Japanese Culture: Identity and Tradition

好色
好色本
好色
一代の男 The life of an amorous man.
He elevated writing about this thing to it's own kind of genre.

Koushoku became a form of writing (trashy romance?) in Tokugawa Japan. About the physical side of love. Initiated by Saikaku, a writer who became popular for writing about sex. The tale of genji has the same theme, but it isn't expressed in the same way. He presents it as physical desire. The pleasure quarters were a legitimate way for merchants to spend time and money.

Saikaku's writing is probably the most accessible of all the literature we cover in this class for English readers. They're surprisingly engaging even if not so deep as modern writing.

Homosexuality was not perceived as being out of the ordinary, it was ordinary. You only get homosexuality as being deviant after contact with the west. It was not unusual in Tokugawa Japan. So writers wrote about it freely.

[] what about constructing a timeline of Japanese Art History . Wiki style so that people can add to them? Advertise it for the subject so people can add to it. Blog style?


What about a vertical timeline that goes down a page where you can edit text in boxes. put images etc.

It was interesting at Pissarro yesterday that there were Japanese influences in his impressionist art.

Tokugawa and Edo society.
Tokugawa Ieyasu brought to frutition the unification of Japan.

There was a rigid stratification of people into hierarchies of rank
Samurai
peasants/farmers
Artisans
Merchants

Mothers weren't very well respected
Acceptance of one's slot in life. So that there wasn't discontent about ones social position.

Rapid expansion of Edo, Osaka, Kyoto. 17th century, due to peace, stability, transportation and communication systems.
Each shougunate would have to spend each consecutive year in Edo, and their families on the other year. This enables a lot of movement in and out of Edo.
This brought about a truly national culture and language in the wake of this 'alternate attendance system.
Literacy increased, the wealth of the merchants increased (bigger economy) and also we see the development of pleasure quarters, Kabuki and bunraku. These were established to satiate the baser desires of the lower levels of society.

Ihara Saikaku
1642-93
Born in 大阪
Haikai poet
Creator of new genre of fiction - Ukiyo Zooshi, dealing with the life of the pleasure quarters.

His fiction was popular when he was alive, but then disregarded.

Features of his fiction:
1. Desire, sex, love, pleasure quarters.
Kou shoku - in terms of the physical involvement only.
"The Life Of An Amorous Man" About a man that does to an island and has sex forever in completely happy.
"The hero named Yonosuke ("Man of the World") was born as a child between Yumesuke ("Man of the Dreams"), who lived in insatiable pursuit of love affairs with women and men as well, and a celebrated courtesan; the son first made love to a woman at the age of seven. Thereafter, always devoting himself to the affairs, Yonosuke ended up, at 60, sailing to Nyogogashima ("Isle of Women"). This work narrates 54 years of his adventures in the form of a novel. " ネットから

2. Words dealing with love/fidelity, honour / vengance and duty/obligation/loyalty(義理) of the samurai. He writes about the Samurai and homosexual aspects of their lives. Exemplary form of fidelity and love.
"Tales of Samurai Duty"
"The great mirror of Male love"

Style:
Noteworthy of his realism and social realism. Not so fantastical and removed from the supernatural. Humans as they are, (chikamatsu is idealised)
He wrote everything at a great speed.

The language is difficult because it combined classical and colloquial language (of the merchants). But this shows us a realism because this is how they would have spoken.

He views his characters from a distance - detachment.
Witty, sarcastic, humor, comedy, but with a touch of bitterness.

Despite social realism in his work, there is no social criticism.

He's essentially a storyteller, he's not philosophising or commenting on life, religion or anything. There is no message. It's absent from Basho, Chikamatsu and Saikaku. One of the chief features of the Tokugawa period. His goal was always to entertain!

Kabuki and Bunraku were at their fullest development at that time.

Emerging wealth of the merchant class. 
Brothels, entertainment. A lot of eroticism around! 
Interesting that it started as female only, and ended up male only!

Young men's kabuki was popular

Kabuki as a channel for people's desires and pleasures. 

Kabuki was a theatre of the masses. Not intellectual, and performed in large theatres. Unlike Noh, which was high brow. 
The actors are directors in a kabuki show, and the scripts are suggestive so the actors can interpret them.

Kabuki　歌舞伎
A bit undiginified in its emergence. Late 16th century (during final wars of unification) Okuni was a dancing girl. Performing in Kyoto with liberal amounts of eroticism.
It was a combination of elements from the Noh dance.
It was meant to attract potential clients for prostitution.
Kabuki - frolicking/flirting/disporting, different from the modern meaning.

By 1629 the shougunate banned women appearing on the stage, because they thought it would corrupt the samurai. This remained right through to the 19th century.

So young mens Kabuki emerged, where men performed all the roles, and the emphasis was still on attracting clients.

They were like squires to the samurai - and it was accepted by society that the homosexual behaviour between the samurai and the squires was accepted, prior and after that also (only contact with the west put a stop to that). They wore a special hair lock to siginify that they were 'youths', but they were made to cut these off. The lock indicated that they were available for sex.

Then the young mens Kabuki was banned also, on the same grounds that it was corrupting. The shougunate were more austere and buddhist and close to the aristocracy.

This made the art form develop, and by the late 17th and early 18th century made the art form develop, and it became more of a dramatic art. Focus on acting, music (borrowed from puppet theatre shamisen).

BUNRAKU　文楽
Around about the same time that O-kuni started her performances in Kyoto.
The shamisen is the three stringed instrument, similar to the biwa. Shamisen has a harsher sound to it.

Late 17th century sees the establishment of the theatre in Osaka, and Chikamatsu Monzaemon writes plays for it involving real life human tragedies developing into true drama.
三味線

There is a lot of borrowing between the Kabuki and the Bunraku. The acting styles and the striking of the dramatic poses. Which is actually a borrowing from the puppet theatre. They share a number of plays (again originated with the puppet theatre).

The Plays
Two broad categories
1. "Domestic Pieces"
2. "Period Pieces"

Chikamatsu Monzaemon
Conveys a realism or romanticism that had not been conveyed previously. He was focusing on ordinary people and their experiences.
The central themes, which is important on Tokugawa society, is the tension between loyalty and obligation to ones parents and society etc, and ones natural emotions, love, etc.

IE: Good looking, smart but lowly shop assistant is about to be set into an arranged marriage. But he's in love with a prostitute and wants to live happily ever after with her. But he can't afford to pay her out. Refuses to marry the neice, and he plans to use the money of the dowry to free the prostitute. And so they commit suicide so that they can be together in the afterlife.

This is an example of how giri ninjo is portrayed in his plays.

Nature

The jet-black night
Deepens to a hush among the birches
In the stream's pure bed,
Where the plovers raise their call
Above the murmur of the stream.

Nature tinged with Shintoism is what lends beauty and purity to man's palaces and his life.

Even in Nara
The capital that has become
Our abandoned home,
The cherry trees have blossomed out,
Unchanged in color from the past.