Paper short abstract:

The collection "Tang and Song Eight Prose Masters" was a model for elegant prose writing throughout the 19th century. Its popularity, the paper argues, was rooted in the political outlook of the Masters that tied style to government, a point resonating strongly with the Japanese political agenda.

Paper long abstract:

Starting with a government edition in 1814, the prose collection "Tang and Song Eight Prose Masters" (Tōsō hakka bun) began an impressive career in Japan that would last up to the Taishō period. Dozens of editions and commentaries were printed and used for language training throughout the country. Despite its immense significance as a model of Sinitic prose writing, however, the history of the reception and use of the collection in Japan has so far not been studied systematically. This paper aims to remedy this lack of attention.

On the bibliographical level, it does so by giving an overview of some of the more important editions of the Prose Masters from its original compilation by the early Qing scholar Shen Deqian (1673-1769) and the first official printing by the Shōheikō academy in Edo via the highly popular annotated version of the eminent mid-century historian Rai San'yō to Ishikawa Kōsai's lecture notes in the 1880s.

Just as importantly, the paper then proceeds to inquire into the reasons behind the popularity of the Prose Masters in Japan. To do so, it briefly turns to the background of the most influential writers of the group, Han Yu (768-824). In rejecting the ornamented and rhythmically stylized pianwen and embracing instead a clearer, simpler prose style, he also intended to reinvigorate a waning Confucian tradition and its relevance to governance.

It is precisely this claim to an organic bond between good writing and good governance, the paper argues, that attracted Japanese intellectuals to the Prose Masters. It shows how the reception of the collection was closely tied up with one of the key issues of Japanese political thought in the nineteenth century: how to make scholarship and writing respond to the needs of governance. Far from being sidelined by Western science and technology, the paper shows how throughout the nineteenth century the right kind of Sinitic writing was understood as part of the solution to Japan's political woes.