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In this paper, I present a case study that uses quantitative measurements of orthographic similarity to investigate the history of an important group of Genji manuscripts associated with the literatus Sanjōnishi Sanetaka, shedding new light on their provenance and circulation.

Paper long abstract

Despite advances in bibliographic studies, for any given full 54-volume manuscript of the Tale of Genji, we remain as yet unable to reliably answer the crucial question of textual filiation: “Who used what source text to produce this copy?” Especially considering the numbers of surviving Genji manuscripts, the rarity of clearly determined filiations is striking. One possible amelioration lies in a broadened scope for textual studies to include elements previously overlooked, above all the signature features of a text’s orthography. The grouping of manuscripts together by orthographic profile, by similarities in kanji/kana usage and kana jibo preferences, by trends in okurigana, by patterns in indicated phonetic assimilations, etc., has the potential to disclose textual filiations and shared provenances that have, to date, proven otherwise stubbornly undiscoverable. Because, however, such dimensions of the writing have little obvious bearing on interpretation of the text, and because the volume of manuscripts available for consultation remained until recently quite limited, studies centering such orthographic differences have been decidedly rare. It seems nonetheless clear that should the survey and comparison of characteristic manuscript orthographies become widely practicable, for clarifying questions of contemporary provenance and circulation, such analyses offer a promising new tool.

Precisely such an environmental change has occurred in recent years. With the publication en masse of facsimile editions, followed by an even more extensive release of images online to the general public, comparative orthographic studies of manuscript groups have at last become feasible at scale. In this paper, I present a case study that takes advantage of this new infrastructure to investigate, using quantitative measurements of orthographic similarity, the history of an important group of Genji texts. These are the multiple sets of Genji manuscripts associated with the literatus Sanjōnishi Sanetaka, a towering figure in the work’s reception. Despite the significance of these manuscript sets, much remains uncertain about the nature of the (slightly different) texts they transmit. I demonstrate that techniques of orthographic comparison reveal among this corpus a group of manuscripts of shared copyist provenance, and discuss the possibility this same methodology offers of determining even their common source text.

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Paper short abstract

The current study aims to identify gender differences in the short poems in The Kokin Wakashu by using a quantitative analysis method known as the collocational network. This allows visualization of collocational relationships between words in the text, which otherwise would have gone unidentified.

Paper long abstract

The current study investigates the short poems in The Kokin Wakashu, the first imperial anthology of Japanese short poems, by utilizing a quantitative method with the aim of identifying gender differences in the poems. Traditionally, it was considered that there was no gender distinction in grammar or diction. However, conducting a quantitative analysis, Kondo (2005) finds gender differences in the diction of the short poems. She claims that these differences represent gender norms of the “ideal” man and woman in the Heian period, which is the man being active and the woman being passive. Kondo’s research provides a new perspective on text analysis as well as gender analysis on Japanese short poems. However, not only has most previous research been limited to qualitative analysis, but the diction of the short poems has not yet been fully examined from a gender perspective.

This study conducts a quantitative analysis by utilizing data for The Kokin Wakashu extracted from a diachronic corpus, the Corpus of Historical Japanese, the Heian Period Series established by the National Institute for Japanese Language and Linguistics. The corpus consists of 16 classical Japanese literary works from the Heian period (794-1185). The current research aims to identify gender differences in collocational patterns in the short poems of The Kokin Wakashu. Investigating gender differences in the diction of the short poems, I especially focus on the word omou (to think). The verb was traditionally considered to be a non-gendered word. However, based on her quantitative analysis, Kondo (2005) claims that this verb is indeed a gendered word despite not expanding on this notion. In an attempt to develop this idea, I employ the collocation network, which is a quantitative method used in corpus linguistics. The collocation network is an analytical technique and allows visualization of collocational relationships between words in the text, which otherwise would have gone unidentified. As this imperial anthology is considered to represent the norm of the Heian Period, identifying gender ideologies of this period will contribute to examining how lexical items are skillfully used not only in short poems but also in prose of this period.

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Paper short abstract

Inspired by considerations of gender in Zeami's writings, I analyze a database of 305 noh plays to consider the reach of his thought and to complicate the gender binary in the noh tradition. In doing so, I consider the value of a back and forth between close and distant reading in big data research.

Paper long abstract

Long before Judith Butler wrote about “gender performativity,” noh performer-playwrights and theorists also considered gender performance. In one of his earliest secret critical writings, one such performer-playwright and thinker Zeami (1363?-1443?) made a distinction between gentle and strong words. According to him, words such as “sway” (nabiki), “lie down” (fusu), “return home” (kaeru), and “approach” (yoru) should produce “gestural echoes,” while words such as “fall” (otsuru), “crumble/collapse” (kuzururu), “be broken/defeated” (yabururu), and “topple/fall down” (marobu) should accompany strong movements (Omote 1974, 51; Hare 2008, 61). While gentleness aligns with Zeami’s understanding of that mysterious, aristocratic, and feminine aesthetic called yūgen, strength aligns with martial prowess and hypermasculinity. In this reconsideration of Zeami’s critical thought as a premodern theory of gender performativity, I am analyzing the UTAHI corpus of noh plays to consider the applicability of Zeami’s thought on gender performance to the standard noh canon. The UTAHI corpus is a digital collection of 305 noh plays by various playwrights, including 51 no longer in the active repertoire, that was input and corrected manually by Japanese scholars (Takahashi 2010). Results of an initial tally of -ru/-raru verb endings that often—but not exclusively—mark passivity suggest that although Zeami considered passivity a feminine trait, it might have been more often verbally expressed in warrior plays. To refine and understand this result requires a reinvestigation of the data, including determining the frequency of passive meanings in -ru/-raru usage and close reading. One explanation might be that these plays by and large promulgated a Buddhist belief system that condemned warriors’ duty to kill by revealing their weaknesses. This might also explain why Zeami’s “strong” words all describe moments of defeat rather than success in battle. Further data about linguistic indicators of gender in the play corpus using Zeami’s word lists will bring increased specificity to this investigation. Although quantitative, this paper is posed to reveal that gender in noh is not as easily differentiated using binary categories as the two lists above might suggest, advancing the necessity of reconsidering and reevaluating the nuances of gender performance in Zeami’s thought and in noh generally.