- Convenor:
-
Yoshitaka Yamamoto
(Yale University)
Send message to Convenor
- Discussant:
-
Matthew Fraleigh
(Brandeis University)
- Format:
- Panel
- Section:
- Pre-modern Literature
Short Abstract
This panel will examine the capacity of Sinitic literature (kanshi and kanbun) to appeal to a wide variety of social groups by considering how women of noble birth, authors of popular fiction, and scholars of humble origins engaged with classical Chinese texts in Edo-period Japan.
Long Abstract
A salient characteristic of many cultural pursuits in Edo-period Japan was that participants hailed from virtually all corners of society. Sinitic literary composition was no exception. How did Sinitic poetry and prose (kanshi and kanbun) appeal to such a wide range of social groups in early modern Japan? Did all social classes produce and consume Sinitic literature in the same way? When did one’s social station or identity affect one’s literary input and output? This panel will explore these questions by examining how Edo-period Sinitic literature intersected with opposite extremes of the socio-cultural spectrum: aristocratic and popular cultures.
Previous scholarship has tended to discuss the spread of Sinitic literature in Edo-period Japan without taking into account the enduring strength and prestige of aristocratic culture, on the one hand, and the power of popular fiction to propagate, adapt, and renew elements of high culture, on the other. This panel will use aristocratic and popular cultures as guiding threads to trace how Sinitic literature pervaded different corners of early modern Japanese society and led individuals of diverse backgrounds to engage with classical Chinese texts to suit their various needs and tastes. Nobuko Horikawa will analyze Sinitic poems composed by two Zen nuns of aristocratic birth, and consider how Sinitic poetry functioned as a mode of emotional expression for each of those women. Victor Fink will examine creative adaptations of Sinitic poetry in late Edo popular fiction, paying particular attention to paratextual apparatuses in commercial publications as well as to contemporary literary and cultural trends. Yoshitaka Yamamoto will discuss Sinitic prose pieces modeled on Japanese and Chinese imperial examinations, highlighting how imitating ancient court cultures enabled Edo-period scholars of humble origins to see themselves as capable intellectuals. Matthew Fraleigh, as discussant, will situate the panel’s overall findings within the larger context of premodern and modern Japanese and East Asian literary and cultural history.
| Abstract in Japanese (if needed) |
Accepted papers
Paper short abstract
This paper considers why Edo-period Confucian scholars of humble birth composed Sinitic prose that imitated Japanese and Chinese imperial examination questions and answers. Emulating ancient aristocratic cultures enabled these scholars to imagine themselves as qualified for government service.
Paper long abstract
Unlike other polities in Sinographic Asia, Japan never implemented a civil service examination system. The examinations sponsored by the Heian court and the Tokugawa shogunate were open only to men from aristocratic and samurai families, respectively. For Edo-period Confucian scholars, there was no officially recognized channel for pursuing active roles in government. Against this backdrop, Confucian scholars of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, including Hayashi Razan, Hayashi Gahō, Hitomi Chikudō, Itō Jinsai, Itō Tōgai, and Ogyū Sorai, composed Sinitic prose pieces titled “imitations of examination responses” (gi taisaku) or “unofficial imitations of examination questions” (shigi sakumon). This paper examines a selection of these works to consider how aristocratic cultures of the ancient Japanese and Chinese imperial courts served as sources of inspiration for Edo-period scholars.
These imitations of examination questions and answers emulated the imperial examinations administered to select men from aristocratic families for positions in government at the Heian and Han courts in ancient Japan and China. Like many other imitative works of Sinitic literature, imitations of imperial examinations gave imitators the opportunity to express their own thoughts while also allowing them to see themselves in the likeness of the authors whose works they imitated. While Edo-period imitations of imperial examinations show varying degrees of exactitude in how they reproduced Heian or Han styles of Sinitic writing, they enabled Edo-period Confucian scholars of humble origins to imagine themselves as being candidates for government positions at an imperial court and to practice writing Sinitic prose that discussed the Confucian classics or matters related to governance with a strong sense, albeit simulated, of urgency and purpose. Emulating remnants of ancient aristocratic cultures allowed these scholars to model themselves after, and to see themselves as, intellectuals capable of serving a sovereign if given the chance. In Tokugawa Japan, in the absence of an official examination system, imitating ancient court cultures offered non-aristocratic and non-samurai individuals a means of viewing and styling themselves as scholars qualified for government service.
Paper short abstract
This paper analyzes modes of emotional expression in Sinitic poetry by two aristocratic-born Zen nuns in the Edo period, focusing on differences in word choice and recurring motifs in poems on daily life, nature, and the seasons. It sheds light on their monastic experience and literary inheritance.
Paper long abstract
This paper offers a comparative examination of modes of emotional expression in Sinitic poetry composed by two Zen nuns in early modern Japan: Abbess Daitsū Bunchi (1619-1697) and Abbess Taisei Shōan (1668-1712). Both were daughters of emperors who became nuns and lived in special convents for members of the royal family and high-ranking aristocracy, where they later served as abbesses. Like many Buddhist intellectuals of their time, they composed poetry in Sinitic, the primary literary and devotional language of premodern Japanese Buddhism.
While many of their poems, written for Buddhist occasions such as memorial services and ritual observances, explicitly express religious ideas, this paper examines poems that were composed outside such formal religious contexts. I focus in particular on poems by the two abbesses that share similar themes related to daily life, nature, and the seasons. Through close reading, I analyze differences in word choice and recurring motifs and consider how these features correspond to differing patterns of emotional expression. Poems by Abbess Bunchi more frequently employ imagery and diction associated with calmness and stability, whereas poems by Abbess Shōan more often emphasize scenes and language associated with sorrow, longing, and solitude.
By situating these observations within a comparative framework, this study suggests how attention to emotional expression in poetry can shed light on lived monastic experience and literary inheritance among elite Zen nuns in early modern Japan, an area that has received limited scholarly attention.
Paper short abstract
This presentation analyses the intersection of the genres of Classical Chinese poetry and illustrated fiction (kusazōshi) of the late Edo period. Examples of ornamental paratext, pseudo-classical poetry and suggestive verse demonstrate the varied uses of poetry.
Paper long abstract
Classical Chinese poetry (kanshi) started to increasingly proliferate into wider social strata during the late Edo period. Editions with extensive commentary, translations into contemporary Japanese, illustrated editions and the growing popularity of Classical Chinese poetry by Japanese poets all contributed to this wider reception. In illustrated fiction (kusazōshi) of the late Edo period Classical Chinese poetry is occasionally to be found on book covers or (more rarely) as part of the story itself. A bestseller like Pale Moon: A Cat’s Story (Oborozuki neko no sōshi) by Santō Kyōzan, illustrated by Kuniyoshi, features on its seventh and last volume (published in 1849) a poem on cats by Kikuchi Gozan. Tōjō Kindai’s preface to Kunisada’s erotic booklet Enshi gojūyojō takes the form of a kanshi. Some authors, such as Jippensha Ikku, would also compose lyrics of varying quality themselves to add to their works, some of the texts akin to the dog latin or Macaronic poetry of Europe. This presentation will take a look at examples like these to understand the varieties of creative adaptation of Classical Chinese poetry to be found in popular fiction. To bring light to this intersection of genres, problems such as the the status of Chinese learning in late Edo society assessment of the popularity of Classical Chinese poetry, the influence of trends in kanshi poetics such as a focus on everyday and tangible topics, the discourse around opposition and admixture of high and low culture and the ornamental function of paratext will be discussed.