Paper short abstract:

This presentation focuses on the life of Michijo (1806-1858), daughter-in-law of Kyokutei Bakin (1767-1848), one of the most renowned fiction writers of the late Edo period. This presentation reconstructs Michijo's life through an examination of her ten-volume diary.

Paper long abstract:

This presentation focuses on the life of Michijo (1806-1858), daughter-in-law of Kyokutei Bakin (1767-1848, also known as Takizawa Okikuni)—one of the most renowned fiction writers of the late Edo period. Michijo remained with the Takizawa family after her husband's death, raising her children and managing the household. Existing research—which mostly relies on accounts by Bakin himself—has pointed at Michijo's struggles with her father-in-law and at her role in completing Nansō Satomi Hakkenden (The Eight Dog Chronicles, 1814-1842), the longest pre-modern Japanese novel and one of the great works of late Edo fiction. Michijo has been described as a strong-willed woman who persevered through adversity, upholding her household after her husband's death while dealing with the hard-to-please and unrelenting Bakin.

This presentation reconstructs Michijo's life and personhood by focusing on her later years. It does so from an entirely new angle, giving Michijo her own voice through an examination of her ten-volume diary, which was recently published in a modern edition (2012-2013). This novel approach will provide a different picture of Michijo and of the way in which she ran her daily life interacting with family and neighbors. This close reading will allow us to observe the nature of networks connecting lower-ranking samurai families in the city of Edo in the nineteenth century.