Paper short abstract:

Appropriation of cultural heritage through re-thinking and giving new meanings to cultural codes of previous epochs was one of the ways of self-identification in Edo Japan. The assimilation of aristocratic literature resulted in burlesque and led to canonization of parodied works, genres and styles.

Paper long abstract:

The dynamic formation of the ukiyo culture was supplemented by a reassessment of the ideals and values of Japanese aristocratic culture, including the concept ukiyo itself. In literature, starting the mid-17th century, this phenomenon took the form of literary parodies on both poetry waka ("Inu Hyakunin Isshū") and prose zuihitsu and monogatari ("Inu makura" and "Inu Tsurezuregusa", "Nise Monogatari" and "Nise Murasaki Inaka Genji"). In a short time, all diversity of parodies forms appeared in Japanese literature. Thus, travesty texts – with markers inu or nise in their title – depict “high” things, heroes and/or stories in a prosaic and vulgarized manner, and mutate ideas of original works. Paraphrases "Jūjō Genji", "Osana Genji", "Ise monogatari hirakotoba" and others were modern renditions (Shirane Haruo) of two the most famous Heian novels.

Along with, Edo narrative fiction is replete with numerous quotations and allusions, in other words, all easily recognizable textual borrowings and stylizations of artistic images, plot lines and heroes from the works, which nowadays constitute the literary canon of the classical period. Nevertheless, if we look closely, we will see that the authors of comic kana- and otogi-zōshi are ironic or ridiculed not of the characters themselves, but rather of their ideals, values, and patterns of behaviour. It reveals the essence of literary parody, namely “not joke or imitation, but contiguity with the sublime” (O. Freidenberg), and at the same time points the effort to adopt by this means the object of imitation. The imitations of styles and citations (like haru-ha-akebono in Shikitei Samba’s "Ukiyoburo"), as well as the usage of typical artistic devices of Heian literature in otogi-zōshi, demonstrate how burlesque authors “isolate a separate device from its functional system and transfer it to another one” (M. Gasparov) and easily deal with “low” subjects, described in a “high” style.

Thus, in my paper, I argue that attempts to digest national literary tradition in the Edo period led, in the nature of things, to canonization of parodied texts by their constant and various reproduction.

Paper short abstract:

This presentation examines the counterpoint between the spiritual and the physical in Ihara Saikaku's portrayals of sex and love in heterosexual and shudō contexts, focusing on the redeployment in heterosexual, chōnin contexts of elements rooted in a samurai ethos of devotion and self-sacrifice.

Paper long abstract:

Despite their reputation for bawdiness, various eros-focused fictional works by Ihara Saikaku (1642-1693) only intermittently bring up the messy corporeality of sex, with such references mostly limited to the context of heterosexual intercourse in general and sexual encounters between males involving some degree of coercion. Depictions of consensual sexual relationships between males typically eschew references to coarse physicality and present these relationships as occasioning lofty sentiment, self-sacrifice and lasting spiritual bonds. This elevated tone reflects the association of shudō (age-structured male homosexuality) with the samurai in Saikaku's day, when erotic relationships between males were seen as partaking of the prestige of the samurai as well as their ethic of honor and loyalty at all costs. A transfer of samurai shudō prestige to heterosexual love involving commoner women occurs in the final two novellas of Five Women Who Loved Love when their chōnin (urban commoner) heroines arrogate to themselves the male prerogative of erotic pursuit, wooing and winning, respectively, a samurai youth and a samurai-mimicking chōnin man, both of whom are linked, in turn, to samurai males through shudō. This is accompanied by a shift from coarse physicality in a heterosexual context to a heterosexual love that partakes of shudō's lofty sentiments. Thus, in fiction consumed by a largely chōnin readership one sees a samurai erotic mode and the prestige it carries cross the lines of both status-group and gender.

Paper short abstract:

In this paper, I challenge the later-invented image of Tsubouchi Shōyō as one of the founders of Japanese modern literature and his position as a modernizer who rejected the Japanese literary tradition through close-reading of his first novel Tōsei shosei katagi.

Paper long abstract:

In this paper, I challenge the later-invented image of Tsubouchi Shōyō (1859-1935) as one of the founders of Japanese modern literature and his position as a modernizer who rejected the Japanese literary tradition through close-reading of his first novel Tōsei shosei katagi (Characters of Present-day Students, 1885-86). Nowadays, Tsubouchi Shōyō (1859-1935) is famous for his literary theory Shōsetsu shinzui (The Essence of the Novel, 1885-86), in which he calls for literary reform according to Western realism and naturalism. He is also known as a novelist, translator, and a play reformer. Tōsei shosei katagi is Shōyō's first novel, and it was composed around the same time as his literary theory Shōsetsu shinzui and is often considered as Shōyō's experiment of his theory. In this paper, I argue that the long-neglected Shosei katagi is neither a book full of evil according to Shōyō's self-mockery nor a failed experiment of modern literature as some scholars suggest. Rather, this work should be considered as a carefully structured hybrid of the old and new, and an attempt to reform the old gesaku genre by embracing the new Western novel theory while preserving gesaku's advantages.

I begin by locating my position in the academic discussion and examining the significance of studying Shosei katagi through a review/summary of the previous scholarship on Shōyō and the canonization and de-canonization of Shōsetsu shinzui. Next, I compare the depiction of shosei in Shosei katagi and shosei under Kanagaki Robun's pen to see how Shōyō shifted his focus from a traditional gesaku writer's general interest in the new phenomenon to a more careful exploration of shosei's behaviors, motivations, and their function as an embodiment of the problematic civilization process. However, this does not mean he wanted to discard the gesaku tradition. The next section will explore how Shōyō constructed the modern interiority through pre-existing literary forms and concepts by closely reading some visual and verbal texts. I conclude that that the interiority constructed in Shosei katagi is more closely related to the rich premodern Japanese literary heritage than modern Western literary theory.