōshi-mono). He tempered rumors and idle stories,
imparted human feelings (ninjō) to stupid andbenighted people, and displayed every last bit of theinnermost teachings of Shinto, Confucianism, andBuddhism. When it comes to popular writings, hisfame in the present and past as a magnificent
first-rate writer is a given. When you read a hundred
volumes of Chikamatsu’s jōruri libretti, you will
hear—without ever studying—the enlightenment of
the Three Teachings; you will penetrate the humanfeelings (ninjō) of everyone from the first person in
the realm [the emperor] to the masses at its depths.
There will be nothing in all of creation that you will
not understand. It truly can be said that he was a
dragon among men!
Jōruri authors
Sakusha shikihō Kezairoku (1801)
Nyūgatei Ga’nyū (d.1801)
That a literary history one of the chief foci of which is the relationship between
literature and print should emphasize texts evolved within the theatrical tradition mightseem counterintuitive. After all, issues of performativity surely played a significant rolein the success or failure of individual texts in their initial environment of the jōruri or
kabuki stage, and spectacle and performance factors would have to play a part in modern
academic arguments about these texts as theatrical objects. It needs to be remembered,however, that these originally theatrical texts were also being printed and put out on the
Michael J. ScanlonChapter 3302

commercial book market, and plot was hardly inconsequential to their function in thisform.

From the final decades of the seventeenth century, illustrated books withplot-summary redactions of kabuki plays—called e-iri kyōgen-bon—came to be printed,
but it would be jōruri-based texts that would be of far greater importance to thecommercial book market.

By the latter part of the seventeenth century, it became

customary for jōruri libretti to be printed in full at the time of a play’s debut.

Earlyjōruri texts were not formatted in exactly the same in style as that used for sōshi (booksof fiction 草子) texts written for the sole purpose of being printed, 78 but they were
nevertheless obviously being printed to be read as pieces of fiction.

Though often

written using a bolder and thicker style of character than that employed when making
woodblocks for sōshi texts, jōruri books contained pictures, had many lines of text per
page, and lacked musical notation. At the three-quarter mark of the seventeenth century,
however, two famous jōruri chanters began to publish selected scenes from various playswith extensive musical notation, and the majority of published full-text libretti soon came
to include all the musical notations necessary for amateur chanters to practice the art.
Characters vastly increased in size and the number of lines per page shrank precipitously.
A concern with book history typical of scholars specializing in early modern Japanese
literature had once led to a situation in which it was widely believed that the chief78

Texts of fiction written to be printed were, from the second decade of the eighteenth
century, most often categorized as sōshi (books of fiction 草子) or yomihon (books forreading 読本). Proof for this includes the kana-mono sōshi (vernacular fiction book 仮名物草子) category from the 1729 booksellers’ catalogue and the fūryū yomihon(fashionable books for reading 風流読本) section of the 1754 and 1777 booksellers’
catalogues.
Hasegawa Tsuyoshi, Ukiyo-zōshi no kenkyū (Tokyo: Ōfūsha, 1969), pp.12-16.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 3

303

audience for this type of book was amateur chanters, not simply fiction readers.
However, it has now become clear that the texts contained in these books were also being
read as pieces of fiction: a nineteenth-century overview of fiction produced by the
famous author Kyokutei Bakin includes a category for jōruri; in the holdings of the Daisōcommercial lending library of Nagoya upon its closing at the end of the nineteenth
century, there was an extremely high number of jōruri items, and this category’s
percentage of duplicate items—a sure sign of popularity—was higher than all genres ofsōshi narrative save one sub-genre of gunsho military writings; 79 Nagatomo Chiyoji has
uncovered a good deal of documentary evidence showing that individual readers wererenting and buying jōruri libretti for their literary qualities throughout the early modern
period. 80

The extensive musical notation means simply that these books could be used

to practice chanting, not that this was their sole, necessary, or even primary function. 81
There was, however, a vitally important difference between theatrical texts and79

Nagatomo Chiyoji, Kinsei kashihon’ya no kenkyū (Tokyo; Tōkyōdō Shuppan, 1982),
pp.153-158.

80

Nagatomo Chiyoji, “Yomi-mono toshite no jōruri-bon,” Kinsei Kamigata Jōruri-bon no
kenkyū (Tōkyōdō Shuppan, 1999), pp.80-104.

81

The argument that jōruri libretti over the eighteenth century were read only as aids foramateur chanting seems to be based on an argument concerned with efficiency,
something that is crucial to a Darwinian understanding. To some degree, the argument iscorrect. It is true that each printed page of a jōruri libretto contained relatively less text
than a piece of sōshi fiction would have held and that this probably affected the price. It
needs to be kept in mind, however, that consumers who wished to use these books topractice chanting were not mutually exclusive from those who might want to use thebook as an object of literary reading. Unlike books containing excerpts of famous
passages, which would be a more efficient form for the amateur chanting market, full-text
libretti could be read for both purposes and, therefore, were not as inefficient as it might
first appear.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 3

304

sōshi fiction, one that helps explain the evolution of the dominant long-form plot
structures within the domain of drama.

Jōruri and kabuki texts were written for thestage, and their later success or failure on the book market was but a secondary concern
for their authors and the theater owners who financed each project.

The primaryfinancial outlays in the theater world—be it kabuki or jōruri—were not specifically tied
to individual texts. The stage and seating area, props and performers could be re-used to
put on different plays. Thus, a good deal of the negative pressure against formal
innovation associated with woodblock print technology simply was not operative ineither the kabuki or jōruri worlds.

The theater was also a more efficient environment.

Plays could be brought to market with incredible speed.

The Sonezaki shinjū was basedon an extra-literary incident that took place a scant three weeks before the play opened,
and yet apologies had to be made to the audience on the night of the premier because acompeting kabuki troupe had already put on a play involving the same subject matter. 82
Furthermore, the success or failure of individual plays was immediately recognizable toauthors and theater owners.

Plays either drew an audience sufficient to justify acontinued theatrical run or closed almost immediately.

As always, commercial success

was almost always linked to evolutionary impact, for hit plays were sometimes put on bycompeting theatrical companies, and similar but different texts were written andperformed in the hopes of capturing the previous play’s audience.
The negative pressure associated with xylographic print culture was a general
one that inhibited all innovation; it was never directed specifically against the82

Keene, World within Walls, p.254.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 3305

Chart 6: Fiction Publication over the First Half of the Eighteenth Century(Based on categories used in Noda Hisao’s Nihon kinsei shōsetsu shi: Dangi-bon hen) 83
Text TypeYears

Erotictexts(kōshoku-mono)

True
records [ofcurrent
events]SamuraistoriesGhoststoriesClassicalstyle texts

Urban
merchant(bushi-mono)(kaidan-(giko-(chōnin-

Jōruristyle
texts

mono)

mono)

mono)

(jōruri-(jitsuroku)

GenrokuShōtoku

mono)

99

23

22

20

13

9

12

20

10

16

7

4

12

66

1688-1716

KyōhōKan’en
1716-1751

development of long-form narrative structures or the prosperity of such plot paradigms
per se.

Thus, as certain long-form plot structures showed an ability to draw customers

to both the theater and the bookstore, similar ones began to appear in sōshi fiction in everincreasing numbers and soon came to dominate. 84

The downfall of the kōshoku-bon

genre can, of course, be linked to directives put out by the Tokugawa government in 1722
that banned the publication of newly written erotic books. Yet it is important not tomake too much of this. Texts of erotica and pornography continued to be written andread; the appearance of texts with long-form plot structures fit to the early modern
ideological environment is traceable to the 1680s, the time of kōshoku-bon ascendancy. 85

83

Noda Hisao, Nihon kinsei shōsetsu shi. Dangi-bon hen (Tokyo: Benseisha, 1995),
pp.11-12.
84

Previous to this, the pieces written within the giri-ninjō dynamic were still competingwith those that combined contemporary characters and settings with the long-form plot
structures of medieval war narratives and classical long-form fiction.
85

Nakamura Yukihiko, “Hachimonjiya-bon no tenmatsu,” Nakamura Yukihikochojutsushū, vol.4 (Tokyo: Chūō Kōronsha, 1987), pp.137-140.
Michael J. ScanlonChapter 3306

More important, it was a type of content, not form, that was selected against by this law,and the edict could have (at absolute most) only upset the literary status quo and, thus,
either set off a period of evolution within the previously dominant genre or opened up
space for heretofore recessive genres to rise to prominence.

Laws, in general, are but

negative pressures that neither proactively create new forms nor can even be directly
credited for the success of those that rise to dominance after their issue. It is also worth
noting that the rise of long-form fiction on the eighteenth-century Japanese book market
cannot be tied to an evolution from within the kōshoku-bon genre. A seminal work oneighteenth-century fiction written by Hasegawa Tsuyoshi makes it clear that sōshi fiction
with long-form plots were typically not the result of a process wherein the individual
narrative units of a sōshi short story collection or thread narrative became integrated askernels and satellites of an overarching plot.

Lines of text and an occasional plot device(shukō 趣向) are lifted directly from pieces of sōshi fiction, especially several texts
written by Ihara Saikaku, but the most direct ancestry of all the texts of literary fiction
with long-form plots analyzed in his Ukiyo-zōshi no kenkyū can be traced to the theater.
Two examples should suffice to show the importance of theatrically evolved
texts to the domain of sōshi fiction. One is the Kokusen’ya Minchō kassen (The Ming
Battles of Kokusen’ya 国姓爺明朝合戦), a text authored by Ejima Kiseki and publishedby the Hachimonjiya house in 1717. The text was part of what could be termed a“Kokusen’ya boom” that followed the success of the original jōruri play, and its narrative
core is a combination of two texts written by Chikamatsu Monozaemon—the Kokusen’ya

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 3

307

kassen and its similarly structured, but less commercially successful sequel, theKokusen’ya gonichi kassen—to which grafts from other texts were added.

Though the

majority of Hasegawa’s investigation of this text involves a delineation of what texts
were put together to form the Kokusen’ya Minchō kassen as well as a description of theways in which Kiseki’s text adds, augments, truncates or omits sections to make the latertext different from those that preceded it, he also makes it clear that the success ofKiseki’s piece was likely due to the similarity between it and previously successful texts,
its ability to fit into a successful formula. This was a text that appealed to the demandsof a wide readership, not one that was a product of a singular authorial will to artistry, andit hardly revolutionized the literary field. 86

Yet its proximity to “greatness”—theoriginal Kokusen’ya kassen—is in some ways distracting because it is overly tempting formodern scholars or readers to use it a reverse touchstone, a means for understanding the“masterpiece” from which it derived, rather than study it as an example of “normal
literature.”
For this reason, an even better example might be the Budō Ōmi hakkei (Eight
Views of Martial Ōmi 武道近江八景, 1719), a text written by the same author and put out
by the same publishing house as the Kokusen’ya Minchō kassen.

This text, which

evolved out of some kabuki texts that, though popular in their time, did not achieve thestatus of “classics,” is unmistakably an example of a literary text that enjoyed a shortperiod of popularity and then faded to the background without greatly affecting genericnorms.
86

The text’s plot is as follows:

Hasegawa, Ukiyo-zōshi no kenkyū, pp.378-385.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 3

308

Sasaki Takayori of Ōmi province falls in love with a beautiful lad, Ashigaru
Ekinosuke, and the boy’s father, Ashiura Ekizaemon, rises to power and isobsessed with profit. The young lord [of Takayori’s house], Biwa Gorō, has
become attached to the courtesan Hanagiku and is banished from the province due
to Ekizaemon’s plotting. Ekizaemon schemes to usurp the province. Shiga
Mondayū and the other loyal retainers work hard for the return of the young lord
and the expulsion of Ekizaemon. Mitsui no Ban’uemon secretly meets with
Ekinosuke, and Mikamiyama Momosuke also [professes] his love. The two part:the former trying to obstruct Ekizaemon’s power by being struck down by
Takayori, and the latter having plans to strike down Ekinosuke under the pretextof a homosexual love. Meanwhile, the sacrifice of Mondayū’s brother-in-law,
Kagamiyama Benjūrō, has given Mikenjaku no Mokuumon heart. Ekinosuke
purposefully drops a letter written by Mitsui in front of his lord and is imprisoned
for this. An envoy is sent to kill Mitsui, but Mitsui, by means of Momosuke’s
strategy, is able to repulse him. Echigawa Tōzō and others go to Ashiura as
shogunal envoys. Ekinosuke admonishes his father and resolves to commit ritualsuicide. At this point, Musa Mikinoshin brings the daughter betrothed to
Ekinosuke in order to marry them. Ekinosuke and his wife take the tonsure anddepart on a pilgrimage, and Biwa Gorō returns to the province. Mondayū attacks
Ekizaemon, and all the loyal retainers prepare to commit ritual suicide together.
Just then, however, the peasantry rises up. When Takayori tries to gather his
troops, there are few who obey his orders. When a letter by Ekizaemon placing a
curse on Takayori is discovered, Takayori repents, and Biwa Gorō succeeds to thehead of house. 87
This synopsis leaves out a few important details that become clear in the denouement of
the text:
Thereupon, Biwa Gorō was added to the [shogunal government] at Rokkaku, andTakayori took on a hermit’s life. It was commendable of him to give up swords
and horses in order to focus on Zen studies. Well, the whole family of
Ekizaemon—each and every one—was banished; the stipends of the loyal
retainers grew, and the province became rich. Hanagiku, having obtained astipend by becoming the nurse of Mokuemon through a connection to a greathouse of the capital, was added to the household. From this point forward, thehouse was kept in order, and the province’s populace sang songs of joy. The
province overflowed with rich harvests. The loyal retainers did not leak out of
Kagami Mountain, and the time of good governance was like the thousand yearsof the cranes and the ten thousand years of the turtles that live in the waters of thelake. A household run as quietly as the waves of the lake—that is truly auspicious.
87

Hasegawa Tsuyoshi, “Budō Ōmi hakkei,” Nihon koten bungaku daijiten, vol.5 (Tokyo:
Iwanami Shoten, 1984), p.345.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 3309

すなわちびわ五郎を六角判官とあらためられ高頼公は御隠居あそばし御法体あって長剣馬上をやめて禅学にもとづきせ玉ふぞ殊勝なる。さて益左衛門一族はみなみな国を追放あり忠義の人々に御加増あって国ゆたかにおさめられ。都の高家方へ縁につけられ木工右衛門夫婦をめのと分にして御扶持をつけて花菊にそへつか
はさるる。是よりして御家ととのひ国民よろこびのうたを唄ひ五穀豊饒国はんじゃう。忠臣の鏡山もらぬ政道久かたの春千鶴万亀のすめる湖水の浪しづかに治る
家こそ目出たけれ。 88

Father and son, distracted by their passions, fall victim to the evil machinations of acalculating villain.

However, the affectionate ties between lord and retainer, ruler andruled spur actions that eventually shock the father into realizing the error of his ways, andhe vanquishes the ambitious rogue before leaving behind the quotidian world.

The sonrises to power and restores eternal peace to the land as a ruler who combines humanfeelings with correct principle without ever having to give up the woman whom he loves,for she has been given a secondary role in his household that allows them to be together.
When passion leads to conflict, either characters are forced to leave this world or theworld itself changes to allow for its fulfillment, and passion—so long as it is kept in its
proper place—needs not be given up totally. Compromise is not the solution taken byeither father or son character, nor is it even presented as a viable course of action. Just
as in the various versions of the Sonezaki shinjū and the Shinjū ten no Amijima, thisnarrative is an all-or-nothing affair that ends with complete closure.

The plot of this text

is spelled out at length for purposes that go beyond an illustration of how it fits into thegiri-ninjō selectionist rectangle.

The narrative structure of the Budō Ōmi hakkei is also

absolutely typical of the so-called “disturbance in the great house” (oie-sōdō 御家騒動)

88

Ejima Kiseki, Budō Ōmi hakkei, Hachimonjiya zenshū, vol.7 (Tokyo: Kōko Shoin,1994), p.268.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 3

310

plot paradigm, which was the dominant long-form plot type in early modern Japan. 89
Andrew Gerstle abstracts the oie-sōdō narrative as follows:
The heir to a samurai or merchant household is disinherited, due either to his own
profligacy or to an evil plotting stepmother or villainous retainer. He goes into
hiding, using a disguise (yatsushi) as a palanquin bearer, wandering minstrel, orsome other humble calling. He bides his time with his lover in the pleasurequarter or is continually harassed, until, in the end, he is restored to his rightfulplace either by the efforts of a loyal retainer or by his own fortitude. 90
Just as in the above-analyzed text, bonds of affection are momentarily disrupted bypassion or self-interested calculation, and virtue is mistaken for vice, but a melodramatic
close to the story brings about the recognition of true virtue, the bonds of affection are
restored permanently, and the harmony and good fortune of the house and community aresaid to continue in perpetuity.
If the typical-ness of the Budō Ōmi hakkei makes it a fit example for this study
in which genre plays a great role, this same factor selects quite strongly against thescholarly approach taken earlier in this text to analyze early modern texts that were
written during the periods of morphological diversification that come between long
stretches of formal stasis.

It is not that in-depth and tightly focused examinations of the

micro-environments in which the Budō Ōmi hakkei formed and initially became active
cannot be carried out. However, such scholarly endeavor is bound to be
counterproductive and cloud a proper understanding of the evolutionary role of genre and89

It is vital to keep in mind both that the oie-sōdō plot type with its happy ending
predates the shinjū-mono love-suicide narrative paradigm with its sad ending and thatmost scholars agree that the latter evolved out of the former.

90

Andrew Gerstle, Circles of Fantasy (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Council of East AsianStudies, Harvard University, 1986), p.68.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 3

311

the formulaic texts which constitute it.

This text’s author is significant, not because ofanything particular to his personality or socio-economic circumstance that would
distinguish him from competing authors, but simply due to the fact that he, as an author
who wrote many texts concerning the theater, was a repository of many theatrical as wellas literary texts.

Likewise, the publishing house, which got its start putting out jōruri

libretti and later came to publish e-iri kyōgen-bon, absolutely dominated the market for
fiction texts during the first half of the eighteenth century, but this only matters becausesuch an environment was one that would favor texts written within generic norms.

As

for any deviations from generic formula linkable to these or other extra-literary factors,
they might be present, but it must be understood that idiosyncrasies are at least as likely
to have either hindered a text’s success or had little to no effect upon it as to have aided it,much less been its source.

In short, though the abstractness of the approach taken here

might seem hasty or inaccurate because most modern scholarly paradigms have beensuperintended for the study of extraordinary texts, it is necessary: normal-ness is key togenre, and genre qua genre is central to literary evolution. Paying too much attention tominute differences and a willingness to argue for syntactic relations between phenomenathat may well have paratactic ones can have a deleterious effect on a properly Darwinian
understanding of literary history. 91
91

For instance, though most scholars of literary history make much of the fact that
Chikamatsu Monzaemon was born into a samurai family, it plays no role whatsoever in
the analyses of his texts that are offered in this scholarly piece. The reason for this issimple: many non-samurai wrote similar texts before, during and after Chikamatsu’s
career, while many samurai wrote dissimilar texts before, during and after Chikamatsu’s
career. The supposedly causal connection between the class into which Chikamatsu wasborn and his artistic writerly output seems to be based almost entirely on mere convention,and this is, in turn, supported by an almost compulsive desire within the human sciences
Michael J. ScanlonChapter 3

312

If, by the 1720s, these long-form narratives displaced the erotically themed shortstory collections that had dominated the sōshi fiction market since the time of Ihara
Saikaku, the trend seems to have reversed itself after the century’s midpoint.

Comicgenres made up of texts that typically lack long-form narrative structures rose to the fore,
and the second half of the eighteen century would seem to have been dominated bynearly plot-less dialogues, short story collections, and thread narratives. Modern
scholars generally forward two explanations for this development.

One is that the placeof production for fiction moved from the merchant-centric Kyoto-Osaka region to thesamurai-dominated one of Edo.

After all, it was an Edo publisher and writer who put

out the Imayō heta dangi (Trendy Inept Sermons 当世下手談義, 1752), a hugely
successful collection of short, comic sermons that gave rise to a genre now known as
kokkei-bon (humorous books 滑稽本).

Whereas the appearance of a highly successful

text probably did have a great effect on the literary environment, tying its appearance to ageographic factor is simply mistaking proximity or coincidence for causality.

There isabsolutely no reason to believe that an Edo audience would be a more apt one for escapist
fiction than a Kamigata one, much less that the Imayō heta dangi had any less appeal tothose readers outside the shogunal capital.

Texts of the comic genres were bought,

borrowed and read throughout Japan, and sōshi texts with long-form plots were dominant
in the Kantō area during the first half of the eighteenth century and would regain theirposition at the turn of the nineteenth century.

The other explanation is linked to ahistorical event: the death of the eighth shogun, Tokugawa Yoshimune (徳川吉宗,
to “discover” as much meaningfulness as possible.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 31684-1751, r.1716-1745).

313

The governmental policies of Yoshimune, referred to as the

Kyōhō Reforms in modern scholarship, are said to have drawn “the bakufu more deeply
into the management of society than at any time in the past.” 92

The policies greatly

increased the amount of governmental exhortation, regulation and supervision, and thisundoubtedly made the irresolvable conflict between human feelings and correctprinciples all the more acute for the reading public of commercially produced fiction overthe first half of the eighteenth century. Moreover, the facts that the rise of theabove-mentioned literature of wit came during a period of relative freedom due to thecorrupt government headed by the social riser, Tanuma Okitsugu (田沼意次, 1719-1788),
and that the re-emergence of long-form fiction occurred after the Kansei Reforms of the1790s restored an ideological environment similar to that of pre-1750 Japan would seemto argue very strongly for this thesis.

Political events, such as these, can havesignificant, if indirect, effects on a literary environment, and it is quite possible that a
re-invigoration of non-long-form, comic genres was in some way conditioned by these
extra-literary happenings.
A more inclusive examination of the literary book market over the last half of theeighteenth century, however, reveals that the stark contrast drawn by some modern
literary historians between an eighteenth-century literature of wit, which was written readby an educated elite, and a nineteenth-century one of melodrama and sentiment—the riseof which accompanied a process of literary popularization and commodification that can

92

Conrad Totman, Early Modern Japan (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993),
p.281.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 3314

be tied to the rise in importance of lending libraries to textual dissemination—has beensomewhat exaggerated. 93

Non-long-form texts of the playful genres continued to be

written, published and read long after 1800, and it should never be forgotten that thejōruri theater was producing some of the most commercially successful plays in its
history at the midpoint of the eighteenth century.

Furthermore, though modern scholars

tend to look down on their aesthetic value, new plays would continue to be produced inabundance over the second half of the eighteenth century, and jōruri libretti remained an
important type of long-form fiction on the commercial book market during this period.
According to the data collected in the Gidayū nenpyō, from the time of Chikamatsu
Monzaemon’s death in 1724 until the end of the Kanpō period in 1743, there are records
for slightly over 100 debuting jōruri plays and a nearly equal number of newly publishedjōruri libretti for an average of approximately five new libretti per year. During theso-called golden age of jōruri, which occurred over the Enkyō [1744-1748] and Kan’en[1748-1751] periods, there was an average of around seven new libretti per year withlibretti for nearly all the approximately fifty debuting jōruri plays for which there arerecords.

Between 1751 and 1788, there are only about 250 libretti for the more than 350

jōruri plays known to have debuted, but the average of slightly more than 6.5 newly

93

An early and nuanced example of this basic narrative can be found in Nakamura
Yukihiko’s Gesakuron, a text which appeared about one half century ago and, in many
ways, helped set a dominant paradigm for the study of early modern Japanese literaturethat has maintained its vitality to this day.
Again, it must be said that the later eighteenth century also abounded in supernatural
texts, such as those now categorized as Kamigata yomihon which were written by Tsuga
Teishō and Ueda Akinari. However, these tended to be short story collections that (Ibelieve) had the same function as the comic genres. (See Nakamura’s Gesakuron.)

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 3

315

published libretti per year is actually higher than had been the case during the second
quarter of the eighteenth century when jōruri-evolved plots were dominating the domainof sōshi fiction.

(The market for newly published libretti only seems to have dried up

when long-form plots began to make their way back into sōshi fiction: for the 350 or so
debuting plays between 1789 and 1867, there are only slightly more than sixty libretti, anaverage of less than one new title per year.) 94

Furthermore, Kotani Seiko has made two

crucial observations concerning the publication of jōruri texts after the century’s
midpoint.

First, from the latter portion of the 1750s onwards, books called yomihon

jōruri (jōruri books for reading 読本浄瑠璃)—basically libretti from which muchmusical notation had been omitted and reading glosses had been added—were beingbrought to market.

Second, even though the theatrical jōruri tradition had evolved insuch a way that only certain acts of a play were ever performed on stage, jōruri
texts—whether they included musical notation or not—were still published in full. 95

Itseems possible that the increasing number of jōruri books being published over thesecond half of the eighteenth century at least helped to fill the void left by the demise oflong-form sōshi fiction. Such an understanding would help to account for the holdingsof the lending library located in the hot spring town of Kinosaki mentioned earlier.
Though this particular business venture opened at the start of the nineteenth century andclosed at its end, its collection of 324 titles is actually indicative of the reading practices

94

Hara Michio, “Ayatsuri jōruri no taisai to tenkai,” Kinsei engeki wo manabu hito notame ni, Sakaguchi Hiroyuki, ed. (Tokyo: Sekai Shisōsha, 1997), pp.77-90.
95

Kotani Seiko, “Jōruri yoteki,” Setsurin 25 (1976), pp.12-22.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 3316

of the later eighteenth century because it was compiled at the turn of the nineteenth
century based on the holdings of an earlier lending library, and its stock remained
virtually unchanged until it was sold off after the Meiji Restoration. Haikai texts andsōshi fiction (in which non-long-form texts prevail) each make up one quarter of the total
titles.

The remaining half of the collection is composed of jōruri libretti, the vast

majority of which were of popular plays of the second half of the eighteenth century, notthe “classics” written by Chikamatsu Monzaemon. 96

Though the data set is far fromperfect, it seems likely that long-form fiction remained an important object of pleasurereading during the height of popularity of the non-long-form comic genres participatingin the culture of play and before the dominant forms of nineteenth-century long-form
literary fiction had evolved.
Lending libraries had an important effect upon the literary environment.
Fiction and lending libraries had what could be termed a symbiotic relationship.

Books

held by lending libraries could be rented by readers at a cost much lower than thepurchase price, and the number of times each of these books could be read was on anorder that dwarfs that which would be typical for a privately owned book.

This, ofcourse, leads to an explosion in the textual population for the work in question. 97

It also96

Nagatomo Chiyoji, Kinsei kashihon’ya no kenkyū (Tokyo: Tōkyōdō Shuppan, 1982),
p.111.

97

It will be recalled that, in this study, an individual unit is tallied each time a text is
produced, reproduced, or enacted. Therefore, an increase in number of readers per bookhas an overwhelming effect on the textual population. In fact, the difference between
texts that were commonly held by lending libraries and those that were not is far greaterthan the difference between those that were disseminated by print and those that spread
via scribal publication.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 3317

allows a much wider audience access to books with high purchase prices, which means
basically all books prior to the mid-eighteenth century and certain genres through the endof the Edo period itself.

The family of texts that benefited most from the changes to thebook market brought about by a proliferation of lending libraries was fiction. A gooddeal of documentary evidence unearthed by Nagatomo Chiyoji and other scholars
indicates that readers tended to rent fiction and buy more serious books such as medical
texts, home encyclopedias, and religious works. This makes great economic sense.
Because texts of popular fiction possess extremely low marginal utilities of rereading, thecost-pleasure ratio meant that there was little advantage in guaranteeing lifelong access toa specific text by buying it rather than simply renting it for a limited amount of time at amuch lower price. Conversely, the evolution of successful forms of fiction—be they
long-form melodramatic and sentimental narratives or comic texts from the playful
genres—around the turn of the eighteenth century proved to be the environmental factor
that would allow for an explosion in the population of commercial lending libraries.
Peter Kornicki writes:
Readers were certainly accustomed by the end of the seventeenth century torenting books as an alternative to buying them, but at this stage this was just oneof the facets of a bookseller’s business, which might also include dealing insecond-hand books and publishing. Peddlers dealing in books were in existencelong before 1650, and they appear in a number of book illustrations in the second
half of the century with packs of books on their back, the familiar trademark of
the kashihon’ya until the late nineteenth century. In the course of the eighteenth
century it became common for specialized kashihon’ya to be at work in the large
towns, and in the nineteenth century these became widespread.98
The increase of the number of kashihon’ya in operation changed the environment for

98

Kornicki, The Book in Japan, p.391.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 3318

commercially printed fiction in a profound way.

Popular fiction remained a highly

perishable commodity, so commercial libraries—especially those in large urban
centers—were in constant need of new texts to offer their customers.

This fostered theestablishment of connections between publishing houses and lending libraries that helped
to largely assure a certain level of sales for texts of popular literature, which, in turn,made this kind of text a better investment for publishing houses.

Thus, not only did

individual kashihon’ya vastly enlarge the number of possible consumers for texts offiction, the evolution of a commercial lending library system helped to create anenvironment that could support far more new texts than before, and this eventually led toa great increase in the number of new titles put into circulation. At the turn of thenineteenth century, the city of Edo alone was home to well over six hundred commercial
lending libraries, and the publishing industry—the center of which was now also locatedin the shogunal capital—was putting out far more titles of new fiction than it ever had in
the past.
The managers of these establishments did, of course, choose the books that madeit into their collections, and there were some powerful lending library owners whose
opinions could help determine whether or not a certain text ever made it to print.
However, this amounted to nothing more than one more restricted environment that a text
had to survive before reaching the general readership. In other words, texts had to be fit
to author, publisher, and kashihon’ya in order to be given the chance to succeed or fail inthe widest domain of the popular reader.

Again, this amounts to nothing more than anegative pressure, one that would typically select against radical innovation.

There isMichael J. ScanlonChapter 3319

not a single unprecedented plot structure or even formal device that can be linked directly
to the rise in importance of lending libraries for textual dissemination.

However, thesecommercial enterprises could—and did—divide large texts into sections which were thenrented separately to customers, 99 and ownership of complete texts was of greater
importance to commercial lending institutions than it was to individual readers. Afterall, customers who liked the first part of a given text that they read were likely to returnto rent a subsequent portion, and multiple-volume texts from which even a single volume
is missing—especially when the text in question either possesses a long-form structure oris one of extended fiction—would find few renters and are very nearly complete losses.
Consequently, warnings to the effect that the loss or destruction of a single volume of amultiple-volume book would result in a fine equal to the price of the entire set canfrequently be found in books which were once owned by kashihon’ya. 100

It would also

seem reasonable to assume both that rental libraries would be inclined to buy subsequentinstallments of most extended texts the first portion of which they had already purchased
as well as that, once this became apparent, publishing such texts became a lessunattractive investment for booksellers. 101

This, of course, means that any negative99

For example, the rental library at Kinosaki separated the Kōshoku ichidai otoko
containing the graffito analyzed earlier into two sections—one being volumes one
through four, the other being volume five to the end—and rented these out individually.
Nagatomo Chiyoji, Kinsei kashihon’ya no kenkyū (Tokyo: Tōkyōdō Shuppan, 1982),
p.223.
100

Op. cit., p.64.

101

Of course, this does not mean that the publication of some texts, especially those thatsparked little to no interest among period readers, did not break off in the middle.
However, even if a given text was not a runaway hit, as long as a certain number ofcustomers rented the first installment, the manager of the library would be likely to buy
Michael J. ScanlonChapter 3

320

pressures selecting against a proliferation of fiction of considerable length and publishedincrementally are far weaker under these conditions than when lending libraries were lessnumerous, and the decades surrounding the turn of the nineteenth century witnessed thequick evolution of several new narrative genres that were longer than had previously
been normal and were put out in installments. 102

The revival of long-form sōshi fiction

coincided with—and probably helped bring about—the downfall of jōruri libretti as animportant part of the commercial book market, but the narrative paradigms evolved in thetheater world remained dominant. The increase in textual length brought with it anescalation in the complexity of the plots of individual texts, but the long-form plot
structures that can be found in these genres are mostly either outgrowths andcombinations of those that developed on the Japanese stage at the turn of the eighteenth
century or admixtures of these structures with those of Chinese colloquial fiction (baihua
xiaoshuo [hakuwa shōsetsu] 白話小説), a type of fiction that happened to be fit for anenvironment conditioned by the long-form narrative paradigms of the kabuki and jōruri
traditions.

the next one in order to keep from completely voiding his initial investment in the text.
102

Most were published in two installments one year apart, but there were also cases ofextremely long texts the publication of which could stretch on for a decade or more. It
should also be noted that these new genres included both non-long-form ones of wit aswell as long-form ones of melodrama and sentiment.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 3

321

Books from Edo; Books from Nanjing
One day Keiga Dōyo, a book merchant, paid a visit
to my thatched hermitage. After a bout of small talk
had ended, he spoke, saying, “Even though one cansay that recently things like fiction (shōsetsu) andJapanese-language books for reading (wabun
yomihon) are published year in and year out, theelevation of their style—something beyond theliteracy of women and children—brings about agreat number of places which are difficult tounderstand. Seeing this, I grow sick of it. Therefore,taking into account the fact that young people do
not detest the common language and vulgarisms,
why don’t you put together a two-volume book andgive it to me?”From the beginning, my style has been dim,coarse and clumsy, and I have found it difficult tocompose. Though this might be called a good thing,until recently, books for reading (yomihon) have notbeen the playthings of young people, so hasn’t it
been that a group of famous people have used theirpowers to write in a half-Chinese style? If it’s oneof those fashionable books for reading (fūryū
yomihon) being put together and published in recent
years, what is to be done about the women andchildren who want to read something like thosepicture books (kusahon)? When I realized that myunlearned common style and vulgar words could be
useful, my intention was to compose this pieceusing a jōruri style deriving from the theater inorder to meet the demands of the publisher.
Postscript
Kanrei fukushū (1808)
Kanwatei Onitake (d.1818)
The last decades of the eighteenth century witnessed a renaissance of long-form
fiction written to be printed.

At first, these were isolated texts belonging to playful

comic genres into which long-form narratives were added. Eventually, however, newplot-based genres of fiction began to form.

The first of these was what modern scholars

refer to as the chūhon-gata yomihon (mid-sized books for reading 中本型読本), a genre
Michael J. ScanlonChapter 3322

of mostly long-form narratives with either domestic (sewamono) or hybrid
domestic-historical (jidai-sewa) settings. 103

The first texts now recognized as being of

this genre were written during the 1780s and are basically offshoots of jōruri narrative.
The genre’s progenitor, the Kataki-uchi Renri no tachibana (Vengence: Renri’s Orange
Tree 敵討連理橘, 1781), resembled jōruri narrative to the point that its postscript could
assert that the preceding text was a jōruri narrative written for the press, not the stage.
Over time, this jōruri-derived base would include ever more elements—methods ofcharacterization, shukō plot devices, a prose style combining aspects both Chinese andJapanese as well as elegant and coarse, and even long-form plot structures—deriving
either directly from colloquial-language fiction produced in China (hakuwa shōsetsu 白話小説) or from Japanese translations or adaptations thereof.

The genre was at its mostvigorous during the first decade of the nineteenth century, but trailed off precipitously
after that. In its place would arise two new genres—the ninjō-bon (human feelings book人情本) and the Edo hanshi yomihon (half-sheet book for reading 半紙読本)—that would

come to dominate the non-picture book sector of the commercially printed sōshi fiction
market until the decades after the Meiji Restoration.
With the evolution of these two genres came a spilt of the fiction market into thecommercial and the artistic. Period literary criticism makes it clear that ninjō-bon wereseen as objects of large-scale production, nothing more than pieces of fiction written forthe satisfaction of the demands of a mass audience and fit to be read by only women and103

Nakamura Yukihiko, “Ninjō-bon to chūhon-gata yomihon,” Nakamura Yukihikochojutsushū, vol.5 (Tokyo: Chūō Kōronsha, 1982), p.467.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 3323

children, while Edo hanshi yomihon were considered to be the result of a more artistic
endeavor on the part of their authors and seen as literary texts worthy of an educated,male audience.

Though it is true that Edo hanshi yomihon tended to be exceptionallyexpensive books, were printed in limited numbers and, accordingly, sold far fewer copies
per title than did ninjō-bon, it is relatively easy to undermine this period understanding.
After all, there is a good deal of evidence showing that men of the early modern
intelligentsia read ninjō-bon, and Edo hanshi yomihon certainly reached a fairly wide
audience during the Tokugawa period, for commercial lending libraries allowed a wider,less elite group of readers relatively inexpensive access to these texts, even if few
members of this reading “underclass” could afford to buy personal copies. 104
Nevertheless, on the symbolic and discursive levels, the fracture of the fiction market wasreal.

Kyokutei Bakin (曲亭馬琴, 1767-1848), prolific man of letters who authored texts

from a wide variety of genres, lambasted Tamenaga Shunsui (為永春水, 1790-1843), themost successful writer of ninjō-bon, for his willingness to sacrifice artistic integrity forcommercial appeal.

More important, the narratorial asides found within Edo hanshi

yomihon as well as the prefaces and postscripts appended to texts of this genre are
addressed to audiences of at least equal stature as the presumed author, whereas thesesame phenomena are aimed downward towards a less educated presumed reader inninjō-bon.
The ninjō-bon is thought to have fully diverged from its share-bon roots and104

Nakamura Yukihiko, “Yomihon no dokusha,” Nakamura Yukihiko chojutsushū, vol.5,
p.448.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 3324

become a full-fledged genre at the dawn of the Bunsei era (1818-1830). That a type ofliterature based on nearly plot-less dialogue, the chief function of which was to draw
laughter by means of a satiric pointing out of characters’ foibles, could give rise to aplotted genre meant to elicit tears—an alternative name for this type of fiction was“crying books” (naki-hon 泣本)—might seem counterintuitive.

However, theconnection is made clear in Nakamura Yukihiko’s analysis of a series of three texts
published over three years—the Keisei-kai Futasuji-michi (Bought at the Pleasure
Quarters: Forked Path 傾城買二筋道, 1798), the Sato no kuse (The Routines of theQuarters 廓の癖, 1799), and the Yoi no hodo (In the Space of a Night 宵の程,1800)—that he posits makes up the most direct ancestor of the genre:
Futasuji-michi, as the title suggests, combines two stories: [one being about] arandy and dandyish client who—due to his self centeredness—earns the contemptof the courtesan who at first was drawn to him, [the other being about] a
middle-aged and ugly client whom that courtesan hates at first but is later moved
due to the sincerity of his love. In share-bon, the character type of the first man is
not rare; however, as for the second kind, this is a completely new way ofhandling characters. The subsequent installment, the Sato no kuse (chūhon
mid-sized book), depicts scenes—as is the way in the pleasure quarters where
things do not go as expected—wherein the courtesan’s true feelings for the client
who has run into money troubles has her ignore the money of a different client aswell as the [man] collapsing in illness due to his excess of love and theirseparation. It has left the very format of the share-bon and become filled with amelancholy and a sad beauty that in no way resembles the world of irony andlaughter. The third installment, Yoi no hodo (chūhon mid-sized book) concentrates
on the fidelity between the disowned male protagonist and his wife as well as on
the affection between this official wife and the female protagonist who continues
to suffer in the pleasure quarters. In the end, it concludes with [the courtesan]
together with the wife splendidly cohabitating. If the three are put in succession,
though each continues to use a share-bon-like form, it becomes endowed with aplot that has a conclusion wherein hopes are fulfilled at the end of a sad love. 105
105

Nakamura Yukihiko, “Ninjō-bon to Tamenaga Shunsui,” Nakamura Yukihikochojutsushū, vol.4 (Tokyo: Chūō Kōronsha, 1987), p.469.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 3

325

The Futasuji-michi was eminently recognizable as a share-bon.

The addition of acharacter incompatible with the conventions of the genre has deformed the narrative
structures slightly, and jōruri-derived elements can be seen in the style of the sections
containing the non-dialogue, direct narration (ji no bun 地の文) as well as in the way
scenes are introduced. 106

However, the text was dialogue-centric, and the inconsiderate

lover and the way in which he is dispatched are absolutely typical of the genre.

Thebook format was also that of a standard share-bon, for it was printed on a kohon
small-sized book.

In the Sato no kuse and the Yoi no hodo, dialogue still takes up thevast majority of the discourse, but plot elements and scenes typical of jōruri have becomemuch more noticeable. These divergences from share-bon norms were conspicuous
enough that the text’s publisher printed it on a chūhon mid-sized book, a format that wasused when putting out those deformed texts that did not fit into any pre-existing literary
genre. The process through which the ninjō-bon formed was not yet complete. It
would be nearly two decades before an array of similar but different texts appeared in
substantial numbers, and a new genre of fiction coalesced. However, the basic nature of
the ninjō-bon had been hit upon, for texts of this type narrate a jōruri-style plot by meansof share-bon-style dialogue and are printed in chūhon mid-sized books.
The dominant text of this genre was undoubtedly Tamenaga Shunsui’s
Shunshoku Umegoyomi (Spring Scene: Plum Calendar 春色梅暦), which was publishedin two installments of 1832 and 1833.

Not only was it sold and read more than other106

The opening of each book is introduced with a song that is marked with jōruri-based
musical notation, contains onomatopoeic imitations of samisen music, and even has
references to the way in which the musical instrument should be tuned.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 3326

texts of its type, it also spawned a series of sequels and prequels printed under the nameof the same author, and a group of highly related works were put out by competing
writers.

The plot of the Umegoyomi has been summarized by Alan Woodhull as

follows:
The story opens with a view of the downcast circumstances of the young hero,
Tanjirō, the heir to a Yoshiwara brothel [the Karakotoya]. On his father’s death, he
is tricked into being adopted into another House, one that is in precarious
financial condition. The finishing touches to the plot are rendered by a dishonest
servant who absconds with a precious tea caddy, making Tanjirō responsible foran enormous debt. Tanjirō goes into hiding, and for the duration of most of thestory, is supported by the loyal efforts of his betrothed [Ochō] and his courtesan
lover [Yonehachi]. A wealthy merchant named Tōbei, who is also the secret agent
for the [feudal lord] whose tea caddy was stolen, steps into the picture. Due toTōbei’s perspicacious investigation, not only are the villains captured and thedebts paid off, but Tanjirō is discovered to be the long lost heir to the [fief] of
Tōbei’s patron (thus making Tōbei Tanjirō’s loyal retainer). All ends happily as
Tanjirō marries his betrothed, and takes his courtesan lover as his concubine. 107
The summary gives only the main plot, and the Umegoyomi itself is made up of several
intertwining plot lines, all of which—with one important exception—are resolved by theend of the text.

Woodhull’s synopsis makes it clear that the backbone of the

Umegoyomi is an oie-sōdō plot. The text begins with the hero, accused of behavior that
violates both human feelings and correct principle, fleeing his section of the mundane
world because he is unable to meet the demands of duty required by his community, andit ends with Tanjirō—along with several other characters—being invested with a new,better past that assures him a future as well as a complete restoration of stability andpeace within the family and the greater public order. It is the specific way in which thisis accomplished—one that is basically the same as that of the Yoi no hodo—that is of107

Alan Woodhull, Romantic Edo Fiction, PhD Disseration, Stanford University (1978),p.25.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 3327

particular interest to this analysis. After the final line of dialogue is spoken by a minor
character who states baldly that his only function in the text is to tie together loose plotlines, the Umegoyomi ends with its longest bout of ji no bun direct narration.

The reader

is assured that the three-person household arrangement is unproblematic:
As for Ochō, a bit later, an investigation by [Hanzawa] Rokurō Narikiyo[Tanjirō’s long lost father] lets everyone know that she is the offspring of [Honda
Jirō] Chikatsune [Hanzawa’s retainer who set Tōbei out on his search for the
missing heir]. Because of what could be called an obligation due to her secretly
taking care of Tanjirō’s affairs, [Tanjirō’s father] realizes that she is a virtuous andwonderful girl, not to be taken lightly. By his offices, his son’s heartfelt desire toenter the family is fulfilled, and a time with a chance for opening new prosperity
has come. Ochō becomes his official wife. Yonehachi also has uncommon virtue,
so his father, Rokurō, without hesitation has her honored as [Tanjirō’s] concubine.
They are forever harmonious… May they continue to have many children and,like the spring plum which gives off scent for many generations, may theirincome bear fruit. On that felicitous note, I set aside my brush.
お蝶が素生はこれより後、六朗成清の正しにて、近常が種なるよし相わかり、丹次郎がことを内々世話になりし恩といひ、操めでたき娘なれば疎略にならずと、
我子丹次郎が別段に名跡をたつる心願かなひ、繁昌の基をひらく時に臨んで、お蝶は本妻となり、米八もひとかたならぬ貞実なれば、親の六朗へはれてお部屋さ
まとうやまはれ、いづれもその中睦まじく… 子宝おほくまうけつつ、幾代かか
ほる春の梅、実いりをここに寿て、めでたく筆をおさめはべりぬ。 108

The relationship between the women, who have made a vow of sisterhood, is governedby affection, as are those between each of them and Tanjirō. As in other oie-sōdō, thishappens not because feelings of passion have to be given up, but because the situation haschanged with the influx of money and familial understanding so that passion need notinterfere with affection.

Thus, the text ends with complete closure and without anythingeven approaching compromise.

At the conclusion of this narrative, the recognition ofvirtue has returned everlasting harmony to the land, and the text’s hero ends up with the108

Tamenaga Shunsui, Shunshoku umegoyomi, Nihon koten bungaku taikei 64 (Tokyo:
Iwanami Shoten, 1962), pp.237-238.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 3

328

girl, the money, and the other woman.
To readers conditioned by the modern novel, such an ending would seemludicrous, especially given the fact that a jealous rivalry between Ochō and Yonehachi is
one of the central elements of the Umegoyomi’s plot.

It could even be argued that there

is no reason to take the final statement of this text seriously. The narrator is obviously
unreliable, and much of the narratorial comment directed at the supposed reader isobviously self-parodic with the supposed author often jokingly apologizing for letting
dialogue interfere with the plot or making facetious pleas for readerly patience andunderstanding. Yet the ending was sacrosanct within the early modern period.

Thenext book of the series, the Umegoyomi yokyō Shunshoku tatsumi no sono (Excess
Interest from the Plum Calendar—Spring View: Southeast Garden 梅暦余興春色辰巳園,
1834), does revolve around a contest between two women for Tanjirō’s attention, but thistime it is not between Ochō and Yonehachi, but between Yonehachi and Adakichi whose
rivalry composed the unresolved plot line in the Shunshoku Umegoyomi.

Moreover, likethe previous text, this one ends with Adakichi, having had her virtuousness recognized,
being added to Tanjirō’s household. This basic structure in which a long-form narrative
begins with a problem from the outside and ends with its (at least) near total resolution istrue for all the sequels in the series.
The prequel, however, might seem to be a radically different matter. The
Shunshoku Megumi no hana (Spring Scene: Flower of Blessing 春色惠の花, 1836)
begins with the familiar cast of characters already in trouble and terminates in medias res
where the Umegoyomi starts.

Of this text, Woodhull writes:

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 3

329

Shunshoku Megumi no hana, the shortest of all the works in the [Shunshoku]
series, is composed of two Sections in six volumes—exactly half the length of theordinary format. As the subtitle, Umegoyomi hottan [Preface to the Umegoyomi],
indicates, the subject of the work is the lives and origins of Umegoyomi’scharacters prior to the beginning of the work. The story begins, “long, long ago in
the Northern section of Kamakura there was a thriving licensed Quarter, andwithin that Quarter was a House known far and wide as the Karakotoya. Its
prosperity was beyond description, and all of the girls of the House were treatedwith Compassion and Respect as though they were the very children of the owner,
Uraemon, who raised them out of pity. Through some karmic bond, however,misfortune piled on misfortune, and in a very short time the House was inembarrassed circumstances.”
Of all the works in the series, Megumi no hana is the most disorganized, and as[Yamaguchi Takeshi] notes, and “an obvious rehash of the Umegoyomi.” It bills
itself as an exposition of the origins of the characters, and yet it does nothing
more than describe their various predicaments just prior to the bankruptcy of the
Karakotoya. Questions such as how Tanjirō came to be adopted into the
Karakotoya—or how it was that Kihei, the villainous manager, came to takecontrol of the house are left blank. As such, the story is completely dependent
upon the structure afforded by its proximity to Umegoyomi, and by itself is
extremely fragmentary.
The standard romance plot requires a story to begin more or less on a
downward note, to progress through a series of misfortunes, and finally to end on
an upward, felicitous note. Megumi no hana guarantees the reader that it will
present the “origins” of Umegoyomi. From that one might expect to see the mainemphasis fall on the description of the idyllic, happy lives of the characters, which
in romance is presumed to exist at some point just previous to the beginning of
the work. Instead of seeing the characters living happily with their families,
oblivious to the coming storm, Shunsui has pushed the romance motif back evenfurther, so that the story of Megumi no hana too, begins on a downward note. 109
Thus, even the Megumi no hana, which in its final form is so unusual as both a book anda text, begins in the same way as other texts of its genre and ends in uncharacteristic
fashion due to the extraordinary circumstances in which it was written and read.

This isof vital importance to the Darwinian theory of literary history being forwarded in thisscholarly text.

For the study of literature as an ideologically or historically significant

phenomenon as opposed to a record of human genius or accomplishment, the rule is of109

Woodhull, pp.166-167.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 3

330

far greater importance than an exception, and exceptions do not typically destroy rules.
The two-step model for literary development—something basic to the theory of literary
evolution—accounts for imperfection, and the presence of exceptions are, in fact, a signthat literary evolution is a Darwinian process rather than a Lamarckian one.

Most

important, however, is the fact that the very irregularity of the circumstances that helped
to condition the Shunshoku Megumi no hana means that its open-ended-ness does notundermine the general thesis but serves as an exception that proves the rule.

This

prequel, which is less a completely independent text than an extended preface or
pre-history, can end without any resolution to the initial conflict because closure isalready provided for by the ending of the Umegomi.

Though texts of the Shunshoku

series are set in the quotidian world and trace the lives of common folk, the complicationsof everyday life are not a fit topic for this type of long-form literary narrative, andnovelistic compromise and open-ended-ness are neither typical of this group of texts nor
a hallmark of the ninjō-bon genre as a whole.
That a lowbrow genre of fiction would have such qualities might not be sosurprising. After all, even in the modern world, popular fiction is often considered to be
a Manichean domain of wholly good and evil characters engaged in extraordinary
melodramatic or sentimental adventures, and nearly all texts of this type end in complete
closure, most having happy endings that highly educated and socially active modern
scholars see through even if they enjoy them anyway.

Yet these “popular” elements areeven stronger in Edo hanshi yomihon, the more intellectual long-form fiction of the day,for this is a genre of melodramatic historical pieces (jidaimono).

Early modern critics

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 3

331

and modern scholars agree that the first text of this genre was the Chūshin suikoden(Loyal Retainers, Heroes on the Marsh 忠臣水滸伝) by Santō Kyōden (山東京伝
1761-1816) published in two installments of 1799 and 1801.

As Nakamura Yukihikohas pointed out, the narrative combines the setting and plot structure of a famous jōruri
narrative, the Kanadehon Chūshingura, with a style derived from adaptations of Chinese
colloquial fiction and character attributes from a famous text of this type, the Shuihu
chuan (Heroes on the Marsh [Suikoden] 水滸伝). 110

Though the base of the first text ofthe genre lay within jōruri narrative, it is normally the Chinese elements that are stressedin modern studies of the Edo hanshi yomihon genre.

There are good reasons for this.

Period critics and authors emphasized the genre’s sinific aspects. More important, overtime, the long-form texts of the genre did begin to incorporate more and more elementsfrom Chinese colloquial fiction, and no place was this truer than on the level of plot.
Many modern scholars have noted that, in Japanese narratives produced before Chinese
colloquial fiction had come to exert a strong influence on the literary environment, it is
the individual shukō plot devices which dominate to the point of interfering with theoverarching plot line, whereas these are well integrated as kernels and satellites inhakuwa shōsetsu and later Edo hanshi yomihon. The higher degree of organization in
the plots of Chinese fiction compared with those of jōruri and its sōshi offspring meantthat it is hardly surprising that the conventions of long-form Chinese fiction would
displace natively evolved forms within this most plotted of genres.

110

Nakamura Yukihiko, “Goki yomihon no suii,” Nakamura Yukihiko chojutsushū, vol.4(Tokyo: Chūō Kōronsha, 1987), p.416.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 3

332

There is another reason why the influence of Chinese fiction is so strongly
emphasized in modern, Japanese-language scholarship on early modern literary history.
Note the opening of Yayoshi Mitsunaga’s article about the importation of Chinese books
during the Edo period:
There is the popular misconception that Japan, over the three hundred years of theearly modern period, was cut off from the outside world and developed a unique
Japanese culture because of the coercive isolationist conditions of the so-called
sakoku (closed-country) policy. Traffic with foreign countries was limited toNagasaki in the southwest. The Dutch who came by ship were cooped up on
Dejima [Island], and the Qing Chinese were restricted to a residence for Chinese.
Interaction outside official translators was not permitted. It is severely doubtfulthat Japan cut off ties with outside culture and underwent no influence, to say
nothing of [the idea that] Japan constructed a completely separate world. Theinteraction with those people who were flooding in from the hole to the west andthe importation of Chinese books may have started off small. However, due to thenatural inclination of the Japanese to like rarities, Chinese books were reprinted[in Japan] or, being read often, were copied out and passed on. At some point, thisbecame a great flood, and [these books] ended up dominating Japanese
consciousness and thought. 111
Yayoshi is clear that this point was not a new one.

In the realm of literary studies,

attacks on the conception of history that equated the birth of Japan’s modernity with the
Meiji state’s opening the country to foreign cultures after a long period of national
isolation, which was brought on by shogunal policies implemented in the
mid-seventeenth century, can be traced back at least to the early 1930s, particularly in thework of Nagasawa Kikuya. 112

One set of evidence that has long played a role in thisstrain of scholarship is a group of documents, produced as a byproduct of shogunal

111

Yayoshi Mitsunaga, “Kara-hon no yunyū to hanro,” Edo jidai no shuppan to hito,
Yayoshi Mitsunaga chosakushū, vol.3 (Tokyo: Nichigai Associates, 1980), p.233.
112

Nagasawa Kikuya, “Edo jidai ni okeru Shina shōsetsu ryūkō no ippan,” Shoshigaku
4:1 (1933), pp.20-38.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 3333

attempts to regulate foreign trade, that contain detailed evidence about the books brought
to Japan on Chinese ships for less than two score years scattered between 1714 and
1855. 113

Since the archive is so incomplete, most Japanese-language scholarship simply

concludes from this evidence that a lot of Chinese books arrived in Japan during the Edo
period, and the majority of scholarly effort is directed towards finding out whether or not
specific Chinese texts were read on the archipelago by looking for proof that they werereprinted or exerted influence on texts produced in Japan.
Recently, however, Jonathan Zwicker has put these documents to a much more
ambitious use.

Basing his analysis on the titles listed as the Classics as well as thoseincluded in the categories of Historical Novels of the late Ming Period, Qing Military
Romance Novels and Qing Scholar-Beauty Romance Novels in Robert Hegel’s Reading
113

These have been reprinted in typographic form in Ōba Osamu’s Edo jidai ni okeru
Tōsen mochiwatarisho no kenkyū.
Of the situation that led to the evolution of these documents, Engelbert Kaempfer(1651-1716), a physician in the employ of a Dutch trading company who spent two years
at the end of the seventeenth century in Japan, writes at the conclusion of a list of goods
brought to Japan by Chinese merchants the following:…and last but not least, various books on philosophy and theology printed in China.
As I have mentioned, among these books were a few works about the teaching from
Rome. When this was first noticed, the carrier of these books (perhaps unaware ofthis fact) had to convincingly vouch not to have any knowledge of this matter, norhimself to be a Christian, but all the same had to return in his junk with all his goods,
unable to sell any. From then on, it was ordered that before being sold, all imported
books have to be examined, and a copy of each book must be read and censured. Twolocal learned men have been appointed by the shogun for this purpose and receive anannual stipend. One is the abbot of a monastery, Shuntoku, who has to read andcensure religious books. The other is a Confucian philosopher and physician of, as hesays, the dairi [the emperor], residing on Tateyama.
Kaempfer’s History of Japan also makes clear that, although many more Chinese ships
were allowed into Nagasaki harbor than Dutch ones, the total amount of sanctioned
Chinese trade was only double that of the allowance granted European merchants.
Beatrice Bodart-Bailey, Kaempfer’s Japan (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press,
1999), pp.226-227, 207-228.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 3334

Illustrated Fiction in Late Imperial China, he finds that:‘Scholar-Beauty Romances’ do well: we have records for just over seventy
percent of the set; late Ming ‘Historical Novels’ fare comparatively poorly: justunder forty percent; and ‘Qing Military Romance Novels’ are somewhere in
between at fifty-five percent. But overall, the numbers are extremely high. 114
He then analyzes this data, writing:[The] breakdown by sub-genre is suggestive: the numbers are of course
fragmentary but the relative success of Scholar-Beauty romances is quite striking
and somewhat counterintuitive. Counterintuitive because Nagatomo Chiyoji, forinstance, puts military tales at the center of his study of early modern reading
habits and there is good data to suggest that military romances were the mostpopular prose genre in Japan from the mid-seventeenth century into the eighteenth
century. And of course many Chinese military and historical narratives were
imported, translated, and circulated in Japan from the eighteenth century on. But
the success of the scholar-beauty romances is unequivocal: we have records for
sixteen of the twenty-two titles and some, like the Jin Yun Qiao, were imported
more than once and had remarkable literary afterlives. 115
The implicit argument of this section is that the popularity of native versions of “militaryromances” kept the Chinese genre at bay. In other words, meaning is sought for thenumbers and kind of Chinese fiction arriving on the shores of early modern Japan, andthe answer forwarded nominates a type of cultural lockout wherein native popularity
fends off foreign competition: the success enjoyed by Japanese military narrative meantthat there was no need for a foreign version of it, so Qing military romances were notimported in numbers that approach those of genres for which there were no popular
Edo-period equivalents. According to the narrative of literary history forwarded in
Zwicker’s text, however, the situation seems to have completely reversed itself after the
Meiji Restoration.

This is readily apparent in the section in which he tries to show the114

Jonathan Zwicker, Tears of Blood, PhD Dissertation: Columbia University (2002),
p.168.
115

Op. cit., p.169.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 3335“limited nature” of the success of the Western novel in Meiji Japan.

Basing his analysis

on the holdings of the Japanese National Diet Library which he divides into reprints ofearly modern literature, literary translations, and modern novels written in Japanese,
Zwicker finds:
After a slow start, the Japanese novel takes off and reprints of the previous
dominant form—early modern fiction—sharply drop off after an initial period of
dominance. But where are foreign books in all this? This is where it getsinteresting because foreign literature never achieves—numerically at least—thesort of hegemonic position described by Gramsci. A few points: the last time there
are more foreign novels published in Japan than Japanese novels is 1885; the firsttime there are more foreign novels than reprints of early modern fiction is 1893;
and the largest proportion of the total numbers of titles that translations make is
36% in 1904—not insignificant, to be sure, but far from hegemonic. 116
He also stresses that the vast majority of Western fiction translated were plot-basedadventure stories or melodramatic and sentimental narratives, not character-based
realistic fiction, and this leads him to conclude that nineteenth-century Japanese literary
narrative “is a field bordered on one end by the works of a long tradition of Japaneseprose and on the other by the introduction of European forms and yet its aesthetic andreaderly sensibilities were dominated by the forms of a third tradition, the Chinese
novel.” 117Thus, in a complete inversion of the cultural lockout that led to the seeming

under-representation of Qing military romances during the early modern period, hetheorizes that, in the modern period, it was those Western novels that approximated thestructures of the pre-existing sentimental and melodramatic long-form fiction of Japanthat were imported into the country and translated first and most often while those with116

Op. cit., p.188.

117

Op. cit., p.206.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 3

336

radically different forms were effectively rebuffed.

Thus, the same sinified Japanese“novel” evolved by the beginning of the nineteenth century is said to have largely kept
out similar non-native versions of fiction during the first two thirds of that century andheld off dissimilar foreign versions during its last three decades.
Zwicker’s thesis is a provocative one.

He does not simply continue to attack along since discredited narrative of history, but actually inverts it.

In nineteenth-century

Japan, it is the period before the Meiji Restoration that narrative literature was most open
to foreign influences. The hypothesis—part of a larger argument theorizing that,
because extra-literary events like the Meiji Restoration do not exert a strong influence onliterary history, the literary production of nineteenth-century Japan should be studied as a
unified whole—is fundamentally mistaken.

The problem is not that Tears of Bloodargues for two separate versions of cultural lockout.

The radical contextualization ofliterary evolution is necessary because it is posited that similar phenomena can both besuperintended by different conditioning environments and are able to serve multiple
functions depending on the conditions of the environments in which they are active.
Both versions of cultural lockout might very well be possible. The flaw in Zwicker’s
argument lies in the fact that it is based on a juxtaposition of two absolutely disparate setsof data.

In his study, success for Chinese fiction during the early modern period isconstituted solely by texts of its type arriving on Japanese shores, while that for theWestern novel in Meiji Japan involves texts being translated into Japanese.

It must be

kept in mind that, though no single obvious set of easily accessible records summarizing
this trend is available to modern scholars, a vast amount of foreign books were being

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 3337

imported into Japan in the decades following the Meiji Restoration.

The later nineteenth

century was a time when many universities and other schools in which foreign studies
played a great role were being established.

These institutions were both filling theirlibraries with foreign-produced books and producing a population of readers who could
buy and read foreign texts, be they of “occidental” or non-Japanese “oriental” origin. 118
Books from the Asian mainland as well as America and Europe were flooding into Japanover the final three decades of the nineteenth century, and it is simply unbelievable tothink that, in the Edo period, “if anything, ‘foreign books’ probably comprise a
proportionately larger percentage of the book trade than during the Meiji era.” 119
Conversely, as can be seen by the existence of categories for translated Chinese literary
narrative included in the 1729, 1754 and 1772 versions of the booksellers’ catalogues,
foreign fiction was also being translated into Japanese during the early modern period.
However, the data available in these period catalogues as well as that collected in the
Kokusho sōmokuroku and the Kotenseki sōgō mokuroku—two modern reference works
which provide bibliographic information for all extant, catalogued books (includingtranslations) written or published in Japan prior to 1868—indicate that the share of the
Edo-period fiction market held by translations of Chinese fiction was much, much lower
than the share of the Meiji-era fiction market held by translations of Western fiction.

118

Occidental (seiyō 西洋) and oriental (tōyō 東洋) were the terms used at the time.
It is also worth noting that it was Maruzen, a store that traded in Western books andbooks on the West, which in 1869 became the first joint stock corporation in Japan.
Foreign books were a lucrative business in Meji-era Japan.
119

Zwicker, p.165.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 3

338

Finally, it needs to be emphasized that, during the Edo period, Western long-form fiction,
the novel, almost certainly enjoyed the same type of “success” that Chinese colloquial
fiction did. The officers and crew aboard the Dutch vessels arriving in Nagasaki surely
had with them copies of this type of writing; these books certainly circulated among theforeign community on Dejima and most likely came to the attention of the Japanese
officials stationed there.

Yet, even though texts of Western science were finding theirway into the Japanese book trade, not a single translation of a text that is today
considered to be a “novel” was made during the early modern period.

In fact, the only

Western narrative that seems to have been translated and published was a short Dutch
chapbook version of Robinson Crusoe from which the most “novelistic” parts—the diaryand the depiction of everyday life—had already been basically excised, and the text itself
had no evolutionary impact on Japanese narrative literature.

It spawned no similar but

different texts, and all evidence indicates that it did not even sell well.

The Robinsun

hyōkō kiryaku (An Abbreviated Chronicle of Robinson’s Adventures 魯敏遜漂行紀略,1857) barely survived in a meager population at the very edge of the domain of narrative
literature. Novelistic success would have to wait for the great developments in theideological environment that became possible after the catastrophe that was the Meiji
Restoration selected strongly against the early modern paradigm.
In order to give a more accurate assessment of the role Chinese fiction played inearly modern Japan, it is necessary to adjust the conceptualization of the means by which
Chinese books came to Japan.

Previous scholarship tends to refer to this process as oneof importation (yu’nyū 輸入), a term that emphasizes the Japan half of Sino-JapaneseMichael J. ScanlonChapter 3339

trade and draws analytic attention to the market demands of the Edo-period reading
public.

There were undoubtedly cases in which specific works of Chinese colloquial

fiction were ordered by Japanese customers, just as there were also assuredly times whenother commodities were brought to Japan by direct request. However, this was hardly
typical of international commerce in early modern Japan.

The normal process throughwhich foreign merchandise entered the Japanese market is laid out clearly in Edward
Kaempfer’s History of Japan (pub.1727).

Goods were sent by foreign exporters on ship

to the port of Nagasaki where they were unloaded, inspected and stored by Japanese
officials. Japanese merchants were then allowed into these storehouses to look at theforeign items and submit bids on them.

Finally, what amounted to a wholesalers’auction took place in which bids were read out starting with the highest.

When the firstmerchant stepped forward to take credit for his offer, the sale was confirmed. Ōba
Osamu, a recognized authority on the Sino-Japanese book trade, is of the opinion thatbooks went though an even more complex process that widened the gap between theexportation of commodities from China and Japanese demand for these goods.

Beforebecoming available to the booksellers who would offer their wares on the retail market,
books both had to be approved by censors in the employ of the shogunate and were madeavailable for purchase to the administrators of the Tokugawa library as well as libraries
associated with other powerful academic institutions or politicians. 120

Ōba’s work also120

Ōba Osamu, Edo jidai ni okeru Tōsen mochiwatarisho no kenkyū (Osaka: The
Institute for Oriental and Occidental Studies, Kansai University, 1967), pp.46-63.
It is even posited that the lists of imported books originally functioned as an orderform for the central elites. This, of course, is another indication that the Japanese side had
no idea which books were being sent by Chinese merchants to their shores.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 3

340

makes two things extremely clear. First, literary fiction titles, though numerous, madeup only part of the overall book trade: there were also many poetry collections, medical
manuals, as well as books of religion or philosophy loaded onto the junks that arrived inJapan.

Second, books made up relatively little of the total allotment of Chinese trade. 121

In light of these facts, it is hardly likely that the Chinese exporters, who had to determine
what articles to send to Japan without ever having been able to mix freely with its
populace, had a particularly clear idea of the specifics of the Japanese demand for literary
fiction.

The “success” various types of fiction had in being exported to Japan was

mostly conditioned by their popularity in Qing China, particularly in those port cities
involved in the Japan trade, and it is only reasonable that it would be the bestsellers andlongsellers in China that would arrive in Japan in the greatest numbers. 122
The process by which these texts made it to Japan—to say nothing of the way inwhich Chinese-language texts in books printed on the continent became translated piecesof fiction being published and sold in Japan—should be thought of as a migration.

Like

all objects of migration, Chinese fiction was able to thrive because it fortuitously met
with an environment to which it was fit.

Thus, given the popularity that military-themed

narrative enjoyed in the Edo period, it is hardly surprising that the most dominant text ofChinese colloquial fiction in early modern Japan was the Shuihu chuan, a piece of fictionthat C.T. Hsia posits was the most important precursor of the so-called military-romance121

Op. cit., pp.12-30.

122Peter Kornicki also emphasizes that the initiative in the Sino-Japanese book trade lay
almost completely with the Chinese exporters in his discussion of the phenomenon in his
The Book in Japan.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 3

341

genre in China. 123

Far from being the source of a cultural lockout for the militaryromance genre, the success enjoyed by this type of natively evolved narrative may havebeen the chief factor that helped condition the great popularity of the Suikoden in earlymodern Japan.

On a more general level, the success long-form Chinese colloquial

fiction had in Tokugawa Japan was enabled by the fact that this type of fiction (at thevery least) could be read without difficulty within the human feelings-correct principles
dynamic, 124 whereas the European novel, written within a conflict between individuality
and socialization, could not be so easily reconciled with the early modern epistemologicalparadigm, and, consequently, was much less suited to this environment. 125

Unlike its

123

All evidence would seem to show that it was published and read more often than any
other piece of Chinese fiction in Tokugawa Japan. Moreover, its structures and characters
can be found in a good deal of fiction produced in Japan as is evidenced by the sheer
number of texts with Suiko(den), the Japanese reading for the Chinese characters, in theirtitles.
124

After all, in Edo Japan, just as in Ming and Qing China, it was absolutely typical for
proponents of this type of literature to argue that they served to “promote virtue andchastise vice,” while those who would denigrate it argued that it brought out the basefeeling of passion in its readers.
The above statement, however, does not mean that I am implying that the earlymodern Japanese ideology was the same as those of Ming and Qing China. I do not know
enough about China to make such judgments. Moreover, even if this were the case, itwould seem likely that the fit between world and worldview in these two countries would
be different.
125

There would, of course, be critical texts written after the Meiji Restoration in which
European novels or Japanese versions thereof were interpreted by means of the “praise
virtue and chastise vice” approach. However, this came to be seen as an inferior,
retrograde type of criticism that lacked nuance. The career of Tsubouchi Shōyō, the Meiji
critic and scholar of literature known for his knowledge of Western literary theory, isfamously said to have been launched when the young Shōyō, asked to analyze thecharacter of Gertrude from Hamlet by his American professor, William Houghton, did so
according to a ninjō-giri-based kanzen chōaku point of view and received a bad mark.
Moreover, the birth of modernity brought about a semantic paradigm shift which included
ninjō and giri being subsumed into and reoriented by the individuality-socialization
conflict.
Michael J. ScanlonChapter 3

342

European counterpart, Chinese long-form colloquial fiction had structures that wereviable in a literary environment largely conditioned by jōruri narrative, and the origins of
the Edo hanshi-bon yomihon genre are of great symbolic importance.

In the Chūshin

suikoden, it was the structures of jōruri narrative that served as the route through which
Chinese elements entered this text and perhaps the genre. It is hardly surprising that,like all the long-form narratives discussed earlier, the highbrow Edo hanshi-bon yomihon
was also a domain wherein closure thrived and compromise as a valorized survival
strategy was completely atypical.

This is particularly clear in the dominant text of thegenre, Kyokutei Bakin’s Nansō Satomi hakkenden (Legends of the Eight Dogs of Satomi
in Nansō 南総里見八犬伝), which was not only read in great numbers, but was also
thought of by the early modern intelligentsia as the nearest thing to a masterpiece offiction.

The text, which was written in numerous installments from 1814 to 1832 andtakes up hundreds upon hundreds of printed sheets, has nothing approaching an
open-ended finish.

At the end of this highly complex narrative, which is really ameta-narrative composed of a large number of nearly discrete long-form plot strands, theproblems facing the house of Satomi have been resolved, and peace is restored to the land.
This, moreover, is achieved through bold action, not through negotiation and conciliation,and characters are never made to learn the value of compromise.

Far from it,compromise—much too close to the reviled concept of calculation because it puts self
preservation above ideals—was not fit to any type of early modern Japanese long-form

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 3343

fiction. 126
The typical-ness of narrative closure and the lack of compromise basic to all
Edo-period genres of long-form fiction are important in several ways.

If compromise asa valorized survival strategy is the mark of the “novel,” then that genre did not exist as a
produced literary form in Japan until after the Meiji Restoration. Furthermore, thoughdevelopment was occurring within the giri-ninjō paradigm, there was no movement outof this early modern problematic into what is sometimes referred to as an “alternative
modernity” specific to Japan or East Asia. Structures evolve to fit present conditions,
not future developments, so the form assumed by the modern Japanese novel at the turnof the twentieth century was neither inevitable nor even the outcome of a long, steadyprocess that can be traced back to the Edo period or beyond. This does not in any way
imply that it was a difference in the value systems of a dynamic West and a stagnant East
which brought about the nineteenth-century experience of colonialism in this part of the
globe.

The ideology and long-form literature of the West had also long since entered aperiod of relative stasis by this time. Moreover, although, as has been pointed out by
numerous modern historians, there was an ever widening gap between world andworldview in Japan over the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, it was not the case thatthe end of the Tokugawa ideology was brought about by some sort of intrinsic flaw or
126

It should be emphasized that this lack of compromise due to the resolvability of thehuman feelings-correct principle problematic is true only of long-form narrative literature.
In everyday life, the conflict between ninjō and giri was experienced as fundamentallyirresolvable, and those who lived in early modern Japan, of course, had to makecompromises in order to make their way in the world. This is just another indication boththat literature and the lived experience of history are different phenomena as well as thatthe linkages between the two are indirect and not particularly close.

Michael J. ScanlonChapter 3344

weakness, and long-form fiction written within a correct principles-human feelings
dynamic was still able to make the world meaningful deep into nineteenth-century Japan.
Rather, Japan’s early modern period came to a close due to the occurrence of a series oflarge historical events for which the Tokugawa ideology could not account in
combination with a widespread awareness that the way things had been was quite
different from the way they were supposed to be.

A phase of great ideological change

opened, only settling into another period of stasis at the turn of the twentieth century.
Of far greater importance to this study, however, is the fact that the valorization ofcompromise and the narrative open-ended-ness which often accompanies it in the modern
novel should be seen merely as adaptations to the ideology of bourgeois capitalism, not asmarks of aesthetic or intellectual superiority. In fact, the exact opposite of thischauvinistic modern assumption could be argued.

Compromise is weak.

During times

in which long-form fiction is written between conflicts caused by circumstantial factors
as opposed to logically irreconcilable ones, it does not flourish simply because there is no“need” for it.

Though it would have been possible for narratives with a compromisedand compromising hero that end inconclusively to either be written in early modern Japanor at least arrive upon its shores, they simply would not be able to compete with thoselong-form narratives that bestow absolute meaningfulness on their worlds by having an
ending that establishes a final causal connection linking beginnings, middles and ends. 127
127

There are, of course, examples of texts that do not fit into this general rule, including
one which is very well known. The Tōkaidō Yotsuya kaidan (Ghost Story of Yotsuya on
the Tōkaidō 東海道四谷怪談, 1825), a popular kabuki play by Tsuruya Nanboku(1755-1829), ends with the text’s raging criminal hero, Iemon, locked in battle with thefiancé of one of his victim’s relatives. The accepted theory explaining this unusual
occurrence is that the Tōkaidō Yotsuya kaidan was first written to be staged in
Michael J. ScanlonChapter 3345

Compromise can only thrive in ideological environments able to support tragedy, those inwhich the ideological conflict is categorical or nearly so. The dawn of the Meiji period
in Japan brought with it the rise of an inflected version of bourgeois capitalist ideology.
As has been mentioned before, the most major fault line within this worldview is a
conflict between individuality and socialization, and this problematic is endemic, for it
can never be solved in any ultimate sense. It would be within this shared ideology of
the “modern world” that the Japanese novel would evolve.

conjunction with a performance of the Chūshingura, a play that concludes with heroes
combining human feelings and correct principles killing a wholly evil villain who
possesses neither quality. Acts from separate plays were put on in series over two days,
and the overall performance ends with the highly determinate finale of the Chūshingura.
Thus, it might be that the lack of resolution in the Tōkaidō Yotsuya kaidan was madepossible because a strong ending to the theatrical performance was already provided forby the Chūshingura. Just as in the case of the Shunshoku Megumi no hana, theirregularity of the circumstances necessary for a viable early modern long-form narrative
to end without closure means that the existence of the Tōkaidō Yotsuya kaidan in noundermines the thesis argued above. To the contrary, it is another exception that proves
the rule.
Michael J. Scanlon

Epilogue

346
Epilogue

The Modern World and Its Literature
It is a floating world where everything changes astime passes! During the period in which the bakufu
flourished, it was a time of the warrior class in Edo.
The capital at some point was renamed Tokyo—it
must be the growing enlightenment of the world
with each passing year. All distinctions between thenoble and base, high and low are gone, and thosewith talent can be employed. To give someexamples, the son of a seaweed vendor might ride ina black lacquered carriage treasuring his whiskers,
while there might be a rickshaw driver from a noble
house running along major roads despite thesolemnity of his name [derived from] this or thatstreet.
Narrator
Tōsei shosei katagi (1885-1886)
Tsubouchi Shōyō (1859-1935)
As has been argued numerous times in previous scholarship, Japan’s earlymodern period came to an end with the Meiji Restoration of 1868.

After the last shogun

left his post, military forces loyal to the Tokugawa regime were defeated in battle, and acentralized state was established.

The revolution, of course, did not occur ex nihilo.

Signs that all was not right with the Tokugawa bakufu and the early modern system as awhole can be traced back long before this catastrophic event.

By the middle of thenineteenth century, peasant uprisings and governmental reforms had been occurring inever increasing amounts due to financial problems and natural disasters; arrivals byforeign merchants requesting access to the Japanese market and news of China’s defeat in
the Opium Wars were making both the leadership and populace nervous; governmental
corruption, incompetence and infighting were all topics that could not be ignored.
Michael J. Scanlon

Epilogue

347

Specialists in economic or institutional history may be able to show that there were
inexorable trends leading to the fall of the Tokugawa system.

The domain of literature,

however, lies within the greater ideological environment, and the first half of thenineteenth century was not a time of acute ideological breakdown.

There was a greatawareness that the gap between Tokugawa world and worldview was growing ever wider,and both ruler and ruled knew that depravity had to be reformed and righteousness
re-established.
relatively stable.

However, the ideals against which reality was measured remained
The Tokugawa ideology maintained its general hegemony, and the

feudal system itself was safe.
In 1853, however, an event occurred which selected strongly against the statusquo.

Commodore Matthew Perry arrived in his black ships in Uraga near Edo andrelayed a message stating that the American government was insisting Japan rescind its
isolationist policy and open its markets to foreign trade.

Japanese military technology

lagged far behind that of the Western powers, and the shogunate was unable to rejectoutright these radically more aggressive foreign demands.

The Edo government wasforced into signing unequal treaties, and the symbolic stature of the shogun—the
accepted translation of the full title of the office is “barbarian-quelling
generalissimo”—began to crumble.

Longstanding conflicts between the regional

daimyō powers and the Edo government were exacerbated when the Kyoto court entered
the fray to compete for authority and power. Reform was no longer the only possibility.
The destruction of the Tokugawa government began to seem like a feasible option.
More and more samurai zealots to the bushidō code started to act out by attacking

Michael J. Scanlon

Epilogue348

members of the established bakufu elite, and recalcitrant daimyō with fiefs in thesouthwest portion of Japan were becoming brazen in their willingness to ignore or
disobey shogunal commands.
doomed.

The shogunate and the Tokugawa ideology were hardly

It is often pointed out that the reform plans of the loyalists and the insurgentswere quite similar.

Further, it is common for political systems and ideologicalmeta-structures to survive near-disasters only to flourish once more.

It is even possible

for governments to be overthrown without upsetting too greatly the establishedideological meta-structure.

In this case, however, that did not happen. In the spring of1868, a year after the retirement of the last shogun, Tokugawa Yoshinobu (徳川慶喜,
1837-1913, r.1866-1867), a government under the nominal rulership of the newly
inaugurated Meiji Emperor issued a five-article charter oath that ran:
1. Deliberative councils will be established widely and all matters decided bypublic debate;
2. Both high and low will come together and vigorously carry out the rule andmanagement of the state;
3. It is taken to be essential that the people do not despair, so each and every
one—from the civil and military officials down to the common people—will beallowed to follow his will;
4. Bad customs of the past will be ended, and [everything] will be based on thejust laws of creation;
5. Knowledge will be sought throughout the world to bolster the imperial base.
一
一
一
一
一

広ク会議ヲ興シ万機公論ニ決スベシ
上下心ヲ一ニシテ盛ニ経綸ヲ行フベ
官武一途庶民ニ至ル迄各其志ヲ遂ゲ人心ヲシテ倦マザラシメン事ヲ要ス
旧来ノ陋習を破リ天地ノ公道ニ基クベシ
1
智識ヲ世界ニ求メ大ニ皇基ヲ振起スベシ

A highly centralized state would develop and give rise to the modern nation of Japan.

1

Based on a translation that can be found in W.T. de Bary, et. al., Sources of JapaneseTradition, vol.2 (New York: Columbia University, 1958), p.137.

Michael J. Scanlon

Epilogue349

This constituted a revolution, and all chance for a renaissance of the Tokugawa system
had been foreclosed upon.
The revolution that was the Meiji Restoration was not brought about by
merchant concerns, nor did this class much participate in the struggle against theTokugawa government.

Instead, it was set off by samurai looking to re-invigorate

samurai ideals, and the overthrow of the shogunate was meant to be “little more than ashift in power within the old ruling class.” 2

However, intentions do not matter in

evolution. With the pressures that had helped maintain social and ideological stasis
themselves selected against, a new world and a new way of making sense of it would
evolve over the coming decades. Where once there had been a feudal Tokugawa state,
an inflected form of a bourgeois capitalist nation developed, a process visible in Carol
Gluck’s description of the opening of Japan’s modern period:
Narrative accounts often characterize the first two Meiji decades (1868-1887) as
the pragmatic—and dramatic—years. Epoch-making political developments
included centralization, conscription, tax reform, the movement for parliamentary
government, and the drafting of a constitution. Social change, too, had been
considerable, with the legal leveling of classes, compulsorily elementary
education, westernization, leaps in material culture, and increased stature for therural agricultural elite. Industrialization on a strong agrarian base, an aggressively
entrepreneurial sector, the chastening experience of the government deflation in
the early 1880s—Japan’s capitalist economy began to take shape during the same
period. There would be accelerations and setbacks, but by 1890 the direction of
the economy was clearly set. Equally under way was the development of thenational infrastructure: railroads, communications, financial institutions. 3
By the 1890s, a period of ideological settlement began, and it was largely during the final
2

Marius Jansen, “The Meiji Restoration,” The Emergence of Meiji Japan (New York:
Cambridge University Press, 1995), p.144.
3

Carol Gluck, Japan’s Modern Myths (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985),
p.17.

Michael J. Scanlon

Epilogue

350

decade of the nineteenth century that certain routes of possible development wereselected and became dominant, while others were regulated to the periphery of theideological environment.

By the opening decades of the twentieth century, a newhegemony had formed, one that in most ways has continued to the present day.
This modern ideology can be described as being bourgeois capitalist, but it was
not simply imported whole from America or Western Europe.

Rather, it is a complex

bricolage of ideological formations inherited from Japan’s early modern period combinedwith elements evolved first in the West.

The rise of modernity also brought about aweakening of the centrality of the giri-ninjō conflict. The modern world and worldview
in many ways solved the talent conundrum that lay at its heart.

Modern men were

supposed to rise or fall according to the individual ability of each.

The emergence of theideal of the free and autonomous individual as well as the positive value granted tocompetition within the bourgeois worldview, because they are so different from previous
norms, are often over-valued by scholars of Meiji ideology. Having explained that itwas not until after the Meiji Restoration that various words—dokuritsu (独立), kojin
shugi (個人主義), kindaiteki jiga (近代的自我)—were coined for the originally Westernterm of individuality, Janet Walker writes in her study of the Meiji novel:
Individualism, or the myth of the individual freedom associated with the rise of
the middle class, could be called the modern myth… As the ideal of the free
individual slowly penetrated middle-class intellectual circles in Japan, writers
began to turn their attention to themselves for the first time, with a seriousness
that showed the ideal of freedom was one of the most inspiring of their age.
Though their attempts to define the new individual as they saw him, theysucceeded in shifting the focus of their traditional culture to a new type of culture
hero—the private individual who is interesting not because of his virtues or heroic
exploits in the world but because of his inner uniqueness and the quality of his

Michael J. Scanlon

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351

everyday existence. 4
It would be impossible to gainsay the importance of individuality to Meiji fiction.
However, Walker is simply mistaken when she says of the author of the first modern
Japanese novel and hero of that text:
Without the dissemination of logical thinking in Japan, Futabatei would not havebeen able to see Bunzō as a separate individual. Logical thinking, which madepossible for Japanese to see the individual for the first time as being with a social
and legal existence apart from others, was the basis for the ideals of independence
and human rights that were popularized in early Meiji by Fukuzawa Yukichi andthe Enlightenment movement. Essentially, logical thinking meant scientificthinking, the rational observation of things with the intent of discovering theirlaws. It involved a spirit of doubt and experiment that went directly counter totraditional moral modes that stressed the harmonious unity of man and nature. 5
Rationality and logical thought are not unique to the modern period, nor are they
somehow the sole possession of the West.

Botanical and medical texts written by

pre-modern scholars, such as Kaibara Ekken (貝原益軒, 1630-1714), remained perfectly
viable even after the importation of Western scientific methodology and nomenclature,and many logically nuanced arguments found in Edo-period philosophical texts thrived in
the modern ideological environment.

Furthermore, as is witnessed by the mass of

calculating villains each out for his own gain populating Edo-period long-form fiction,that one’s self interest could be different from those of one’s neighbors or even that of thecommon good was something which early modern Japanese knew all too well.

The ideathat subject and object, self and other were not seen as completely separate entities in
pre-modern Japan is an absurd orientalist myth that should be forgotten. Edo Japanese

4

Janet Walker, The Japanese Novel of the Meiji Period and the Ideal of Individualism(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979), p.3.
5

Op. cit., p.35.

Michael J. Scanlon

Epilogue352

were not unaware that each person was an entity separate and different from everybody
else.

Individuality was not a subject written about in early modern Japan simply

because it was not a problematized concept.
Individuality only became an issue when it was put in relation to the equallyvalued ideal of socialization, and the importance of each in modern Japan can only beunderstood properly in relation with its counterpart. 6

The term for society—shakai (社7会)—was itself coined during the modern period, and an ability to fit into its norms sothat Japan could act as a harmonious whole was considered paramount in a nation which
felt the need to catch up to the Western powers threatening to dominate Japan as they had
China.

Socialization lies at the center of Bunmei-ron no gairyaku (An Outline of a6

Perhaps the best way to indicate the degree to which this irresolvable contradiction
shapes the bourgeois mind is to see how the slots of a selectionist rectangle based on it
form the limiting structures for the basic terms of modern psychoanalysis. (I am writing
only of the limits for the following terms. The definitions I use are not based on thoseforwarded by Sigmund Freud or any other single theorist. Nor am I trying to establish the“true” definitions of these terms.) The neutral slot is filled by the id, which, devoid of
both individual and social components, is seen as an amorphous force, which cannot leaddirectly to action because it is nothing more than a mass of indistinct urges andundirected desires. The superego—the internalized link between self and society thatpressures strongly for individuals to act in a socially acceptable way—can be placed in
the position for the complex term. The pleasure principle—that purely self-oriented drive
to fulfill the desires of the id which allows for action because it focuses desire through themedium of the self—can be fit into the pure individuality position, while the reality
principle can be placed in the opposite side, for it is the drive that urges the self to fit into
the norms of the world—something sometimes referred to as the Real—rather than risk
ostracism, which may come in the form of expulsion, confinement, or even exaltation.
The obvious implication of this is that modern psychoanalysis should never be used toanalyze the ways in which texts were produced or understood in non-bourgeois times andplaces. Whether or not the giri-ninjō selectionist rectangle or the feelings-transcendence
one could form the basis of a historically and culturally specific psychoanalysis is aquestion that might be worthy of further investigation.
7

Gluck, pp.27, 320.

Michael J. Scanlon

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353

Theory of Civilization 文明論之概略, 1875) by Fukuzawa Yukichi, probably the most
famous Meiji “modernizer.”

This is clear in the text’s opening passage:

A Theory of Civilization is an argument about the development of the human spirit.
Its purpose is not to debate the spiritual development of a single person. It gathers
into one whole the spiritual development of entire realms and theorizes on thedevelopment of that whole unit. Therefore, as for A Theory of Civilization, this
could have been called a theory of the development of the masses’ mind. All in all,there are an overwhelming number of cases in which people, as they conduct theirlives, make mistakes because their vision is obstructed by localized profit and loss,
advantage or disadvantage.
文明論とは人の精神発達の議論なり。其趣意は一人の精神発達を論ずるに非ず、
天下衆人の精神発達を一体に集めて、其一体の発達を論ずるものなり。故に文明論、或いは之を衆心発達論と云ふも可なり。蓋し人の世に処するには局処の利害得失に掩はれて其所見を誤るもの甚だ多し。 8

The third chapter, Bunmei no honshi o ronzu (Theorizing on the True Aim of Civilization
文明の本旨を論ず), argues that it is social intercourse is a necessary condition forprogress and that pure individualism is antithetical to civilization:…there is another category of people. Each is free and not hindered. Each canexert his energies as he pleases, and there are no distinctions between great andsmall, strong and weak. If one pleases to go, one goes; if one wants to stay, one
stays. There is no difference among each person’s rights and duties. Nevertheless,these people do not as of yet know the taste of human society. Each person
expends his energy on himself, and they do not set their sights on public gain.
Knowing nothing of the burden of a whole country, they speak not at all aboutsocial interaction. Generation after generation, era after era, they live and die. One
is born; one dies. The state of things at one’s birth is no different than the state ofthings at one’s death. No matter how many generations pass, there is no trace on
the land of human vigor and growth. To take an example, were one to talk of
today’s primitive races, they would be this. Though you can say that they do notlack in the spirit of freedom and equality, can you really call this civilization andenlightenment?
…爰に亦一群の人民あり。人々其身を自由にして之を妨るものなく、人々其力を逞ふして大小強弱の差別あらず。行かんと欲すれば行き、止らんと欲すれば止まりて、各人其権義を異にすることなし。然りと雖も、此人民は未だ人間交際の味
8

Fukuzawa Yukichi, Bunmei-ron no gairyaku, Fukuzawa Yukichi shū, Kindai Nihon shisō
taikei 2 (Tokyo: Chikuma Shobō, 1975), p.81.

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を知らず、人々其力を一人のために費して全体の公利に眼を着けず、一国の荷物たるを知らず交際の何事たるを弁ぜず、世々代々生て又死し、死し又生れ、其生れしときの有様は死するときの有様に異ならず、幾世を経ると雖ども其土地に人間生々の痕跡を見ることなし。例えば方今野蛮の人種と唱るもの、即是なり。自由同権の気風に乏しからずと雖も、之を文明開化と云ふ可きや否。 9The ideal of the autonomous individual is, nevertheless, fundamental to the text’s
argument:[The highest stage of civilization] is when, even if one skillfully argues that all thethings of the universe are contained within a set of rules, those within it can act
freely. The spirit of each person is fostered, and none are besotted by old ways.
Each governs himself independently, and none depends on the favors of others. Of
his own accord, each pursues virtue and hones his knowledge. Neither yearning
for the past nor being satisfied with the present, he does not take comfort in small
comforts, but plans great future accomplishments. Advancing, he does not retreat;accomplishing, he does not rest. The way of learning is not empty; it opens thebasis of invention. The ventures of commerce and industry grow more vigorousby the day and deepen human happiness. Human knowledge is employed in thepresent, and some is left over to be used for the plans of tomorrow. This can becalled modern civilization. One would have to say that it leaves far behind theprimitive and semi-developed stages [of civilization].
第三 天地間の事物を規則の内に籠絡すれども、其内に在て自ら活動を逞ふし、人の気風快発にして旧慣に惑溺せず、身躬から其身を支配して他の恩威に依頼せず、躬から徳を脩め躬から智を研き、古を慕はず今を足れりとせず、小安に安ん
ぜずして未来の大成を謀り、進て退かず達して止まらず、学問の道は虚ならずして発明の基を開き、工商の業は日の盛にして幸福の源を深くし、人智は既に今日に用ひて其幾分を余し、以て後日の謀を為するものの如し。これを今の文明と云ふ。野蛮半開の有様を去るもと遠しと云ふ可し。 10

Individual free will is a prerequisite for proper socialization. The modern bourgeois
capitalist system is predicated on individuals choosing to relinquish their freedom andadhere to the norms of society in order to enjoy the comforts of civilization, and there isno indication whatsoever in Fukuzawa’s text that the subjugation of individual autonomy
could result in trauma or alienation. Instead, the willingness of autonomous subjects to
9

Op. cit., pp.106-107.

10

Op. cit., p.90.

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Epilogue355

do this confirms the worth of society’s norms and imbues social conventions withmeaningfulness.
The significance of socialization to the modern ideology meant that thisworldview was most certainly not a form of the social Darwinism that was so hated andfeared during the Edo period.

Even the Saikoku risshi hen (A Compilation of Successes

from the West 西国立志編, 1870-1871), an adaptive translation by Nakamura Masanao of
Samuel Smiles’ Self Help, emphasizes that individuality and competition amongautonomous subjects should never destroy the ties that hold society together.

To belegitimate, competition had to occur within the boundaries of established and acceptedrules, and the importance placed upon competition in the bourgeois worldview is offset
by the esteem granted to cooperation, charity and other values that help bind communities
together. At the same time, however, the conceptualization of self-interested action inquotidian settings was undergoing a radical transformation.

During the early modern

period, it—lacking both human feeling and correct principles—marked people as being
less than human.

“Ambition,” in the words of Donald Keene, “had always possessedsinister implications, and actual ambition was condemned by moralists as an offense that
Heaven would punish.” 11In the modern period, an excess of ambition that leads toeither behavior in violation of societal convention or an abandonment of individualautonomy is still frowned upon, but those who indulge in such conduct, because they canstill be seen as possessing one of the two central bourgeois values, are still eminently
rehabilitatable. This stands in stark contrast to those figures who, lacking both qualities,
11

Donald Keene, Dawn to the West (New York: Columbia University Press, 1998), p.61.

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are seen as purely evil villains.

Destruction, repulsion or containment are normally seenas the proper way of dealing with these types, and those few who are “cured” aretypically thought to achieve this by epiphanic conversion rather than by steady progress.
Thus, despite the facts that socialization and correct principles are both public values,
while individuality and human feelings are both private ones, and that the similarities
between these pairings of ideals meant that the vast majority of texts evolved in the Edo
period seemed to remain unproblematically comprehensible long after the birth ofJapanese modernity, there were real differences between the limiting epistemologicalstructures of the early modern and modern ideologies.
The transformation from early modernity to modernity in Japan was, of course,
no more instantaneous than had been the change from the medieval Muromachi period to
the Tokugawa era over two and a half centuries earlier.

Perhaps the single best scholarly

resource that can be used to contextualize the effect that the extra-literary epochal eventsof 1868 had upon literary evolution is a chronological table of early Meiji fiction
compiled in 1927 by Ishikawa Iwao which is based on the holdings of the Japanese
National Diet Library. 12

The Meiji Restoration selected strongly against all genres offiction. Although reprints of texts written during the Edo period continued to be
published, sold and read in the years following the political revolution, extremely few
newly produced literary texts were brought to market over the first decade of the modernera.

The first genre to recover was gōkan (bound together 合巻) fiction—a highly

12

Ishikawa Iwao, “Meiji gesaku nenpyō,” Nihon kindai bungaku no shosi, Meiji-hen,Nihon bungaku kenkyū shiryō sōsho 99 (Tokyo: Yūseidō, 1982), pp.1-80.

Michael J. Scanlon

Epilogue358

illustrated type of long-form fiction published in many short installments during the Edo
period—which, though now often set in the Meiji era, still used narrative structures thatwere evolved in the Tokugawa era. This form of early modern fiction was, in fact,
expanding its range during the beginning of the modern period, for the first pieces ofextended newspaper fiction were gōkan.

These long-form texts were also clearly

written within the giri-ninjō problematic, 13 and that was hardly exceptional. 14

Thecontinued vitalities of early modern literary forms as well as the giri-ninjō problematicover the first decades of the Meiji period serve as reminders of the nature of epochal
change.

As has been discussed previously, new epochs allow for developments thatwere previously near impossible, and they neither materialize immediately nor assume
their finished form instantaneously. It would take several decades for the modern
ideology to evolve and even longer before it achieved hegemony.

Moreover, although

the intensity of the conflict between correct principles and human feelings would
13

See the plot summaries included in Honda Yasuo’s Shinbun shōsetsu no tanjō.

14

Even some of the most famous of “modern” texts may have been formed largely within
the early modern epistemological paradigm. For instance, Tsubouchi Shōyō’s Shōsetsu
shinzui, which is often seen as the text that directed the course of Japan’s modern novel,
forwards an argument—similar to the one which can be found in the Genji monogatari
Tama no ogushi from which it often quotes—that the giri-centric “promote virtue andchastise vice” (kanzen chōaku) coloring of highbrow Edo fiction should be cast aside so
the modern artistic novel (shōsetsu) can concentrate on a realistic examination of humanfeelings. That said, the text does call for a psychological realism based on investigationsof unique and complicated individuals, so it is possible to argue that, by the time of
Shōyō’s writing, the term “ninjō” had already been assimilated to and reoriented by the
relationship between the modern “master signifiers” that are individuality andsocialization. I will not even attempt to offer a definitive answer as to whether the
Shōsetsu shinzui is a “modern” or “early modern” text. It would probably be better tosimply remind the reader that Shōyō’s text was written during a moment of great
upheaval between the early modern and modern paradigms, so it is only to be expectedthat it does not fit particularly well into either.

Michael J. Scanlon

Epilogue359

diminish as the modern ideology set in, it would never disappear entirely, and thisproblematic would continue to influence the Japanese worldview long after the end of theTokugawa regime.

In evolution, the past never disappears entirely, but the decades after

1868 were a period of transition between ideological epochs inaugurated by acatastrophic political event.
Literary narrative would enter a period of great formal evolution over the last
decades of the nineteenth century, and there were several striking developments occurringin the domain of fiction.

One of the most clearly visible of these in Ishikawa’s work

was a rise in the number of translations of occidental foreign fiction into Japanese overthe 1880s. Translated texts were not merely increasing in quantity, they were also
undergoing a great qualitative transformation.

Marleigh Ryan writes:[T]ranslations of Western fiction in the early Meiji period generally bore little
resemblance to the original. Translators, eager to convert Western novels into
recognizable Japanese stories, usually made no attempts to suggest the style
employed by Western authors. Novels were generally pared down to the barest
elements of the plot; descriptions of foreign cities might be rendered in somefashion, but passages analyzing the personality and motivation of the characters
were often omitted. 15
As time went on, however, translated texts became more faithful to the originals fromwhich they sprang.

Texts evolved within an individuality-socialization problematicwere becoming more understandable as the modern ideology took hold.

Anotherstriking change is a population explosion in a type of fiction Ishikawa refers to as “oldand new novels” (shin-kyū shōsetsu 新旧小説) after the midpoint of the 1880s.

Of thisheading and the texts gathered therein, Ishikawa writes:
15

Marleigh Ryan, Japan’s First Modern Novel: Ukigumo of Futabatei Shimei (New York:
Columbia University Press, 1967), p.99.

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360

Though there are cases in which, looking at content and form, [texts] could beclearly distinguished [as either new or old], there are also many among these thatare hard to categorize clearly and readily… Originally, I had planned to makeseparate categories that would distinguish between new and old, but it ended up
being overly taxonomic, and that went against the real purpose of thechronology… 16
New fiction was different from old fiction, yet the divergence between the ideologicalorientations of the early modern and modern periods was not so great that forms evolved
during the Edo era were simply driven to extinction with the birth of the Meiji period.
Unprecedented genres of Japanese-language fiction, such as the political novel (seiji
shōsetsu 政治小説), appeared as Edo period forms adjusted to the modern world byincluding new characters and settings and having their long-form plot structures
deformed to fit the individuality-socialization problematic, Western forms adapted to theJapanese ideological environment, and these two originally separately evolved narrative
traditions intermixed.

The most remarkable development occurring over these decades,

however, may have been a radical modification in the constitution of highbrow literary
fiction.

All early modern vernacular narrative—even the formerly well-regarded Edo

hanshi yomihon of Kyokutei Bakin—came to be seen as popular literature fit for an
uneducated audience due to their psychologically uncomplicated characters andsimplistically complete plots.

Artistic fiction became the domain of open-ended

narratives that featured complexly compromised and compromising heroes.
It is hardly surprising that the text said by scholars and critics to be Japan’s firstmodern novel—Futabatei Shimei’s Ukigumo—is a long-form narrative that is fit to the
new standards of “artistic” fiction. The novel was published in three separate parts.
16

Ishikawa Iwao, p.48.

Michael J. Scanlon

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361

The first appeared in 1887 “as a single, illustrated, paperbound volume of [one hundred
sixty-five] pages,” 17 and this section had the following plot:
In the opening chapter of Part One, we learn that the hero, Utsumi Bunzō, has lost
his job as a clerk in the government. The second and third chapters are devoted toan account of Bunzō’s impoverished boyhood, his life as a young man in his Aunt
Omasa’s house, and the beginning of his love for his cousin, Osei. In the fourth
chapter Bunzō tries to summon up the courage to tell Omasa that he has been
dismissed, but cannot discover a convenient occasion. In the fifth chapter, whichtakes place the next morning, he at last informs Omasa and makes her furious
with him. She never liked Bunzō as a child and clearly resented having adependent relative in her home. Bunzō’s late father was her husband Magobei’s
brother, but Magobei is rarely in Tokyo, and it is left to Omasa, as head of thefamily, to look after Bunzō. Originally she felt much imposed upon by theaddition of this boy to her family, but once he had taken a job with thegovernment, he became more acceptable. Now when he loses his position,
however, Omasa considers him a failure and wants no more of him. To complicate
matters, her daughter, Osei, indicates a fondness for Bunzō, and Omasa is on the
point of allowing the two to marry. But nothing had actually been said about an
engagement, and Omasa can therefore conveniently pretend ignorance of such aplan. She orders Osei to keep her distance from Bunzō. In the final chapter of Part
One, Bunzō’s colleague Honda Noboru comes to visit Omasa. Noboru, far frombeing dismissed, has been promoted. At the close of this chapter, Omasa, attracted
by Noboru’s assertiveness and good looks, makes the contrast which plays amajor role in the novel: Bunzō is a failure, Noboru a success. 18
The next part, printed in the same format as before, appeared towards the beginning of
1888 and told the following story:
In Part Two Osei becomes increasingly attracted to Noboru. Omasa, Osei, andNoboru take an excursion together. Noboru deserts them for a few minutes togreet his supervisor, his supervisor’s wife, and her pretty sister. Osei ismomentarily jealous of the girl, and Noboru uses her jealousy as a weapon totease her. Bunzō begins to grow suspicious, but his love for Osei at first prevents
him from believing that she could be interested in a coarse person such as Noboru.
Proud of his influence in the office, Noboru offers to help Bunzō get reinstated.
He makes the offer in front of Omasa and Osei. Bunzō is insulted and refuses,
unwilling to accept a favor from the man he now considers his rival. He watches
the flirtation between Osei and Noboru develop with Omasa’s encouragement. He
17

Ryan, p.107.

18

Op. cit., pp.108-109.

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Epilogue362

tries to assert himself to Noboru; they quarrel and Bunzō comes off poorly in theexchange.
The next day Omasa, warning Bunzō not to quarrel with Noboru again,
suggests he profit by Noboru’s help to recover his position. She hints that she
might let him court Osei again if he resumed his work. After much reflection,
Bunzō decides that he cannot take Omasa’s advice. He goes to Osei, hoping that
she will confirm him in his decision. The girl is instructed by her mother topersuade Bunzō to accept Noboru’s help, and when she opposes Bunzō’s contrary
decision, he abuses Noboru, calling him a “lackey” and a “loathsome insect.”
Osei feels obliged to defend Noboru, and in the end admits that she is fond of him.
Bunzō swears he will never speak to her again. Omasa arrives shortly after theirquarrel and extracts a promise from Osei that she will have no more to do with
Bunzō. 19
The last part, serialized in the magazine Miyako no hana over the second half of 1889,
runs as follows:
In the closing chapter of Part Two, Bunzō, having quarreled with Osei, vows
never to speak to her again. Part Three, chapters xiii to xix, opens with Bunzō
alone in his room immediately after the quarrel. He decides he must move from
Omasa’s house but, after finding an adequate room elsewhere, he still cannot
arouse himself to make the change. He begins instead to regret his quarrel with
Osei. The next day, seeing her weeping alone in her room, he resolves to make hispeace with her. Two days later his first opportunity presents itself, but when headdresses Osei, she immediately leaves the room. At lunch, in the presence ofOmasa and the maid, Onabe, she turns on Bunzō and attacks him mercilessly forhaving first insulted her and then attempting to make amends. Omasa commands
her to leave and informs Bunzō that in the future he may not speak to her daughter.
During the days that follow, he realizes that he can no longer justify his remaining
with the Sonada family: he has been insulted by both mother and daughter andcannot hope for a reconciliation with Osei. He begins to see that he was mistaken
in his evaluation of Osei, that she is too superficial to appreciate him. Still he does
not leave.
By chapter xvii, Omasa and Osei, drawn together by their mutual dislike ofBunzō, realize that they have become rather bored with their lives. Noboru has
been so busy with giving English lessons to his chief’s wife and sister-in-law that
he hardly ever appears. One day Noboru stops by for a visit; the delighted Osei
joins freely with him in flirtatious interplay. Noboru’s visits again become more
frequent, but he is still more interested in discussing business with Omasa than in
joking with Osei, who is frustrated in her attempts to join their adult conversations.
Her only way of holding Noboru’s attention is to engage him in childish banter.
Omasa’s suggestion that Noboru might make a good husband awakens Osei to the19

Op. cit., pp.112-113.

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Epilogue363

realization that she may be in love with him. Noboru senses the change in attitude
but fails to respond. He continues his light banter with her, though eventually it
makes Osei grow cold. Depressed, Osei persuades her mother to allow her to takeknitting lessons. Noboru stops coming to the house.
Finally, in chapter xix, the events of chapters xvii and xviii are related from
Bunzō’s point of view. He is horrified by Osei’s flirtation with Noboru andconvinced that she has fallen into evil ways. He decides he must warn her that she
is destroying her life and tries in vain to find some means of conveying thiswarning. Instead, he spends his time in his room brooding about Osei’s problems.
Then, suddenly, Noboru’s visits cease. Osei still maintains her silence towards
Bunzō, but because she no longer glares at him, hope springs in Bunzō’s heart. At
the end of the novel Osei favors Bunzō with a kind smile, suggesting to him thatthe time may have come for a reconciliation.20
To spend so much time on the plot of Ukigumo might seem counterintuitive. Strongly
integrative plots, though a central feature of highbrow early modern narrative, became amark of commercial fiction in modern times, and the educated elite that helped canonize
Ukigumo were drawn to aspects quite separate from the text’s story.
The critic Ishibashi Ninbetsu, in an extended review published in Jogaku zasshi(Women’s Study Journal 女学雑誌), argues against complaints, supposedly made by“retrograde” readers, as follows:
I will start by bringing up a some points worthy of praise in Ukigumo to bringthem to the attention of cold-hearted readers and inconsiderate critics.
First: Because the author of Ukigumo understands the novel, he makes people the
proprietor of the story and the plot (style) the guest. He does not makecharacters work for the sake of plot (style). The focus of the novel is on
characters, and the plot (style) is nothing more than decoration.
Second: Because the author of Ukigumo understands the novel, he portrays
character and ideas. Moreover, he is incredibly detailed when depicting therelation between changes in circumstance and the development of character andideas. The fruit of his towering brilliance is this.
Third: Because the author of Ukigumo understands the novel, he faithfully depicts
humble customs and frivolous human feelings. Therefore, he is a person who
will have the effect of allowing future generations to imagine the Meiji present.
Fourth: Because the author of Ukigumo understands the novel, he intentionallymakes a mediocre, incomplete man his protagonist and does not forcibly create
20

Op. cit., pp.127-128.

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364

guiltless and refined characters. He is not someone who records only actions ofgreat fidelity and beauty on an outward or surface level, nor does he jump toconclusions as he delves into human feelings. Particularly at times before anaction is not yet taken, he, with heart laid bare, considers this and thinks of that.
He hesitates wavering between the two, wandering between deciding and being
lost. He wants to lift his leg, but does not lift it; he wants to lower his hand, butdoes not lower it. He decides; he is lost. The way he digs into ideas at thesetimes must be said to be the most fantastic of [the novel’s] fantastic points.
予は先づ浮雲の褒誉す可きの点を揚げて冷淡なる読者と不親切なる批評家の注意を仰がんとす。
第一、 浮雲の著者は小説を知る故に人物を主として脚色（文章）を客とし脚色（文章）の為に人物を使役せざるなり。小説の主眼は人物に在って脚色（文章）は末技なるのみ。
第二、 浮雲の著者は小説を知る故に性質、意想を写し又は地位境遇の変化と其性質、意想の発現との相関を描く甚だ精密にして「嶄然頭角」の実之に存す。
第三、 浮雲の著者は小説を知る故に卑賤の風俗浮薄の人情及び言行不伴の社会を実写したり。故に後世をして明治の今日を推相せしむるの効ある者なり。
第四、 浮雲の著者は小説を知る故に故意に平凡なる不完全の人物を以て主人公となし強いて廉潔優美の人物を作らざるなり。表面上交際上の高操華
美の運動のみを記して人情を穿ちたりと早合点する者に非るなり。殊に未だ之を所為に発せざる以前心裸に於て彼を思ひ之を考え一決一迷躊
躇両岐に彷徨し足を挙んと欲して挙げず手を下さんと欲して下さざる時の意想を穿つが如きは妙所中の最妙所と謂ざえるを得ず。 21

The review is certainly correct to insist that the focus of Ukigumo is on character rather
than plot and that the characters of the novel were of a type different from those which
had populated early modern fiction.

In the Edo period, both protagonists and minor

characters were highly stereotyped and, lacking psychological nuance, can bemeaningfully characterized by means of a handful of defining traits, while the central
personages of Futabatei’s text are “polyparadigmatic characters,” entities “defined byvarious, heterogeneous traits that may even contradict each other.” 22

Note the opening

21

Ishibashi Ningetsu, “Ukigumo no home-otoshi,” Futabatei Shimei zenshū,supplementary volume (Tokyo: Chikuma Shobō, 1993), pp.313-314.

22Franco Moretti, The Way of the World (New York: Verso, 2000), p.42.
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365

passage of the work:[It is] around three o’clock on the twenty-eighth day of the vigorous godlessmonth, which now has the fastest remaining two days. As for those who comeboiling out from Kanda Gate, swarming and teeming like baby spiders falling or
ants emerging from their hole, each is a gentleman concerned with his chin.
However, when you look carefully and make a close inspection, here, too, there
are various types. To start the enumeration from whiskers, there are mustaches,
sideburns, Vandykes, Napoleon beards that are recklessly supported, Bismarck
beards like those of a spaniel and, otherwise, bantam beards, badger beards, andphantom beards that may or may not exist. They spring variously forth, thick andthin. After beards, there are differences in clothes. Common are pairings of all
black [clothes] from the stock at Shirokiya and French leather shoes; thegentlemen who don these can be said [to be morons who] grow their nose hair tocatch fireflies. 23 Lower down than these [are those with] creased suits with theepithet “Scot” and cow leather shoes tight enough to creak. Due to the fact thatthe decoration does not end at the heel, [these are] tortoise trousers that trail theirtails in the mud. They, every one, have the look of not soon being able to shed thesuffering of being from the sales bin. Nevertheless, their owners are triumphant,
having expressions which seem to conclude that, having beards and clothes, one
could want nothing more. Like the shaving of a fire grown dim, they return homewith their chests thrown out. My, how enviable this is! Those that continue toemerge behind these all have salt-and-pepper hair. Even though they are bent likea bow, they dangle empty lunch boxes—how cruel!—from their slack hips andmake their way home with difficulty. Well, though they are old and withered, they
can still probably bear a job. Their positions are light, so they can still work inJapanese-style clothes, but it is pitiful nonetheless.
When things empty out, two young men emerge from the same gate while
talking. One is a man of twenty-two or twenty-three. His complexion is seventy
percent blue and thirty percent pale—it simply is not good. But his outstanding
eyebrows give him a dignified expression, and the bridge of his nose runs straight.
It’s a shame—his mouth is just a bit not normal. However, his assiduousness
seems fine, so, even if he were to stand in front of a picture-book store, there
would probably be no need to worry about him holding his mouth agape. Anyway,
his chin is pointed, and his cheekbones are prominent. Maybe because he isextremely thin, the features of his face are harsh. When it comes to charm, hedoesn’t have a speck of it. He’s not ugly, but there is a certain sharpness to him.
His posture was straight so, though not all that tall, his thinness led to a shamefulnickname having to do with [the giant] Hanshō something or other. He is dressedin a pepper-and-salt “Scot” suit that is old and wrinkled and wears a wool
wide-brimmed hat banded with a braided strip. The other is two or three years
23This comes from a Japanese proverb.

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older than the first man. He is of medium height and build with a fair complexion
and a round face. His mouth is normal, and his eyes are bright. Thus, he is afine-looking fellow. However, his features are pinched and fussy, so somehow [hecomes off as] a man without substance. Under his black woolen half “frock coat,”he has a “[vest]” of the same color, and his pants are a chic striped wool. He is a
sharp dresser. He wears low on his brow a hat shaped like an iron pot with an
upturned brim. His left hand inserted in his pocket, his right hand toys with a verythin cane.
He turns to the tall man [and says], “Well, now. If, as I see it, the chief has faith
in me, then it perhaps was out of something inevitable. Why do I say this? Look,
since you can say there are over forty clerks, it seems like there are a great
number. Of these—and I know my saying this is strange—among the young ones,
well, when it comes to those who can grasp the original and those who can takeup the work and make progress, there are not but two or three of us. Therefore, if,
as I hope, he has faith in me, it was inevitable.”“But look at Yamaguchi. There was no other man who, when given work, could
make progress like him, but he got fired all the same, didn’t he?”“What about that guy? It was because that guy was stupid.”“How?”“What do you mean, how? The guy was stupid. Didn’t you see him turn to thechief and talk about recent developments? Positively stupid.”“That was completely the chief’s fault. While he himself was making
unreasonable instructions, he had no right to reprimand people like that.”“The chief may have been unreasonable, but, nevertheless, turning to someone
like the chief and trying to offer resistance—that is the height of stupidity. Think
about it. What is Yamaguchi? He is an underling, isn’t he? If he is an underling,whether or not he thinks the chief’s orders are reasonable, he has to proceed
accordingly and move on while saying, ‘Yes, yes.’ That’s doing one’s job, isn’t it?
But, like that guy, to turn to someone such as the chief and in an order-likeway…”“No, that was not an order. It was advice.”“Really? How strange that you would defend Yamaguchi! Well, birds of afeather… Ha, ha, ha.”
千早振る神無月も最早跡二日の余波となつた廿八日の午後三時頃に、神田見付けの内より、塗渡る蟻、散る蜘蛛の子とうようよぞよぞよ沸出でて来るのは、孰れも頤を気にし給ふ方々。しかし熟熟見て篤と点検すると、是れにも様々種類のあるもので、まづ髭から書立てれば、口髭、頬髯、頤の鬚、暴に興起した拿破崙髭に、狆の口めいた比斯馬克髭、そのほか矮鶏髭、狢髭、ありやなしやの幻の髭と、濃くも薄くもいろいろに生分る。髭に続いて差ひのあるのは服飾。白木屋仕込みの黒物づくめには仏蘭西皮の靴の配偶はありうち、之を召す方様の鼻毛は延びてを蜻蛉をも釣るべしといふ。是より降っては、背皺よると枕詞の付く「スコッチ」の背広にごりごりするほどの牛の毛皮靴、そこで踵にお飾を絶やさぬ所から泥に尾を曳く亀甲洋袴、いづれも釣しんぼうの苦患を今に脱せぬ顔付、でも持主は得Michael J. Scanlon

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意なもので、髭あり服あり我また何をか求めんと済した顔色で、火をくれた木顔と反身ってお帰り遊ばす、いやお羨しいことだ。其後より続いて出てお出でなさるは何れも胡麻塩頭、弓と曲げても張の弱い腰に無残や空弁当をぶら下げてよた
よたものでお帰りなさる。さては老朽しても流石はまだ職に堪へるものか、しかし日本服でも勤められるお手軽なお身の上、さりとはまたお気の毒な。
途上人影の稀になった頃、同じ見付の内より両人少年が話しながら出て参った。
一人は年配二十二三の男、顔色は蒼味七分に土気三分、どうもよろしくなが、秀でた眉に厳然とした眼付で、ズーと押徹った鼻筋、唯惜しい哉口元が些と尋常でないばかり。しかし締はよささうゆえ、絵草子屋の前に立っても、バックリ開くなどといふ気遣ひは有るまいか。兎に角頤が尖って頰骨が顕れ、非道く痩れている故か顔の造作がとげとげしていて、愛嬌気といったら微塵もなし。醜くはないが何処ともなくケンがある。背はスラリとしているばかりで左而己高いといふ程でもないが、痩肉ゆえ、半鐘なんとやらといふ人聞の悪い渾名に縁が有りさうで、
年数物ながら畳皺の存じた霜降「スコッチ」の服を身に纏って、組紐を腹巻にした帽鍔広な黒羅紗の帽子を戴いてい、今一人は、前の男より二つ三つ兄らしく、中肉中背で色白の丸顔、口元の尋常な所から眼付のバッチリとした所は仲々の好男子ながら、顔立がひねてこせこせしているので、何となく品格のない男。黒羅紗の半「フロックコート」に同じ色の「チョツキ」、洋袴は何か乙な縞羅紗で、リウとした衣裳付、緑の巻上った釜底形の黒の帽子を眉深に冠り、左の手を隠袋へ差し入れ、右の手細々とした杖を玩物にしながら、高い男に向かい、「しかしネー、若し果たして課長が我輩を信用しているなら、蓋し已むを得ざるに出でたんだ。何故といって見給へ、局員四十有余名と言やア大層のやうだけ
れども、皆腰の曲った爺さんに非ざれば気の利かない奴ばかりだらう。其内で、かう言やア可笑しい様だけれども、若手でサ、原書も些たア噛っていてサ、而して事務を取らせて捗の往く者と言ったら、マア我輩二三人だ。だから若し果たして信用しているのなら、已むを得ないのサ。
」「けれども山口を身給へ、事務を取らせたら彼の男程捗の往く者はあるまいけ
れども、やっぱり免を喰ったらやアないか。
」「彼奴はいかん、彼奴は馬鹿だからいかん。
」「何故。
」「何故と言って、彼奴は馬鹿だ、課長に向かって此間のやうな事を言ふ所を見りやア、愈々馬鹿だ。
」「あれは全体課長が悪いサ、自分が不修理な事を言い付けながら、何にもあん
なに頭ごなしにいふこともない。
」「それは課長の方が惑は不修理かも知れぬが、しかし苟も長官たる者に向かって抵抗を試みるなぞといふなア、馬鹿の骨頂だ。まづ考へて見給へ、山口は何んだ、屬使ぢゃアないか。屬使ならば、たとひ課長の言付を修理と思ったにしろ、
ハイハイ言って其通り處弁して往くやア、職分は尽きてるぢゃアないか。然るに彼奴のやうに、苟も課長たる者に向かってあんな差図がましい事を…」「イヤあれは指図ぢやアない、注意サ。
」「フム乙う山口を弁護するネ、やっぱり同病相隣れむのか、アハヽヽ。」 24
24

Futabatei Shimei, Ukigumo, Futabatei Shimei shū, Nihon kindai bungaku taikei 4,
Tanaka Yasutaka and Hata Yūzō, eds. (Tokyo: Kadokawa Shoten, 1971), pp.40-42.

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From a background of types, two unique personalities begin to emerge throughconversation.

At first, it might appear that Bunzō could be placed into the individuality

with no socialization section of the modern selectionist rectangle and that Noboru would
be fit for the exact opposite position. Bunzō’s remains unwilling to give up his ideal ofself-determination despite the fact that his subsequent inability to fit into societal norms
has a deleterious effect on his life, and the text makes clear that Noboru, though he isgenerally affable and can get along well with strangers and acquaintances, lacks thesubstance necessary to form interpersonal relationships of any depth or meaning.
the complexity of their characters undermines this simple categorization.

Yet

Noborudisplays a willingness to forgive and forget—even to help smooth over—Bunzō’ssometimes overly aggressive and erratic behavior, and this most often suave man is notalways absolutely certain as to what the “proper” course of action might be.

(Thedemands of socialization are more fluid and unknowable than those of correct principle.)
Conversely, Bunzō’s individuality is connected to an alternative, ideal form of bourgeois
socialization—one that, not coincidentally, would seem to be based on a traditional“samurai-like” affection—which he sees as lacking in the contemporary “merchantly”
world of calculation, and even he is often portrayed as being unable to act upon his
desires out of fear of destroying completely his place in the world.

The psychologicalcomplexity of these compromised and compromising characters stems from the fact that
their personalities are drawn to the center—the crosshairs—of the modern selectionist
rectangle. 25

25

Not coincidentally, this is the exact location the non-pathological ego—torn between
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The Meiji critic’s comment about the weakness of plot in Ukigumo also hits themark.

The vast majority of the text’s discourse is taken up by satellites, and it is, in fact,

difficult to discern fully which incidents constitute kernels. Events that seemmomentous at first lose their importance, while comments and gestures that were seen as
trivial can eventually take on ominous qualities. The narrative meanders: the causal
connections linking beginning to middle to end are weak, and there is nothing resemblinga drive to a conclusion that would give time and its passage a meaningful pattern anddirectionality.

All the same, like the long-form fiction of the Edo period, Futabatei’s

novel begins with a problem: Bunzō has lost his job and, therefore, cannot marry.

The

major difference between this novel and early modern fiction is that, in Ukigumo, there isno sense that a solution to either the original issue or the resulting complication will bringa complete end to Bunzō’s tribulations.

The position lost was hardly a fulfilling one:

Afterwards, when, through the agency of a certain person, he became alow-ranking civil servant in one agency or another having to do withadministration, his spirits soared to the heavens, and he heaved a sigh of relief.
When he first started to work, he had a strange feeling. At the start, he received
things to check and sat upright at his place. He then calmed and looked around at
those in the area near him. There were various and sundry types, such as one who
prepared documents with his head tilted to the side with care, one who edited withan eye like a monkey picking out lice, one who, writing brush between his teeth,
turned the pages of an account book with a busy air. Among them, and directly
facing Bunzō, was an old man of about fifty who, while furrowing his brow andblinking rapidly, was tirelessly working [the beads of] an abacus. Suddenly, hestopped his hands and, while fingering the beads, spoke as if the fate of the realm
lay in this one act, saying “Well, six and five is seventy-two. … Wait, no, it isn’t.
Sixty-five.” He raised his concerned face and had his mouth wide open. Fixing hiseyes on Bunzō over his glasses, he caused his voice to take on a higher pitch andbegan to snap [the beads] with undivided attention after saying, “Yes, eighty-two,no?” Unable to bear the surfeit of foolishness, Bunzō without thinking smiled.
the demands of the superego and the id, the pleasure principle and the reality
principle—occupies in some of the foundational texts of modern psychoanalysis.

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370

However, upon thinking about it, [he realized] the one laughing and the one being
laughed at [were in] situations not all that different. He thought that, ah, thescholastic achievements obtained by immersing his persevering will in elbow
grease and not sleeping despite his tired eyes—was it to be used for meaningless,stupid things like these? The more he thought, the sadder and more pitiful [things
seemed]. Unthinkingly, he sighed and sat there as a foolish person in a daze. No,
no, this would never do; he recovered, and from that day set himself to work. For
the short while of four or five days, he could only sigh each time he saw that old
man’s face, but everything can be adjusted to, and his pain disappeared as thedays passed.
其後或人の周旋で某省准判任御用係となった時は天へも昇る心地がされて、ホット一息吐きは吐いたが、始て出勤した時は異な感じがした。まづ取調物を受取って我座になほり、さて落着て居廻りを見回すと、子細らしく頸を傾けて書物をするもの、蚤取眼になって校合をするもの、筆を銜へて忙し気に帳薄を繰るものと種種さまざま有る中に、恰ど文三の真向ふに八字の浪を額に寄せ、忙しく眼をしばたたきながら弛みもなく算盤を弾いていた年配五十前後の老人が、不図手を止めて珠へ指ざしいながら、「エー六五七十の二、、、でもなしとエー六五」と天下の安危此一挙に在りと言った様な、さも心配さうな顔を振揚げて、其癖口をアンゴ
リ開いて、眼鏡越しにジット文三の顔を見守め、「ウー八十の二か」ト一越調子高
な声を振立ててまた一心不乱に弾き出す。余りの可笑しさに堪へかねて、文三は覚えずも微笑したが、考へて見れば笑ふ我と笑はれる人と余り懸隔のない身の上。
アア嘗て身の油に根気の心を浸し、眠い眼を寝ずして得た学力を、こんあ果敢ない馬鹿気た事に使ふのかと、思へば悲しく情けなく、我になくホット太息を吐いて、暫くは唯茫然としてつまらぬ者でいたが、イヤイヤ是れではならぬと心を取り直して、其日より事務に取り掛る。当座四五日は例の老人の顔を見る毎に嘆息而己していたが、其れも向ふ境界に移る習ひとかで、日を経るままに苦にもならなく成る。 26

Work, desultory and meaningless, destroys one’s individuality and spirit. Likewise,
marriage to Osei would hardly bring about a resolution of Bunzō’s sense of alienation.
The text includes far too many instances in which Bunzō confidently interprets Osei’s
actions only to discover later that he has misread the situation. Note his ruminations
after Osei has left to go flower viewing with Noboru:
After Osei and her mother had left, Bunzō finally calmed down a little. Idly
crouching by his desk, he folded his arms, buried his chin in his collar, andimmersed himself in anguished thoughts.
He was really worried, worried about things with Osei. While he realized that it26

Op. cit., pp.49-50.

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Epilogue371

was bad to worry about trifling matters such as these, in the end he worried
anyway.
The two hearts of those in love with each other do not stand alone in separate
bodies, and that couldn’t happen even if one tried. Therefore, when one is happy,
the other joins in the happiness; when one is sad, the other joins in the sadness;when one is pleased, the other joins in the pleasure; when one is pained, the otherjoins in the pain. Both joyful laughter and angry yells are felt together; joyfulpleasure and dissatisfied worries are felt together. [One’s] feelings arecommunicated to [the other’s] feelings; [one’s] heart calls forth [the other’s] heart.
There is never a case in which they are contrary or run up against each other. This
Bunzō had believed right up until this very day. Why was it that Osei did not carea wit about Bunzō?
He simply couldn’t comprehend it. He could not grasp the mindset of Osei who
had nonchalantly disposed of Bunzō.
If she were not also in love with him, it would have been unlikely that she, after
becoming close to Bunzō, would have reformed her choice of words and changed
her demeanor and behavior, ceasing to be frivolous and becoming gently andgraciously ladylike. Moreover, during that impassioned talk of this year’s summer
evening, she removed all barriers separating her from me, had a special look, andused awkward words—there is no reason to worry on occasion.
If she did not love him, it would be unlikely that Osei, when there was talk of
marriage, would make a pretext of joking while really searching for Bunzō’s
feelings. Moreover, there would be no reason for her, when he had trouble withhis aunt, to protect Bunzō, who was the same as a stranger, and confront her own
mother.
“No, it is not a mistake. Without a doubt she cares for me… But…”
Osei, the girl for whom he cared; his shadow with whom he had sincerely
vowed to be buried in the same grave upon death; the part of his body that was tofeel, think and breathe together with him—she was his cousin and his future…
She had inattentively seen that Bunzō, who would be her husband, was gloomily
not at ease. Even though she asked if he would go, she did not encourage it. Did
she unconcernedly end with things and seem indifferent? She was accompanied
by someone like Noboru whom she had always said she, too, hated because hecouldn’t get along with Bunzō. She went out to go sightseeing…
“I don’t get it. I simply don’t get it.”
お勢母子の者の出向いた後、文三は漸く少し落ち着いて、徒然と机の辺に蹲踞っ
た儘、腕を組み頤を襟に埋めて懊悩たる物思ひに沈んだ。
どうも気に懸かる、お勢の事が気に懸かる。こんな区々たる事は苦の病むだけが損だヽと思ひながら、ツイどうも気に懸かってならぬ。
凡そ相愛する二つの心は、一体分身で孤立する者でもなく、又仕ようとて出きるものでもない故に、一方の心が歓ぶ時には他方の心も共に歓び、一方の心が悲しむ時には他方の心も共に悲しみ、一方の心が楽しむ時には他方の心も共に楽し
み、一方の心が苦しむ時には他方の心も共に苦しみ、喜笑にも相感じ怒罵にも相Michael J. Scanlon

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感じ、愉快敵悦、不平煩悶にも相感じ、気が気に通じ心が心に呼起こし決して齟齬し感覚する者では無いと今日が日まで文三は思っていたに、今文三の痛痒をお勢の感ぜぬはどうしたものだらう。
どうも気が知らぬお勢ぬ、文三には平気に澄ましているお勢の心意気が呑込めぬ。
若し相愛していなければ、文三に親しんでから、お勢が言葉遣ひを改め立居振舞を変へ、蓮葉をやめて優に艶しく女性らしく成る筈もなし、又今年の夏一夕の情話に、我から隔ての関を取り除け、乙は眼遣をし麁匇な言葉を遣って、折節に物思ひをする理由もない。
若し相愛していなければ、婚姻の相談が有った時、お勢が冗談に託辞けてそれとなく文三の腹を探る筈もなし、また叔母と悶着をした時、他人同前の文三を庇護って真実の母親と抗論する理由もない。
「イヤ盲想ぢゃ無い、おれを思っているいるに違ひない…が…」
そのまた思っているお勢が、そのまた死なば同じ穴と心に誓った形の影が、そのまた共に感じ共に思慮し共に呼吸生息する身の片割が、従兄弟なり親友なり未来の…夫ともなる文三の鬱々として楽しまぬのを余所に見て、行かぬと云っても進めもせず、平気で澄まして不知顔でいる而己か、文三と意気が合はねばこそ自家も常居から嫌ひだと云っている昇如き者に伴はれて、物観遊山に出掛けていく…
「解らないナ。どうしても解らん。
」 27

The logic of the text would seem to indicate that, even if the two were to end up together,
Osei would always remain her own person, opaque to Bunzō, and life with her would not
result in psychological plenitude. Ukigumo is not concerned with an extraordinary
problem subject to a final resolution.

It is about the endemic complications of everyday

life, and this—said by critics and scholars to be one of the distinguishing features of thenovel—is something that is not typical of any genre of early modern long-form fiction.
Though psychologically complex compromised and compromising characters infiction and everyday life as subject fit for literary narrative are not phenomena unique tobourgeois culture, their emergence in the long-form fiction written in Japan towards theend of the nineteenth century was most certainly conditioned by the rise of the27

Op. cit., pp.116-118.

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individuality-socialization problematic in the modern ideology. 28
civilizations are, of course, a myth.

Integrated

There has never been a time of perfect ideology

providing “ready-made, ever-present meaning.” 29

In every age, there are points ofincongruence among ideological structures as well as between ideology and experience,
and alienation—the result of this lack of perfect meaningfulness—has been experienced
by all members of all societies.

However, the ideological fault lines of some ages are far

deeper than others. As has been noted earlier, in early modern long-form narrative, theconflict between correct principles and human feelings was a circumstantial one causedby discrete problems that were subject to a final resolution. This was as true forsewamono domestic texts—such as those of the ninjō-bon or three-act jōruri genres—as
it was for jidaimono historical pieces—such as Edo hanshi yomihon or five-act jōruri
plays.

Everyday life was not the subject of long-form fiction written during Japan’s

early modern period because it was not itself seen as being intrinsically problematic.
The individuality-socialization conundrum that formed during the opening decades of the
Meiji period was far more intractable. There are privileged moments—weddings,
funerals, graduations, battles, games—wherein individual and social values can be
unified, and these events even seem to offer the hope of closure.

But these are, at best,

short-term solutions. Life goes on, and the antimony returns as strong as ever. The
28

An obvious example of a long-form text with the formal feature of compromise and aconcern with the everyday in the pre-novel Japanese narrative tradition is the Genjimonogatari. Likewise, it is hardly the case that the rise of bourgeois modernity drove
narratives concerned with extraordinary times and events and populated by
non-compromising, stereotypical characters to extinction.

29

Georg Lukacs, The Theory of the Novel (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1971), p.32.

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conflict between individuality and socialization is a categorical one that can never beultimately resolved, and this supports a disquieting sense that modern life is—to borrow aphrase from Elbert Hubbard—just one damned thing after another. 30

Thus, this was anenvironment fit for both the rise of open-ended narratives as well as the emergence ofcompromise as a valorized trait within long-form fiction.

Plots without closure seemless fantastic and naive, and compromise allows for survival in an otherwise
extraordinarily hostile ideological environment.

Nevertheless, Ukigumo develops

within the epistemological limits of the modern ideology that can be mapped out by theindividuality-socialization selectionist rectangle, and plot and plotting continue to playvital roles in the text.
Characters may sense that the world is unknowable and maybe even not fully
meaningful, but they do not revel in the play of chronicity. To the contrary, they all
rebel strongly against the potential insignificance of time’s passage and desperately try tointegrate past, present and future into a meaningful whole in order to give purpose to
everyday life. The means employed, as Georg Lukács noted was true of the European
novel in his The Theory of the Novel, are hope—the creation of a future ending that will
bestow meaning on the experience of the present—and memory—the invention of a
retrospective immanence of significance to past experience. Though Bunzō’s attempts
30

It should also be kept in mind that Futabatei Shimei was writing Ukigumo at the exact
time Darwinian thought was beginning to thrive in Japan. As many historians of scienceand intellectual history have pointed out, Darwin’s work in many ways grew out of Adam
Smith’s writings, with the main innovation of The Origin of Species being the severing ofSmith’s invisible hand. In evolution, change wrought over the passage of time isthoroughly amoral, and progress of a Hegelian or Marxian variety becomes much less thegiven.

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Epilogue375

to create a logic and necessity to events and actions come to naught again and again, he
continues to try, and the overarching plot of the novel breaks off with him waiting at his
uncle’s home, unemployed, for his erstwhile sweetheart to return home from what very
well may be a date hoping to ask her to marry him.

The precise circumstances of thenovel’s end are vital to the role it could play in the larger ideological environment.
Nearly all elite critics and scholars see Bunzō’s attempt at decisive action as being
doomed to failure.

Using notes written by Futabatei in his diary as evidence, thesehighly educated readers create a far bleaker ending—Osei turns Bunzō down: he iscrushed, she goes mad—than the one in the actual text.
important.

This imaginable ending is

By the final decades of the nineteenth century, the majority of newly

produced highbrow bildungsroman in the wider bourgeois world ended in “failure.”
Idealistic young men (or, occasionally, women) either could not integrate with society or
lost their soul in the process. Thus, Ukigumo remains a highly viable text in the domainof artistic literature.

At the same time, however, a happy ending that would bestow

significance and pattern to (at least some) of the events narrated previously remains
imaginable, and this optimistic reading should not be simply dismissed because it—in therealm of scholarly writing—is noticeably “weaker” than the pessimistic one.

As Frank

Kermode noted, the fundamental function of plots and plotting is to assure themeaningfulness of experience and existence, even though—(academically) “objectively”
speaking—there may be none.
Highbrow literature is of vital importance to literary evolution.

Most often,

formal innovations begin in its more restricted domain before later spreading to popular

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genres, and it is quite understandable that scholars of literature focus on what is new anddifferent.

The problem lies in the conclusions sometimes reached when the scope ofanalysis becomes too constricted. D.A. Miller, for example, theorizes:[The] narratable inherently lacks finality. It may be suspended by a moral orideological expediency, but it can never be brought to term. The tendency of anarrative would therefore be to keep going, and a narrative closure would, in
Mallarmé’s phrase, be a ‘faire semblant.’ 31
This is undoubtedly correct logically. The final irresolvability of theindividuality-socialization problematic—the sense of “disequilibrium, suspense, andgeneral insufficiency from which a given narrative appears to arise” 32 —would make itseem that narratibility and closure are fundamentally different and incompatible forces,
so texts coming to strong conclusions probably should be seen as fantastic and naïve,weaker and less fit to modernity than those which do not suppress or betray instability
and indeterminacy at their termini.

Yet this is not necessarily the case. The vast

majority of literary bildungsroman and their cinematic offshoots produced and enacted
into the twenty-first century would have to be categorized as traditional examples of thegenre, something Franco Moretti describes as follows:
Self-development and integration are complementary and convergent trajectories,
and at their point of encounter and equilibrium lies that full and double epiphanyof meaning that is ‘maturity’. When this has been reached, the narration has
fulfilled its aim and can peacefully end. 33
The classical form of this narrative type continues to dominate long after a moreadvanced and highly adapted version evolves, and a properly Darwinian study must31

Miller, Narrative and Its Discontents, p.xi.

32

Op. cit., p.ix.

33

Moretti, The Way of the World, pp.18-19.

Michael J. Scanlon

Epilogue

account for this.

377

The best way to do this is to relativize some of the fundamental

assumptions about the novel as a literary form.

The attenuation of closural force insome texts is simply a sign that the modern ideological environment is more hospitable tosuch formal developments than had been the case in Edo Japan.

In no way does it meanthat these newer forms are necessarily stronger or better than those evolved before them.
The same could be said for the quality of compromise that Lukács is said to put forward
as the distinguishing feature of the novel as well as the supposed disjuncture between
narrative middles and ends to which Miller refers.

Melodramatic and sentimental piecesof fiction—narratives in which protagonists become heroic due to their refusal to find the
middle ground—continue to appear in great numbers in the modern world, and there iseven the occasional tragedy which has a protagonist who is unable to compromise.

Itshould also be noted that an extremely large number of modern long-form narratives dohave strong drives towards their conclusions, and the discursive middles of these mightseem a betrayal or frustration of a teleological impulse.

These are texts which feature

wholly evil villains (or “Others”) that lack both positive bourgeois values—characterswhich tend to be of inhuman origins (aliens, viruses, robots, “lesser races,” and so on) or
people who have lost their humanity (the insane, the drug-addled, religious zealots, oradherents to “illegitimate” non-bourgeois worldviews such as communism or
fascism)—at their center and end soon after a final confrontation. 34

Just as in the caseof early modern jidaimono historical fiction, long-form narratives with plots pitting
34

This is not to say that characters of these types are always or necessarily represented insuch a way that they would be included within the neutral section of the selectionist
rectangle.

Michael J. Scanlon

Epilogue378

characters that can be placed along the vertical axis of a selectionist rectangle end when
extraordinary time yields to a restoration of normalcy.
It could be argued that narratives which either lack compromise or possess astrong drive to a conclusion are examples of what is sometimes referred to within
academic circles as “the simultaneity of the non-contemporaneous.”

In other words,

these pieces of fiction could be seen as survivors from pre-modern times unworthy of theappellation novel.

Yet such a conclusion could seem arbitrary. Perhaps it might bebetter to simply adjust the category of the novel itself.

For most of the world, novels are

pieces of extended fiction written in times and places where an individuality-socialization
problematic prevails, and the overwhelming majority of texts possessing long-form plot
structures will seem to engage this most central of bourgeois ideological aporia.35
Therefore, the prose literary output of twenty-first-century Japan and the rest of thebourgeois world can still be termed novelistic. The so-called postmodern novel is bothrare and, tending either to possess a thread-narrative structure or to have a discourse
35This theoretical assertion might not hold true for the case of the European novel
because it seems likely that the individuality-socialization problematic might have long
predated those texts now thought of as being the first novels of the Western tradition.
However, it needs to be recognized that most of the world is not Western Europe, and it
might even be time for Europeanists to treat the objects of their studies as an exception
rather than the rule.
At the same time, it might also be argued that the concept of the novel should be
expanded to include all those extended prose fiction texts read in modern times. Thus,
talk of the “early modern Japanese novel” is perfectly acceptable so long as the analyst
makes it clear that this is a matter of modern reception, not pre-modern production.
Similarly, early modern texts such as the Sonezaki shinjū or the Shinjū ten no Amijima are,when read in a time and place wherein the individuality-socialization paradigm isdominant, eminently classifiable as tragedies. It must, however, be kept in mind that thisshould be seen as an example of the refunctionalization of a given structure in a changed
environment that has nothing to do with a tragic quality that is somehow intrinsic to thestructure itself.
Michael J. Scanlon

Epilogue379

dominated by digression, is simply written and read outside the ideological conflict
between individuality and socialization that can be diagrammed on a selectionist
rectangle as opposed to being formed within a competing problematic.

This type ofliterature, in other words, fulfills the same function in the modern world as the
non-long-form genres of literature belonging to the culture of play did in the earlymodern Japanese one. The lack of postmodern long-form plots is hardly surprising.
There may very well exist an economic postmodernity in some twenty-first-century
nations as the service sector displaces manufacturing at the center of capitalist
profitability.

On an ideological level, however, announcements of a new postmodern

age seem premature, for the supposed starting dates of the new epoch—1945, 1968,
1989—are linked with occasions on which bourgeois capitalism emerged triumphantfrom a challenge.
too, will fall.

Bourgeois capitalism is not a final stage of evolution. Someday it,

However, when, where, how and why this will happen are questions thatare simply unanswerable by those in the middest, and we moderns have little choice but
to live our lives within its limits, either creating narratives that link beginnings, middles
and ends into meaningful wholes as a way of giving significance and direction to ourexistences or attacking the given-ness of these narratives through pure negation in an
attempt to bring about a radically different (and unforeseeable) future by sundering thepresent from the past.

Michael J. Scanlon

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