Send message to Author

Paper short abstract

This paper revisits the legend of Empress Jingū, showing how early modern publishers and entertainers reframed her narrative with new religious, imperial, and xenophobic elements in various woodblock print series, on-stage performances like kagura, and popular encyclopedias.

Paper long abstract

In numerous early modern materials, we find different modes of reimagining and popularizing Empress Jingū‘s conquest of the Korean Peninsula. By visually reinterpreting the past, these diverse works embedded imperial and religious symbolism into materials for everyday consumption, shaping how mythological and historical events were collectively recalled and interpreted. Empress Jingū is held to have conquered the Korean peninsula in the third century with divine aid while pregnant with the future Emperor Ōjin. While this legend first appeared in the eighth century chronicles, narratives of Empress Jingū proliferated following the Mongol Invasions of 1273 and 1281 and again during the Japanese invasions of the Korean peninsula in 1592 and 1598. While Jingū’s conquest was seen as a precedent for Japan’s success during these conflicts, the legend took on different meanings in a variety of media during the relatively peaceful Edo period.

This paper provides a preliminary examination of early modern publications and performances related to Empress Jingū. The empress appeared in a variety of woodblock print series, such as Utagawa Kuniyoshi’s One Hundred Heroes of High Renown (1843-1844) and Virtuous Women for the Eight Views (1842-1843), Utagawa Kunisada’s (1786-1865) Banners as Interior Decoration, and Utagawa Yoshitora’s A Mirror of Warriors (1859). The nature of the series and the descriptions of Jingū included therein display reinterpretations of her conquest journey, focusing on different story elements and attributes. Empress Jingū also appeared in kabuki prints featuring major actors as well as a number of kagura performed in Western Japan. Kagura pieces such as Jinrin and Sankan built on medieval reinterpretations of the Jingū legend to redefine the conquest as a defensive measure against Korean demons, projecting the increasing xenophobia of the early modern period back onto ancient times. Finally, the empress appeared in encyclopedic texts like the 1712 Wakan sansai zue, providing a selective interpretation of Jingū’s conquest and other historical events for a broad audience.