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Paper short abstract:

Focusing on Oyamada Tomokiyo’s personally-annotated copy of the Man’yōshū, I rethink “commentary” as an expansive category of endeavor serving a diversity of aims beyond interpretation alone. I show how in the early modern period it developed into a new system for the weaving of “language networks.”

Paper long abstract:

Oyamada Tomokiyo, a nativist scholar of the Edo period, left behind a personally-annotated copy of the Man’yōshū whose commentary, upon close examination, presents a number of notable characteristics. In particular, it betrays an apparent tendency towards philological irrationality, with Tomokiyo frequently supporting his arguments about the ancient Man’yōshū, not only with citations from much later works, but even with reference to the colloquial language of contemporary Edo. This is all the more surprising in light of exhortations by Tomokiyo himself in other works specifically not to thus rely on later documents, but instead to cite primary texts of relevant age. Such annotations might plausibly be marshaled as evidence for the charge of (at the least) methodological self-contradiction. There are, however, not only grounds for hesitating with the accusation, but reasons even to suspect that the appearance here of error expresses rather a purpose different from “logical commentary” altogether.

This alternative aim, I argue, lies in provision of a new tool, designed not for the exegetical reference of a single work, but rather for the search of a whole corpus. Such a tool would allow its users to trace the appearance of particular words and expressions across a broad range of different works annotated likewise. Fundamentally enabling this functionality were omnibus indexes, which contained information, spanning a library of works, on usage examples for particular items of vocabulary. Over the course of his life, Tomokiyo produced a large number of such indexes. With cases like his in mind, I propose to consider commentary as a phenomenon broader in scope than traditionally recognized, as indicating instead a wide array of activities both distinct yet akin, where exegetical annotations stand along a continuum with dictionaries and lexical indexes.

Focusing on Tomokiyo’s own contributions as illustrative examples of such a framework, I attempt to rethink “commentary” thus as an expansive category of endeavor serving a diversity of aims beyond that of “logical” interpretation alone. I show how in the early modern period it developed into what might be called a new system, one purposed for the weaving together of “language networks” at unprecedented scale.

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Paper short abstract:

Paintings based on narrative texts are created amidst a tension between faithfulness to the original and creativity in its pictorial representation. This paper considers how such paintings should be evaluated, using the case of the Tales of Ise picture scroll by Kanō Einō(1631-1697) as an example.

Paper long abstract:

This paper investigates the Tales of Ise picture scroll created by Kanō Einō(1631-1697), one of many works of pictorial art based on the classical text that were produced in Edo period. Here, making frequent comparison both with various other such visual depictions, as well as with the original text itself and its associated commentary tradition, I seek to explore Einō’s work in its actual diachronic context.

Upon close examination, it is intriguing that, while some representations in Einō’s scroll follow the original Tales of Ise faithfully, others clearly do not. One finds, for example, not only cases of figures present in the original being wholly absent, but conversely also cases of various items newly added lacking mention in the text. One even notes the occasional introduction of depicted scenery without any textual grounding. Yet why did Einō proceed thus, as opposed to simply reproducing accurately the content of the text as encountered?

When considering this problem, it is necessary to recall that he did not meet the original text in isolation. In addition to more direct precedents in the genre of the Tales of Ise paintings, his awareness of the text itself was shaped by various scholarly commentaries he consulted. Moreover, he was influenced by paintings of the Tale of Genji and by genre-paintings of Edo-period customs and culture.

When evaluating his work today, we must thus consider not only Einō’s faithfulness to the source, but also his creativity in bringing it pictorially to new life. These two elements might be oppositionally characterized as “accuracy” and “inaccuracy,” yet it is precisely in this conflict, I argue, that the value of the reception process itself is to be discovered. It is also from exploration of this tension that we must seek to understand the reason for the scroll’s creation, as well as the manner in which it was appreciated. Indeed, it bears ultimately on the question of what significance such works of reception past might continue to hold for us in the present.

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Paper short abstract:

Foreign translations of waka are produced under the strong influence of the recipient language’s own cultural background, and also the range of sources consulted by the translator. This paper reconsiders how translations should be evaluated, using early English translations of the Hyakunin isshu.

Paper long abstract:

This paper investigates two English translations of the Hyakunin isshu, respectively by Frederick Victor Dickins and William N. Porter, that rank among the most prominent Western translations of that work throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. It considers in particular the influence on both translations of illustrations from Edo-period popular editions of the Hyakunin isshu, arguing that these latter were no less important as a factor than annotated editions of the Edo and Meiji periods, or indeed than cultural differences between Japan and the West. An evaluation of the two translations will be attempted from the perspective of influence relationships among various derivative works.

　An examination of Dickins' and Porter's English editions reveals translations that differ from the original in a number of ways. At times this is a simple difference of poetic scene or season. In some cases, however, double-entendres, epithets, and other such devices are fully transformed, with associated place-names being re-conceived as the poetic subject’s physical environment. There are also many cases in which the English version adds descriptions not found in the original poem. Although these phenomena are often due to differences in cultural background, can all discrepancies from the original be explained away thus?

　When considering this issue, it is essential to clarify the recipient cultural background as well as the sources consulted by the translator. In the case of early Western translations, it was common practice to make use of commentaries from the Edo period. Dickins certainly referred to the commentary Hyakunin isshu Mine no kakehashi by Kinugawa Nagaaki, but there are also other sources, such as the women’s educational text Senzai Hyakunin isshu Yamatokotobuki, in particular its illustrations. When attempting to evaluate these translations, it is necessary therefore to consider, not only how faithful they are to their originals, but also the creativity of the various Japanese and foreign sources referenced in the translation process. The influence relationships among such sources raise the possibility of viewing reception as a kind of acceptance. At the same time, while reevaluating their translations, we can also consider their value as derivative works in their own right.

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Paper short abstract:

This paper considers the gap between the "accuracy" of the Kakaishō commentary’s own methodology and more straightforward readings of the Genji text itself. Comparing the KakaishŌ with its predecessor the Shimeishō, I focus on their different uses of historical sources and administrative documents.

Paper long abstract:

This paper takes up the Kakaishō, a major commentary on the Tale of Genji produced during the Muromachi period (1336-1573), and explores the complicated process by which it was composed. In particular, through careful comparison with the earlier Shimeishō commentary by which it was so greatly influenced, I investigate how the Kakaishō received/accepted the interpretive substance and method of its commentary predecessors, and how nevertheless in contradistinction to these it successfully forged a path of its own.

A survey of Genji commentary history reveals that, already in the early Kamakura period (1185-1333), there existed exegetical trends focused on determining the precise sources consulted by Murasaki Shikibu in her writing. Against such a background, this paper examines a number of different works of commentary in interdisciplinary perspective, considering above all the potential gap between the assumed “accuracy” of interpretive results attained by a given commentator's trusted methodology and more straightforward readings of the narrative text itself.

Attempts to clarify the precedents and historical facts upon which the Tale of Genji is based are a chief feature of the Kakaishō. Indeed, with its plentiful citations from historical sources and administrative documents, alongside its balanced integration of earlier commentaries’ research, the Kakaishō’s analysis is characteristically meticulous. The earlier Shimeishō shared such concerns, and together it might be said that these two commentaries promoted a reception of the Tale of Genji as a work based on history, grounded ultimately in phenomena of social fact.

There remain, however, significant differences between the two. Whereas the Shimeishō refrains from citation of sources that would imply a particular date for the Genji’s historical setting, in contrast the Kakaishō cites even sources dating clearly to periods after the Genji’s composition. Moreover, while the Shimeishō ventures no clear opinions on the various ancient documents it cites, in the Kakaishō one finds citation examples that seem indeed to display contemporary legal and political understandings. Parallel, in other words, to its painstaking efforts to grasp the meaning of its distant Heian subject, the Kakaishō was also distinguished by its reflection of the times in which its own author lived.