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Paper short abstract:

The origin tales (engi) of Kōzuke Province recorded in Shintōshū (14th century) saw a great number of variants and retellings during the Edo period. Focusing on narrative recitatives (katarimono), it will be shown how mediality and genre shaped the narratives in the course of their transmission.

Paper long abstract:

The mid-fourteenth-century collection Shintōshū compiled by monks of the Agui lineage of Tendai Buddhism is known for its narratives recounting how humans become deities. Six of these so-called ‘narrative origin tales’ (monogatari-teki engi, Tsukudo 1966) take place in Kōzuke Province. These tales gained particular popularity and, in proximity to the places they refer to, continued to be written down in manuscripts until well into the Meiji period. While many manuscripts remained relatively close to the original, the stories were also retold in various ways.

The proposed paper will examine the role and interrelation of mediality and genre in the transmission of these tales. From hints in the texts contained in the Shintōshū we can infer that they were both read silently and performed orally. While they may be considered ‘semi-oral’ in the literal sense of the term, early modern variants were often either conceived as written sources, adding historiographical content, or developed into narrative recitatives (katarimono) that were divided into six or twelve sections (dan) and exhibit stylistic parallels to early jōruri. Transmission could also be carried out orally, as a manuscript titled Gunma Takai iwaya engi demonstrates, which contains mistakes that can only be explained by the fact that it was based on an oral text. At the same time, the Gunma Takai iwaya engi also includes an historical account mostly quoted from Nihon shoki.

The paper will particularly focus on eighteenth-century katarimono such as Akagiyama daimyōjin go-honji and Kōzuke no kuni Gunma no kōri Funaoyama go-honji ki. While studies of Shintōshū and the later versions of its tales mostly take an interest in history and religion or simply compare textual variants for details of their transmission, the katarimono should also be regarded as literary works. The texts will therefore be compared with regard to narratological categories such as character and plot. It will be shown how the retelling of the stories is connected to new generic and medial conventions, while at the same time retaining religious and historiographical functions.