Paper short abstract:

This paper will examine the impact of performing arts such Heike chanting, kōwaka (dance drama), Nō, and kyōgen on the rhetoric and expressions found in sixteenth-century Japanese Christian literature, and accordingly situating these influences within cross-cultural flows.

Paper long abstract:

The arrival of the Jesuit priest St. Francis Xavier in Japan in 1549 marked the beginning of Christian missionary activities in Asia and broad cross-cultural exchanges between Asia and the West. In particular, the moveable-type press brought back to Amakusa by the Tenshō embassy (a Japanese youth delegation sent to the West) led to the publication of various kirishtanban (lit. “Christian press”) texts in romanized Japanese. The most well-known of these are the abridged edition of The Tale of the Heike (Feique no monogatari, 1592), more commonly known as the Amakusaban Heike monogatari, and a Japanese translation of Aesop’s Fables (Esopono Fabvlas, 1593). Such publication efforts were once vaguely understood as undertaken by missionaries. In recent years, however, scholars have uncovered the involvement of Japanese Christians and their domestic helpers, including those like Fabian Fukan, the Japanese convert responsible for the Amakusaban Heike monogatari, and the father-child pair of Yōhō Paulo and Vicente Tōin who compiled Santosu no gosagyō (The Deeds of Saints and Apostles, 1591). Building on the discovery of such Japanese involvement, I argue that these texts are a valuable repository of Japanese literary and dramatic observations. Furthermore, I contend that these texts need to be reappraised as Japanese classics born of cross-cultural contact, reversing their relegation to the periphery in Japanese literary history.

In this paper, I examine the relationship between kirishtanban texts and the performing arts. In particular, popular performing arts genres of the time, such as kōwaka (dance drama), Nō and kyōgen left an impact on such early Christian literature. For example, these Christian texts often contain descriptions of performance styles and trends of time, providing valuable clues to theatre historians. Moreover, the Amakusaban Heike monogatari is narrated as a conversation between a reciter, Kiichi Kengyō (whose name recalls Heike chanters) and his listener Uma no jō, thus borrowing the performative idiom of the Tale of the Heike. Japanese performance genres, in turn, influence Christian dramas of the time. This paper will consider these dynamic cross-cultural interactions in the performing arts.