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- Convenors:
-
Alessandro Bianchi
(Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford)
Doreen Mueller (Leiden University)
Angelika Koch (Leiden University)
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- Section:
- Pre-modern Literature
- Sessions:
- Thursday 26 August, -
Time zone: Europe/Brussels
Short Abstract:
This panel brings together perspectives from literary studies, cultural and art history to examine the link between satire and knowledge production in Tokugawa Japan, arguing that writers and artists resorted to satirical expression to convey new ideas and insights.
Long Abstract:
Received wisdom has it that the Tokugawa State aimed to exert omnipresent control over its population. This included censorship of popular printed media such as kibyōshi, which became more rigorous particularly following the Tenmei and Tenpō Crises in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Bringing together perspectives from literary studies, cultural and art history, this panel aims to revise the view that tightened censorship necessarily stifled satirical expression. Panel presenters will demonstrate how visual and textual media in Tokugawa Japan functioned as spaces for voicing heterodox views and creating new knowledge on the back of satirical expression.
The link between satire and the production of knowledge has so far been largely overlooked, partly due to an overemphasis on interpreting satire merely as criticism of the Tokugawa Shogunate. Instead, the papers in this panel argue that satirical expression represented a vehicle for conveying new insights by manipulating well-known texts and images. The first paper will take a broader look at the practice of satire in early modern Japan, exploring how writers drew on different established literary forms to create new satirical meanings and disseminate information about current events. The second talk will explore how medical classics were subverted in kibyōshi to produce a fresh look into the inner workings of both the human body and late eighteenth-century society. The last presentation will show how fire broadsheets in Edo satirised court poetry and images in order to turn a self-reflexive gaze onto Edoites as they grappled with the threat of fires in Edo.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Thursday 26 August, 2021, -Alessandro Bianchi (Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford)
Paper short abstract:
In this paper I take broader look at the practice of satire in early modern Japan, exploring how writers drew on different literary forms to create new satirical meanings and disseminate information about current events.
Paper long abstract:
Satire can be seen across many genres of Tokugawa-period popular literature—e.g. rakusho 落書, dangibon 談義本, sharebon 洒落本, kibyōshi 黄表紙—as well as specific forms of vocal and theatrical performances. But while social satire was widely accepted and openly available on the market, political satire was often circulating underground and cleverly camouflaged to escape the gaze of censors. Yet, political satire was abundantly produced in Tokugawa Japan, especially during the 18th century, and such texts often contributed to the circulation of knowledge and information that would have not normally been available to the general public.
Wordplays, irony, ridicule, burlesque, and the like were among some of the most commonly used tools to create compelling satire, which disguised mentions to forbidden topics and harsh criticism towards well-known political figures. Parody also played a crucial role in the production of satirical writings, and accomplished satirists resorted to this form of intertextuality by borrowing from well-known stories or publishing genres to dissemintate political commentaries, mentions to current events, or other sensational news.
In this paper, I explore the practice of satire in early-modern Japan vis-à-vis the circulation of information about Tokugawa-period politics and current events. Through a close reading of selected case studies, my analysis will explore the production of political satire from two different perspective. First, I shall look at satire as a cultural phenomenon, contextualizing each case study within the wider literary and artistic milieu of early-modern Japan. Looking at stylistic and thematic elements, I will take into account the forms and styles of different writings, as well as at the relationship between text and image. Secondly, I will consider the materiality of such texts, analysing the different vehicles (printed, manuscript, and vocal) through which satirical works circulated among the public. In particular, I shall investigate whether materiality influenced format and content of satirical writings, and how various media were used to convey different information.
Angelika Koch (Leiden University)
Paper short abstract:
This paper explores the satirical potential of the medical body in 1790s kibyōshi, with a focus on Jippensha Ikku's Hara no uchi yōjō shuron 腹内養生主論 (1799). In it, I show how such works engaged with medical knowledge, as well as moral and educational discourses on the body in 18th-century Japan.
Paper long abstract:
In this paper, I explore the satirical potential of the medical body in 1790s kibyōshi, with a focus on Jippensha Ikku's Hara no uchi yōjō shuron 腹内養生主論 (1799). Unique in drawing on the most famous health manual at the time, Kaibara Ekiken's Yōjōkun, this work is at the same time representative of a whole series of fictional narratives and prints in the late-Edo period that were set inside the medical body. This late eighteenth-century fad for the body's inner workings in popular culture has previously been primarily attributed to the ascendancy of the Western-style scientific gaze and anatomy in Japan. Yet while the increased interest in anatomy may well have provided an impetus for engaging with the inner workings of the body, my contention in this paper is that such kibyōshi represented a response to indigenous medical, moral and educational discourses in which the body had risen to the forefront of attention during the eighteenth century - from health cultivation to Shingaku teachings.
In this context, such works made use of a cloak of medical authority to make satirical statements about the tumultuous body social and traditional learning. Kibyōshi have traditionally been judged to have entered their period of 'decline' in Edo at the time of the work's genesis in the 1790s, devoid of the irreverent spark that characterized earlier exponents of the genre. Space for satire could, however, still be opened up within certain parameters, and I argue that medical themes provided one such avenue for fiction writers in the 1790s. Referring back to centuries-old metaphors of the body-state, these fictional works transformed the medical body into a thoroughly up-to-date social microcosm of the late Tokugawa state, plagued by financial, political and natural disasters.
Doreen Mueller (Leiden University)
Paper short abstract:
This paper explores how printed broadsheets that satirised poems and pictures from the Hyakunin Isshū pointed a self-reflexive gaze onto the inner nature of the Edoite, providing an alternative view to the often-celebrated disaster resilience of Edo's residents.
Paper long abstract:
"Fires and Quarrels are the Flowers of Edo" is a saying that is often quoted to describe the boisterous attitude of Edoites in the face of adversity. Edo's residents were proud of their ability to mitigate disaster. In the nineteenth century, printed images and illustrated scrolls celebrated the brave struggles of daimyo and commoner fire brigades in putting out the fires that frequently spread through the city. At the same time, the apparent clash between people's desire for self-preservation and the need for cooperation in the aftermath of fires created ample opportunities for satirically exploring the pettier side of human nature. Individual idiosyncrasies emerged as people tried to save their possessions, and as curious people eyed up the residents emerging from daimyo residences that were being evacuated during fires.
Satire works by contrasting opposites, and this paper will demonstrate how a combination of satirical text and images in printed media shed light onto the inner nature of the Edoite. By exploring a range of printed broadsheets that satirised poems and pictures from the Hyakunin Isshū, this presentation will demonstrate how satire functioned to point a self-reflexive gaze onto the inner nature of the Edoite, providing an alternative view to the often-celebrated disaster resilience of Edo's residents. In so doing, it will show that satirical expression was not merely a tool to criticise the the Shogunate, but it was also useful in revealing the shortcomings of the celebrated boisterous nature of the Edoite.