Early Modern Japanese Literature

An Anthology, 1600-1900

Haruo Shirane

• Publisher: Columbia University Press
• Year: 2002
• Print ISBN: 9780231516143
• eBook ISBN: 9780231507431
• Topic: Letteratura
• Subtopic: Storia dell'Asia centrale

This is the first anthology ever devoted to early modern Japanese literature, spanning the period from 1600 to 1900, known variously as the Edo or the Tokugawa, one of the most creative epochs of Japanese culture. This anthology, which will be of vital interest to anyone involved in this era, includes not only fiction, poetry, and drama, but also essays, treatises, literary criticism, comic poetry, adaptations from Chinese, folk stories and other non-canonical works. Many of these texts have never been translated into English before, and several classics have been newly translated for this collection.

Early Modern Japanese Literature introduces English readers to an unprecedented range of prose fiction genres, including dangibon (satiric sermons), kibyôshi (satiric and didactic picture books), sharebon (books of wit and fashion), yomihon (reading books), kokkeibon (books of humor), gôkan (bound books), and ninjôbon (books of romance and sentiment). The anthology also offers a rich array of poetry—waka, haiku, senryû, kyôka, kyôshi—and eleven plays, which range from contemporary domestic drama to historical plays and from early puppet theater to nineteenth century kabuki. Since much of early modern Japanese literature is highly allusive and often elliptical, this anthology features introductions and commentary that provide the critical context for appreciating this diverse and fascinating body of texts.

One of the major characteristics of early modern Japanese literature is that almost all of the popular fiction was amply illustrated by wood-block prints, creating an extensive text-image phenomenon. In some genres such as kibyôshi and gôkan the text in fact appeared inside the woodblock image. Woodblock prints of actors were also an important aspect of the culture of kabuki drama. A major feature of this anthology is the inclusion of over 200 woodblock prints that accompanied the original texts and drama.

Chapter 1

EARLY MODERN JAPAN

One of the most dramatic transformations in Japanese history was the transition from the medieval period (thirteenth to sixteenth century) to the early modern era (1600–1867), when literary and cultural paradigms gave birth to a whole new body of vernacular literature. During the seventeenth century, urban commoners (chōnin) emerged as an economically and culturally powerful class; mass education spread, especially through the domain (han) schools for samurai and the private schools (terakoya) for commoners; and printing was introduced—all of which led to the widespread production and consumption of popular literature, which became a commodity for huge markets. As a result, traditional Japanese and Chinese literary texts were widely read for the first time.¹

Until the seventeenth century, literary texts had been shared through limited quantities of handwritten manuscripts, almost all of which belonged to a small group of aristocrats, priests, and high-ranking samurai. In the medieval period, traveling minstrels (biwa hōshi) had recited military epics such as The Tale of the Heike to a populace that could neither read nor write. Even most samurai were illiterate, as were farmers and craftsmen. But in the seventeenth century, with the creation of a new socioeconomic structure, the government promotion of education, and the spread of print capitalism, this situation changed drastically. By midcentury, almost all samurai—now the bureaucratic elite—were able to read, as were the middle to upper levels of the farmer, artisan, and merchant classes.

The seventeenth century brought not only a dramatic rise in the standard of living for almost all levels of society but also a dramatic change in the nature of cultural production and consumption. In the medieval period, although provincial military lords were able to learn about the Heian classics from such traveling renga (classical linked verse) masters as Sōgi (1421–1502), the acquisition of these classical texts was limited to a relatively small circle of poet-priests and aristocrats, who were deeply rooted in the traditional culture of Kyoto. A monopoly—epitomized by the Kokin denju, the secret transmission of the Kokinshū (Anthology of Old and New Japanese Poems, ca. 905)—was established over a significant part of so-called refined culture, which was often passed on through carefully controlled lineages in one-to-one transmissions to the elected few. In the seventeenth century, by contrast, anyone who could afford to pay for lessons could hire a “town teacher” (machi shishō) in any one of the many arts or fields of learning. The transmission of learning was no longer dependent, as it had been in the medieval period, on the authority or patronage of large institutions such as Buddhist temples or powerful military lords. Such cultural activities as writing haikai poetry, singing nō (utai), and performing the tea ceremony (chanoyu) became not only available to commoners but highly commercialized.

THE SHŌGUNATE AND THE DOMAINS

The Tokugawa shōgunate (1603–1867), the third and last of three warrior governments (the first two being the Kamakura and Muromachi shōgunates), was founded by Tokugawa Ieyasu three years after he vanquished his rivals at the battle of Sekigahara in 1600. The first of fifteen successive Tokugawa shōguns, Ieyasu took the title of seii-tai shōgun (barbarian-subduing generalissimo), and his military government was referred to as the bakufu, generally translated as “shōgunate.” To control foreign trade and diplomacy, the shōgunate restricted many of the foreign contacts, under the seclusion (sakoku) edicts of 1633 to 1639, and to preserve social order at home, it attempted to establish a four-class system (shi-nō-kō-shō) in which samurai, farmer, artisan, and merchant were viewed as existing in a strict hierarchy.

By the beginning of the eighteenth century, Japan’s population had reached nearly 30 million. Of this number, roughly 10 percent were samurai, who were organized along feudal hierarchical lines, with ties of vassalage linking every man to his lord and ultimately to the shōgun, who ostensibly stood at the top. Immediately under the shōgun were two groups of vassals: the daimyō, or domain (han) lords, and the shogun’s direct vassals. The total number of daimyō, to whom the shōgun entrusted most of the work of provincial administration, was around 260. At the top were the collateral houses (shinpan), or cadet houses of the Tokugawa, which eventually numbered 23, followed by the “house” (fudai) daimyō, who had been Tokugawa vassals before the battle of Sekigahara and who numbered 145 by the end of the eighteenth century. The remainder were “outside” (tozama) daimyō, who had gained eminence before the rise of the Tokugawa. Many of these daimyōruled their domains like private princes. To help maintain control over them, in the 1630s and 1640s the shōgunate institutionalized the alternate attendance (sankin kōtai) system, which required daimyōto reside in Edo in alternate years in attendance on the shōgun. To perform this obligation, a daimyōhad to maintain in Edo a residential estate (yashiki)—which consumed about 70 to 80 percent of his income—where his wife and children were permanently detained by the shōgunate as political hostages. The typical daimyōtraveled to the capital every other year with a large retinue, using the main highways, which were under shōgunal control, and expending a considerable amount of money. For example, Kaga Domain (now Ishikawa Prefecture), on the Japan Sea side, belonging to the Maeda family, with an income of 1,030,000 koku, required a retinue of 2,500 when the daimyōtraveled to Edo.

The Tokugawa house itself formed the largest power bloc. The direct Tokugawa vassals were the hatamoto, the enfeoffed bannermen and the higher-ranking direct vassals; and the gokenin, the stipended housemen and the lower-ranking direct vassals. The hatamoto, about five thousand in number, occupying a position analogous to an officer corps in a standing army, drew annual stipends of at least one hundred koku and usually were descendants of warriors who had helped the Tokugawa before the battle of Sekigahara. Their civil positions ranged from grand chamberlain (sobayōnin), directly under the senior councillor (rōjū), to financial clerks. The gokenin, who numbered about twenty thousand in 1800, received annual stipends that were usually less than one hundred koku. Under the gokenin and the provincial daimyōcame the bulk of the samurai class.

With a few exceptions, such as Tokugawa Tsunayoshi (r. 1680–1709), Tokugawa Yoshimune (r. 1716–1745), and Tokugawa Ienari (r. 1787–1837), who wielded nearly absolute power, the shōgun was usually overshadowed by others in the shōgunal administrative system, particularly the senior councillors, most often house daimyō who met in formal council and conducted national affairs, foreign relations, and control of the daimyō. From time to time, powerful senior councillors such as Tanuma Okitsugu (1719–1788), Matsudaira Sadanobu (1758–1829), and Mizuno Tadakuni (1794–1851) were able to dominate the council and control shōgunal policy.

Politically and financially, the Tokugawa shōgunate was at its peak in the seventeenth century. Thereafter, many of its daimyō controls lost their efficacy, and its revenues began to decline. Periodic attempts were made to restore both authority and solvency, first with the Kyōhō Reforms (1716–1736), carried out by the eighth shōgun, Tokugawa Yoshimune; then with the Kansei Reforms (1787–1793), executed by the senior councillor Matsudaira Sadanobu; and finally with the Tenpō Reforms (1830–1844), administered by the senior councillor Mizuno Tadakuni. Although the Kyōhō Reforms temporarily restabilized the finances of the Tokugawa shōgunate, none of these measures had lasting success. They generally did, however, have a greater impact, in terms of censorship and other limitations, on cultural and literary production. Accordingly, the high points of early modern literature—the Genroku era (1688–1704), the Hōreki-Tenmei era (1751–1789), and the Bunka-Bunsei era (1804–1829)—tended to come precisely between these major reforms.

THE SOCIAL HIERARCHY

In order to strengthen their power and authority, the bakufu and the provincial domains created a rigid, hierarchical class society made up of samurai, farmers, artisans, and merchants, in descending order. (Nobility were treated separately, and Buddhist and Shinto priests were given a position equal to that of the samurai.) Below the four classes were outcasts called eta and hinin (nonpersons). By the end of the early modern period, about 75 percent of the population were farmers; 10 percent, samurai; about 7 to 8 percent, urban commoners; 2 percent, priests; and 4 percent, a miscellaneous mix. To reinforce this social hierarchy, extremely harsh rules were instituted. Only samurai were given surnames; they also had the right to cut down a farmer or chōnin for an insult. Every aspect of clothing and living was regulated to bring each individual within the class system.

Among the samurai, a strict hierarchy was established as well, beginning at the top with the shōgun, daimyō, hatamoto, and gokenin and working down to the servants of middle-rank samurai families, each pledging absolute fidelity to his immediate superior. Similar hierarchies based on fidelity also existed in commoner society: between the main family (honke) and the branch family (bunke) in regard to kinship structure, between the master and the apprentice in artisan society, and between the employee and the employer in the merchant world. Strict laws governing residence and clothing were applied also to the eta, who were confined to farming and jobs related to dead animals (such as leather making) or criminals, and the hinin, who cleaned up waste and performed other demeaning tasks.

The fundamental social unit in the early modern period was the ie (house), which was centered on the family and governed by the house head (kachō), with preferential treatment given to the eldest son, who usually inherited the property and became the next head of the house. The ie included nonblood relations such as employees and servants, and it was possible, and not uncommon, for an adopted heir with no blood tie to become the kachō. The younger sons, who did not inherit any property, frequently left the house to be adopted by a family that lacked sons. The house was the principal unit within each class category (samurai, farmer, artisan, and merchant), with each house pursuing a hereditary “house occupation” (kagyō). The members of the house considered themselves as both individuals and part of the larger social unit of the house, with a sense of obligation toward other members of the house similar to that between child and parent or retainer and lord.

The income for a samurai house—which came from a stipend—was fixed according to hereditary criteria, leaving rōnin (masterless samurai) and second or third sons in a precarious financial situation. One result was that they often took up scholarship, literature, religion, or the arts, in which they could establish a house of their own. Many of the leading writers and scholars of the early modern period—such as Gion Nankai, Hiraga Gennai, and Koikawa Harumachi—were samurai who had either lost or become disillusioned with their inherited positions or were of extremely low status, with insufficient means for survival, and consequently sought alternative professions in scholarship and the arts.

The social position of women was low. In a samurai family, a woman had no right to inherit the family name, property, or position. In the medieval period, when the samurai lived on the land as property owners and producers, samurai wives had an important position sustaining the household and family. But under the Tokugawa bakufu system, the samurai were no longer tied to the land, and so they gathered in the castle towns and became bureaucrats. The shōgun and the domain lords took over direct control of the farmers, who became the producers. In the seventeenth century, the samurai became similar to aristocrats in that they had male and female servants who took care of them. One consequence was that the role of the wife was reduced to that of a protected lady, with any power she might have had going entirely to her husband, who was master of the house. As the position of women declined and that of men rose, it became normal for the samurai, as head of the house, to have a mistress or to spend considerable time in the pleasure quarters.

The literature of the early modern period is often thought to be the literature of and by urban commoners (chōnin). Although some writers—such as Ihara Saikaku, Santō Kyoden, and Shikitei Sanba—were from artisan or merchant families, an overwhelming number came from samurai families. Asai Ryōi, Chikamatsu Monzaemon, Gion Nankai, Hattori Nankaku, Hiraga Gennai, Koikawa Harumachi, Jippensha Ikku, and Takizawa Bakin—to mention only the most prominent names—were from warrior families, usually ones in severe decline. Even those not normally associated with samurai, such as Matsuo Bashō, were descendants of warriors. The literature of the early modern period is thus as much by the samurai as by the chōnin. A few writers had a peasant background, perhaps the best known being Issa, a haikai poet. Buson was the son of a well-to-do farmer.

THE ECONOMY AND THE THREE CITIES

At the end of the sixteenth century, foundries for minting gold and silver coins were built, leading to a unified gold- and silver-based currency. In 1636, the bakufu opened a foundry for minting zeni, or bronze coins, which provided the basis of a common currency. The bakufu and the daimyō, who were in need of cash, established large warehouses (kurayashiki) in cities such as Osaka, Edo, Tsuruga, and Ōtsu, to which merchants transported and in which they sold the rice and goods stored in the warehouses. The domain lords distributed the rice grown by their farmers to their vassals and sent the...

Table of contents

• Cover 
• Half title
• Editorial Board
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents 
• Preface
• Historical Periods, Measurements, and Other Matters
• Chapter 1. Early Modern Japan
• Chapter 2. Kana Booklets and the Emergence of a Print Culture
• Chapter 3. Ihara Saikaku and the Books of the Floating World
• Chapter 4. Early Haikai Poetry and Poetics
• Chapter 5. The Poetry and Prose of Matsuo Bashō
• Chapter 6. Chikamatsu Monzaemon and the Puppet Theater
• Chapter 7. Confucian Studies and Literary Perspectives
• Chapter 8. Confucianism in Action: An Autobiography of a Bakufu Official
• Chapter 9. Chinese Poetry and the Literatus Ideal
• Chapter 10. The Golden Age of Puppet Theater
• Chapter 11. Dangibon and the Birth of Edo Popular Literature
• Chapter 12. Comic and Satiric Poetry
• Chapter 13. Literati Meditations
• Chapter 14. Early Yomihon: History, Romance, and the Supernatural
• Chapter 15. Eighteenth-Century Waka and Nativist Study
• Chapter 16. Sharebon: Books of Wit and Fashion
• Chapter 17. Kibyōshi: Satiric and Didactic Picture Books
• Chapter 18. Kokkeibon: Comic Fiction for Commoners
• Chapter 19. Ninjōbon: Sentimental Fiction
• Chapter 20. Gōkan: Extended Picture Books
• Chapter 21. Ghosts and Nineteenth-Century Kabuki
• Chapter 22. Late Yomihon: History and the Supernatural Revisited
• Chapter 23. Nativizing Poetry and Prose in Chinese
• Chapter 24. The Miscellany
• Chapter 25. Early-Nineteenth-Century Haiku
• Chapter 26. Waka in the Late Edo Period
• Chapter 27. Rakugo
• English-Language Bibliography
• Index
• Permissions
• Series List