Volume IX Number 1 CONTENTS Spring 2001

Articles ⺰ᢥ

Inventing the New Through the Old: The Essence of Haikai and the Zhuangzi Peipei Qiu 2

At Wit’s End: Satirical Verse Contra Formative Ideologies in Bakumatsu and Meiji Japan Dean Anthony Brink 19

Book Reviews ᦠ⹏

James L. McClain and Wakita Osamu, eds. Osaka: The Merchants' Capital of Early Modern Japan Marcia Yonemoto 47

Gerald A. Figal, Civilization and Monsters : Spirits of Modernity in Meiji Japan Hosea Hirata 51

Document Translation ᢥᦠ⧷⸶

Translation of the Memorial of Imakita Sakubei to the Lord of Tosa, Yamauchi Toyochika Luke Roberts 53 EARLY MODERN JAPAN SPRING 2001

Inventing the New other is the Song scholar Lin Xiyi’s ᨋᏗㅺ2 annotations of the Zhuangzi, which stress that the Through the Old: entire Zhuangzi is a parable. While scholarly The Essence of Haikai opinion differs on which factor or factors played and the Zhuangzi a key role behind the phenomenon, they agree Peipei Qiu that the Danrin’s enthusiasm for the Zhuangzi lies primarily in imitating the gugen in the work.3 Asian Studies Vassar College

Introduction meaning, according to Burton Watson, is words put into the mouth of historical or fictional persons to make them more compelling. The Zhuangzi scholars The latter half of the seventeenth century have also used the term to refer to the general writ- witnessed an innovative phenomenon in Japanese ing style of the text. Watson has rendered the haikai େ⺽ (comic linked verse) circles. A meaning of the term into “imported words” in his group of haikai poets who called themselves the translation of the Zhuangzi. The title of Konishi Danrin ⺣ᨋ enthusiastically drew upon the Jin’ichi’s ዊ⷏↟৻ study on Basho and Zhuangzi’s Daoist classic Zhuangzi ⨿ሶ (The works of gugen, “Basho to gugensetsu” ⧊⭈ߣኚ⸒⺑ Master Zhuang), setting off a decade-long trend [Nihon gakushiin kiyo ᣣᧄቇ჻㒮♿ⷐ no. 18 of using the Zhuangzi in haikai composition. In (1960) 2 and 3] is translated into “Basho and assessing the causes and significance of this Chuang-tsu’s Parabolical Phraseology.” The term in phenomenon previous studies give much atten- modern Japanese and Chinese is often translated as tion to the intellectual, philosophical and reli- “fable,” “apologue,” or “parable,” but these transla- gious climates, noting two major factors that in- tions are not suitable to the present study. In the spired the Danrin’s interest in the Zhuangzi. One context of the Danrin haikai, gugen is used to imply is the medieval Genji monogatari Ḯ᳁‛⺆ both the theoretical frame of reference and the tech- (The tale of Genji) scholars’ commentaries, nical device for the metaphorical and fictional ex- pression of haikai. Since the complex connotations which compare the fictional story of Genji with 1 of the term cannot be properly expressed by existing the gugen ኚ⸒ (parable) of the Zhuangzi. The English words, this article uses gugen throughout.

2 Lin Xiyi, whose dates of birth and death are Research of this study was supported by the In- unknown, was a scholar and official of Song ternational Research Center for Japanese Studies China. According to Song Yuan xue an ቡరቑ᩺ and by the Japan Society for the Promotion of (Brief biographies of the Song and Yuan scholars) Science fellowship. I am grateful for the hours 47, he became Jinshi(a successful candidate in spent with Professors Suzuki Sadami and Mitsuta the highest imperial examinations) during the Kazunobu at the International Research Center Duanping era (1234-37), and was once appointed for Japanese Studies, where I was a Visiting Re- a Vice Director of the Office of Personnel searcher. I am indebted to Professors Carolyn Evaluation. He was skilled at painting, calligra- Morley of Wellesley College, Sonja Arntzen of phy and poetry. Lin’s literary name was Juanzhai University of Toronto and Margaret Childs of ? . His explanation of the Zhuangzi, (Zhuangzi University of Kansas, for stimulating discussion Juanzhai kouyi ⨿ሶ? ᢪญ⟵, 1253), was re- and incisive criticism regarding this study. I would also like to thank Professors Philip Brown printed in Japan during the seventeenth century and Lawrence Marceau, the editors of Early and widely read by the haikai poets.

Modern Japan, and the two anonymous readers, 3 for their detailed comments and warm support. For in-depth studies on the Danrin haikai and the Zhuangzi, seeYamamoto Heiichiro ጊᧄᐔ৻ 1 Gugen (yuyan in Chinese) appears in the ㇢, “Haikai to Soji ga gugen” େ⺽䈫 ⨿ሶ䈏ኚ⸒ twenty-seventh chapter of the Zhuangzi. Its original (Haikai and Zhuangzi's gugen), in Kokugo to ko-

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Based on earlier investigations of the exter- to sustain the poetic conversation, and the ex- nal factors that promoted the popularity of the tremely short form of each verse needs conven- Zhuangzi among the Danrin poets, this article tionalized mediating signs to clarify, translate, explores the inner elements in the development of and expand the poetic essence through intertex- haikai that led to the Danrin’s encounter with the tual structures. Therefore haikai, while being a Zhuangzi. Allusion to classical sources has been parodic, unconventional genre of popular culture, one of the oldest poetic “games” in the world, but never completely breaks away from the classical none of other poetic genre has witnessed the im- tradition. portant role classical sources played in the theo- This contradiction is reflected clearly in the rization and signification of haikai. This article haikai poets’ struggle to convey profound es- reveals that the Danrin poets’ interest in the Dao- sence through haikai language (haigon େ⸒), ist classic is motivated not only by their impulse the vernacular and Chinese-origin words that lack to defend comic linked verse, but, more signif i- the literary and cultural associations accumulated cantly, also by an urgent need to reconstruct and within the classical poetic diction. Attempting to regenerate the signifying systems of the comic invent a new poetic essence with haikai language, poetry, especially its poetic essence (hon㵭i ᧄᗧ). the Danrin poets found the Zhuangzi an ideal This latter need comes from the paradoxical na- foundation text. Although the Danrin’s under- ture of haikai. On one hand, as a newly rising standing of the Zhuangzi had limitations, their commoners’ art, comic linked verse must distin- effort inspired the later Shomon ⭈㐷 school, guish itself from classical linked verse by decon- whose continued search for new poetic possibili- structing the classical poetic diction, breaking the ties indicated by the Daoist classic brought hai- orthodox conventions, and parodying the aristo- kai’s encounter with the Zhuangzi to meaningful cratic classics. On the other hand, haikai compo- fruition. Because a full discussion of the haikai sition relies heavily on the classical past, because poets’ adaptation of the Daoist classic is beyond the dialogic nature of a haikai sequence requires the scale of this paper, the examination in the a shared knowledge of instituted poetic signifiers following pages focuses on the Danrin’s attempts to reinvent the essence of haikai with the Zhuangzi, and my discussion on the Shomon kubungaku, 14 (1937) 1, pp. 60-87; 2, pp. haikai is restricted to a few examples of how the 167-192; Kon Eizo ੹ᩕ⬿ “Danrin haikai Zhuangzi is used as mediating signs or texts to oboegaki, Gugensetsu no genryu to bungaku- deepen the poetic essence.4 shiteki jittai” ⺣ᨋେ⺽ⷡᦠ৻ኚ⸒⺑䈱Ḯᵹ䈫 ᢥቇผ⊛ታᘒ (Notes on Danrin haikai--The The Essence of the Comic Poetry and the origin of gugen theories and its presence in Japa- Zhuangzi nese literary history), in Kokugo kokubun kenkyu ࿖⺆࿖ᢥ⎇ⓥ, No 7 (1953), pp. 1-2; and Around 1674, a conflict occurred between Nonomura Katsuhide ㊁䇱᧛ൎ⧷, "Danrin hai- two major haikai schools. The Teimon ⽵㐷 kai no gugenron wo megutte" ⺣ᨋେ⺽䈱ኚ⸒ school, which tried hard to appropriate haikai ⺰䉕 䉄䈓 䈦 䈩 (On the gugen theories in Danrin according to orthodox poetic tradition, accused haikai), Kokugo to kokubungaku ࿖⺆䈫 ࿖ᢥቇ, the Danrin ⺣ᨋ school of being against the tra- 33, no. 11 (1956): 36-44. Konishi Jin’ichi’s and ditional principles. When Nishiyama Soin ⷏ጊ Hirota Jiro’s ᐢ↰ੑ㇢ works on the influence ቬ࿃ (1605-1682), the leader of the Danrin of the Zhuangzi in Basho’s haikai also provide school, published a hundred-verse sequence enti- insightful discussions on the Danrin school’s en- counter with the Zhuangzi. See “Basho to gugen- setsu,” pp. 97-118; Hirota Jiro, Basho no gei- 4 For comprehensive studies of Daoist influence jutsu--Sono tenkai to haikei ⧊⭈䈱⧓ⴚ৻䈠䈱 on Basho, see Hirota Jiro, Basho no gei- ዷ㐿䈫 ⢛᥊ (Basho's art--its development and jutsu--Sono tenkai to haikei, and Konishi Jin’ichi, background. Tokyo: Yuseido, 1968), pp. 192-237. “Basho to gugensetsu,” cited in Note 2 above.

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tled (Nishiyama Soin) Kabashira hyakku (⷏ጊቬ ployed in the major imperial waka anthologies ࿃) Ⰶᩇ⊖ฏ (Swarming Mosquitoes: One became conventionalized. As a result, what a hundred verses), the Teimon responded with a word or an image signifies in poetry was no criticism called Shibuuchiwa ᷦ࿅ (Astringent longer the pure choice of an individual poet or the fan), whose metaphorical title means a powerful reader, but the normative essence defined by the fan to beat off the mosquitoes of the Danrin. The celebrated poems in the waka tradition, especially work criticizes Soin’s verses as “having lost the those in the first eight imperial anthologies. The essence (hon’i) of poetry while simply spitting concept of hon’i was further elaborated and sys- out whatever he wanted to say.”5 “Isn’t haikai tematized by renga and haikai masters, who ap- plied the term not only to the poetic topics and after all,” the attacker says, “a form of waka ๺ images, but also to the nature of poetry. As seen ᱌? Poetry is a way to assist government and to in the debate between the Teimon and Danrin, 6 edify people.” Defending their leader’s work, while the Teimon insisted that haikai was “a form Okanishi Ichu ጟ⷏ᗅਛ (1637-1711), a disciple of waka” and it should assist government and of Soin and a vocal member of the Danrin, wrote moral edification, the Danrin took the Zhuangzi Shibuuchiwa hento ᷦ࿅㄰╵ (A response to as the hon’i of haikai, associating the Daoist “Astringent fan”), in which he made an intriguing classic with the essence of haikai at an ontologi- statement concerning the origin and essence of cal level. haikai: “Among the books from China, I think the It is well known that, in general, the Japanese entire work of the Zhuangzi is the essence (hon’i) perspective on poetry differs from that of Chinese of haikai. Its use of words and its expression are in its emphasis on the expressive/lyrical nature all haikai. In our country, the essence (hon’i) of instead of the pragmatic/didactic function defined The Tale of Genji is haikai.”7 The emphasis on by the Confucian scholars. When discussing the hon’i, or the poetic essence, in both the Teimon’s Chinese influence on the Kokinshu ฎ੹㓸 and the Danrin’s arguments reveals a unique tra- prefaces to the first imperially commissioned an- dition of Japanese poetry: poems must be com- thology, the Kokin wakashu ฎ੹๺᱌㓸 (905), posed according to the normative essence based John Timothy Wixted makes the following ob- on authoritative texts. servation: Hon’i, which literally means “the original meaning,” was used widely in waka, renga and The backdrop to all Chinese consideration haikai theories. As early as the tenth century, the of literature, from earliest times until today, term already appeared in the judgments of poetry has been the primacy of its pragmatic ends. contests, referring to the original nature or way of In contrast with this, the Kokinshu prefaces, an object treated in poetry. Through the Heian especially the Japanese preface, while paying period, the essences of the images and topics em- homage to pragmatic ends, pointed the direc- tion to a more expressively oriented literature. 5 Shibuuchiwa (Astringent fan, 1674). The These in turn became the classic earliest work is attributed to Kyohoshi, but his identity is source for later Japanese views of poetry. With such a venerable authority as the Japa- not clear. He might be a person from Nara. Some nese preface behind them--its recondite Chi- scholars suspect that the author might be Kit a- nese reference misunderstood or ig- mura Kigin . See Iida Masakazu ർ᧛ቄี 㘵↰ nored--later Japanese writers and theorists ᱜ৻, Esaka Hironao ᭑ဈᶈዏ, and Inui Hiro- (unlike their Chinese counterparts) were yuki ੇ⵨ᐘ, eds. Koten haibungaku taikei ฎౖ spared having to concern themselves with େᢥቇᄢ♽ (Tokyo: Shueisha, 1972) 4, p. 41. justifying the expressive/lyrical function of Henceforth abbreviated KHT.

6 Shibuuchiwa, KHT, 4, p. 41.

7 Shibuuchiwa hento, KHT, 4, p. 59.

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literature. This has had profound implication To get a clear idea of the critical tradition for the later course of Japanese literature.8 which Kigin stresses by referring to the Six Prin- ciples, let’s take a close look at Kigin’s discus- However, Edo period haikai poets’ view of sion of the first principle, fu 㘑 (the Suasive this critical history provides a different picture. Poem).11 As seen in the excerpt from Shibuuchiwa above, Teimon poets believe that “poetry is a way to (1) Fu. The Yakumo misho ౎㔕ᓮ assist government and to edify people.” Accord- ᛞ12 says: “Fu is the Suasive Poem. It ing to Kitamura Kigin ർ᧛ቄี (1624-1705), a speaks of one thing by drawing upon another. major theoretician of the Teimon school and the It is to enlighten the listener’s mind without suspected author of Shibuuchiwa, this concept spelling it out directly.” According to finds its roots in the Kokinshu prefaces, which, in Kyogoku Komon, the term fu means to re- turn, draws upon the Six Principles (liuyi ౐⟵ veal the truth of one thing covertly by draw- in Chinese, rikugi in Japanese) in the “Great ing upon another. The fu-style poem has to Preface” to the oldest Chinese poetic anthology, be the same. A poem that does not put forth the Classic of Poetry (Shijing ⹞⚻). Kigin sum- its intent directly but draws upon other things, marizes this critical history in his Haikai umoregi whatever it speaks of, is called fu. According େ⺽ၒᧁ (The buried tree of haikai, 1673) as to Fujiwara Kiyosuke ᷡテ13 the Classic of the following: Poetry says: “Those above edify those below with feng 㘑 [fu in Japanese]; those below Regarding the Six Principles, in Japanese also criticize those above with feng.” (Note: poetry, they were found in the Kokinshu. Both edification through feng and criticism Kyogoku Komon ੩ᭂ㤛㐷9 says that the through feng mean to use allegorical refer- essence of the Six Principles was enunciated ences, which is to avoid speaking overtly.)14 by the Classic of Poetry and he recommends I think fu in the work means using allegorical that people read it. Among renga poets, the reference. It is read “soe” [in its Japanese venerable Shinkei ᔃᢘ (1406-1475) once pronunciation]. “Soe” means to reveal the said that the fundamentals [of the Six Princi- meaning while not presenting the topic ples] should permeate each verse. Soyo ቬ㙃 overtly. Therefore, fu is called the Suasive also discussed them. Haikai is no excep- Poem. In his study of the Kokinshu, Sogi ቬ tion.10 ␧ points out that there are different aspects

8 In Laurel Rasplica Rodd and Mary Catherine 11 I follow Laurel Rasplica Rodd and Mary Henkenius, trans. and annot., Kokinshu: A Col- Catherine Henkenius in translating fu here. lection of Poems Ancient and Modern (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984), p. 399. 12 Yakumo misho (Treatises on poetry by Re- tired Emperor Juntoku 㗅ᓼ) is a six-volume 9 Kyogoku Komon refers to the famous waka work of waka poetics. The manuscript of the poet and critic, Fujiwara no Teika ⮮ේቯኅ work was completed in 1234. (1162-1241). 13 Fujiwara Kiyosuke (1104-1177) was a late 10 Haikai umoregi (The buried tree of haikai, Heian poet and critic. His work referred to here is compiled in 1655 and published in 1673), in probably his Ôgisho ᅏ⟵ᛞ (Notes on the po- Ogata Tsutomu የᒻੴ ed., Kigin haironshu ቄ etic profundities, 1124-1151). It is a representa- ีେ⺰㓸(Collection of Kigin’s treatises on hai- tive work of waka poetics of the Heian period. kai), in Koten bunko ฎౖᢥᐶ(Tokyo: Koten Bunko, 1960) Vol. 151, pp. 36-37. 14 This note was by the original author.

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stressed by the Six Principles in the Classic classical texts. As seen in the following excerpts, of Poetry,which can be divided into the basic the Teimon and the Danrin in fact draw upon the principles and the supporting methods, or the same classical sources to define the essence of normative forms and the rhetorical modes, haikai. In Haikai umoregi, Kigin writes: respectively. Also, some poems that belong to the category of fu use ko ⥝ (evocative Speaking of haikai, the Ôgisho says songs)15 at the same time. Some scholars say that “haikai” mentioned in the Hanshu that the way feng is used [in China] is ṽᦠ refers to “huaji” ṖⓀ. “Hua” Ṗ slightly different from that in this country, means “wonderful meaning.” “Ji” Ⓚ but the meaning is the same.16 means “endless words.” “The Origin of Huaji” in Shiji ผ⸥ says: “Huaji The original Chinese term, feng, in the Clas- was a type of vessel for wine. Later the sic of Poetry comes from a section title, word was used to describe effortless “Guofeng” ࿖㘑, the “Airs of the States.” In creativity and endless expression, like a later critical writings it is often used to describe hauji from which wine is poured out. . . . poems that are like the Guofeng. The term some- The two characters for haikai can be times is also interpreted as feng 㘑, which means read as wazagoto. Therefore, people to criticize. The translation of the term in the think that it is a kind of frivolous joke. Kokinshu prefaces, soeuta, the Suasive Poem, But this is not necessarily true. As I seems to have followed the latter interpretation, mentioned earlier, although those who designating the pragmatic function of poem. devoted themselves to huaji were not Kigin’s writings indicate that Japanese theorists directly dealing with the Way (Dao ㆏, were not “spared having to concern themselves do in Japanese), they actually attained with justifying the expressive/lyrical function of the Way. Haikai is different from the literature.” Instead, from representative works of way of government, but it teaches won- waka poetics to treatises on renga and haikai, derful meaning. Therefore, haikai is like most important critical writings concerning the huaji: its design seems to be oratorical fundamentals of poetry include a discussion of and witty, and its language makes “fire” the Six Principles to justify their own poems. into “water,” or reveals wonderful Compared with the Kokinshu prefaces, these later meaning through comedy. Yet, haikai Japanese theorists seem to have interpreted the can convey what is deep in the heart six principles in a more didactic way. through its words.17

Whether or not the Six Principles have truly In the passage above, Kigin first tries to jus- permeated Japanese poetry is a debatable issue. tify haikai by tracing the origin of the term to the As Wixted points out, Japanese poetry and Chi- Chinese histories, the Han shu (The Han history) nese poetry show different orientations from their and the Shi ji (The record of history), both of emergence, and the way in which the Kokinshu which are considered to be authoritative classics. prefaces cite the Six Principles is not much more He then stresses that haikai can convey wonder- than paying homage to the Chinese classic. ful meaning, perfectly complying with the ca- However, what is of interest is just how strongly nonical concept of poetry, even though it is a the Japanese writers felt the need to pay homage comedy. A very similar definition of haikai is to the past, to seek the essence of poetry in the also found in the Danrin theorist Ichu’s treatise. He writes: 15 One of the six principles. It is translated as Tatoeuta, evocative songs, in the Japanese pref- ace to the Kokinshu. 17 Haikai umoregi, pp. 33-34. 16 Haikai umoregi, pp. 37-38.

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About haikai, in Haikai mogyu େ⺽ government and to educate people; comic verse ⫥᳞, I have traced its origins to the was thought to lack the qualities that could Japanese and Chinese classics. It has achieve this goal. Thus, the first collection of been said in Kiyosuke’s Ôgisho that al- renga, Tsukubashu ╳ᵄ㓸 (The Tsukuba an- though haikai is not a way of govern- thology, 1356), separated comic linked verses ment, it teaches wonderful meaning. Its from the elegant renga by putting them in a hai- effect seems to lie in oratory and wit. It kai section. Another renga collection compiled makes fire into water, and reveals won- when the verse form had matured, Shinsen tsu- derful meaning through comedy. It is kubashu ᣂㆬ╳ᵄ㓸 (The newly selected Tsu- the oratory of heart and oratory of lan- kuba anthology, 1495), contains no haikai verses guage, the wit of heart and the wit of at all. Subsequently, haikai no renga was always language, the comedy of heart and the excluded from renga anthologies. This exclusion comedy of language.18 of haikai from classical poetry had a notable im- pact on the later development of haikai and con- While it is true that the Danrin, as previous tributed directly to haikai's encounter with the studies have pointed out, gives more attention to Zhuangzi. the oratorical and witty effect of haikai, the simi- lar way in which the Teimon and the Danrin con- The Essence of Haikai Language and the struct their theories is striking: both refer to the Zhuangzi canonical texts to define haikai and emphasize that haikai teaches wonderful meaning through Haikai inherited the formalistic features of comedy. renga. It also followed most of the rules pre- However, the insistence on the didactic func- scribed by the renga masters regarding the asso- tion and the authority of the canonical texts ciation and progression of a sequence. While brought inevitable contradictions to comic linked taking the very same form of renga, haikai dif- verse, because haikai was a genre born through fered from classical renga in its comic approach departing from the classical poetic tradition. and vernacular language. In order to distinguish Haikai grew out of renga, a linked verse form haikai from renga, haikai masters declared that that emerged in the medieval period. It started as the use of haigon, or haikai language, was the an entertaining poetic game in which the partic i- hallmark of comic linked verse. Matsunaga Tei- pants competed with each other in wit and humor toku ᧻᳗⽵ᓼ (1571-1653), the founder of the by adding their own verse to the preceding ones, Teimon school, writes about this when talking making linked verses of alternate seventeen- and about haikai regulations: fourteen-syllable lines. When renga became popular in the parlor gatherings of aristocrats, At the beginning, there was no dis- elite samurai and priests, the renga masters tinction between haikai and renga. gradually polished the rules guiding renga com- Later, linked verses that used purely position and turned it into an elegant art form that elegant language were called renga was extendible to 100, 1,000, even 10,000 links. while those that have included vernacu- To elevate the status of renga, the renga masters lar words were called haikai.19 denied its original entertaining purpose and hu- morous nature because the orthodox poetic theo- ries identified poetry as a way to support the

19 Quoted in Fujii Otoo ⮮੗ਸ↵, “Teimon 18 Okanishi Ichu, Kinrai haikai futaisho ㄭ᧪ haikaishi” ⽵㐷େ⺽ผ (The history of the Tei- େ⺽わᛞ (Notes on recent haikai styles, 1679), mon haikai), in Yamamoto Sansei, ed. Haiku Ogata Tsutomu, ed., Danrin Hairon shu ⺣ᨋ Koza େฏ⻠ᐳ (Tokyo: Kaizosha, 1933) I, p. େ⺰㓸 (Tokyo: Koten bunko, 1963), p. 23. 127.

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As these words suggest, haikai kept both the fines the meaning of specific seasonal images, form and the rules of renga. The use of hai- but also prescribes how a particular image should gon--vocabulary that was not included in the be presented. For instance, by the normative es- classical poetic diction of waka and renga, such sence, when the image of “winter rain” is used, it as slang, colloquial expressions of commoners, signifies specifically the shigure ᤨ㔎, a short and Chinese-origin words--became the primary shower in the early winter, even though there are distinction between haikai and the traditional different kinds of rain in winter. Similarly, the renga. The emphasis on non-classical language in image of spring rain has to be a kind of quiet and haikai reflected the interest of the rising com- misty drizzling. If a cuckoo needs to be present in moner class, who had been deprived the right of the scene, it is not allowed to break the quietness literacy in the past. Through the haikai language, with noisy calls, but it is permissible if the bird commoners now could take pleasure in laughing gives out a single lonely cry. In other words, in at the “high” classes and the authorities, parody- the traditional signifying system a poetic image ing the aristocratic classics, and making fun of or motif becomes a strictly codified and heavily social conventions. charged sign that signifies more than a simple The creation of haigon, however, brought object in the external world or the speaker’s in- about a serious problem in haikai’s signifying ternal feelings. Above all, such an image evokes systems. Haigon was created in opposition to the associations and significance conventional- kago ᱌⺆, or classical poetic diction, conven- ized by the celebrated classical texts. Needless to tionalized by the imperially commissioned waka say, conventionalized signifiers limit the creativ- anthologies (chokusenshu ഼ㆬ㓸), especially ity of an individual poet. However, as an ex- the first eight, from the Kokinshu to the Shin tremely condensed poetic form and a product of Kokinshu ᣂฎ੹㓸 (The new collection of an- group composition, haikai needs heavily charged cient and present poems). This body of dic tion signifiers in order to sustain its poetic expression. became the standard language for poetic compo- The development of Japanese poetry shows a sition for centuries. Both waka and renga em- tendency towards brevity, and this tendency is at ployed only this unitary language, and their top- its extreme in haikai. Except for a limited number ics were limited to the elegant ones collected in of choka 㐳᱌, or long poems, collected in the the classical anthologies, such as love and the oldest anthologies, shortness characterizes all four seasons. When comic linked verse arose, the remaining Japanese poetic forms. The existing standard diction was challenged for the thirty-one-syllable classical genre waka is already first time.20 In fact, challenging, parodying, and short, but an individual verse of a renga sequence recontextualizing the classical tradition became is even shorter: renga breaks waka’s thirty-one the very nature of haikai when it began to flour- syllable form into seventeen- and fourteen- sylla- ish at the end of the medieval age. By going be- ble shorter verses, building a linked verse through yond the classic poetic diction, however, haikai the alternation of the two types of short links. created a void in its signifying system: the haigon When haikai was reaching its maturity during the that never appeared in poetry before lacked es- seventeenth century, the seventeen-syllable tablished poetic essence. opening verse of a linked verse sequence, hokku, A conventional kago is not simply an elegant became independent and self-standing, forming word. Defined by the canonical poetic antholo- one of the shortest poetic genres, known as haiku gies, each kago embodies a complex intertextual today. Although earlier renga masters also tried structure that implies a cluster of conventional- their hands at composing a sole opening verse, ized poetic essence, or hon'i. Hon’i not only de- this was not a regular practice in classical renga. But, by the 1670s, composing a single hokku was already very common among haikai poets. 20 Some folk song genres in the medieval period Along with the independence of the opening didn’t follow the classical poetic diction, but they verse, the movement toward brevity was also never became major genres of Japanese poetry. evident in the fragmentation of a linked verse sequence. In haikai, each seventeen or fourteen

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syllable link must represent an independent world. Kigin discuss the use of hon’i in lengthy hand- Teitoku once wrote: “There is a change from books, the Danrin also stresses hon’i in their hai- waka to renga. In waka, sometimes the meaning kai theories. However, when haigon is introduced, of the content of the first three lines in a poem there is no convenient normative essence behind can be given in the remaining two lines. But in this important part of their poetic language. The renga, the three lines of a preceding verse and the lack of mediating power would directly affect the two lines of the following verse must have their construction of the meaning of a brief haikai own meaning respectively. Haikai is even more verse, either leaving it as a superficial parody or strict in this requirement.”21 conveying only the surface value of the words. The independence of individual verses in a Apparently, this presented a serious problem to linked sequence led to the condensation of haikai the haikai poets who firmly believed that comic in both form and content. In order to expand the linked verse must convey wonderful meaning. poetic capacity of a seventeen- or four- To remedy this problem, the Danrin poets teen-syllable verse, haikai poets have to rely on tried to include the Zhuangzi as a cardinal source mediating signs to build an intertextual construc- of normative poetic essence. Ichu, the vocal Dan- tion. In addition, since the creation of haikai re- rin theorist, repeatedly asserted that “the quires a constant shifting between the roles of Zhuangzi embodies the hon’i of haikai,” and speaker and audience, participants are at once the “nothing embodied in the hon’i of the Zhuangzi is speakers and the listeners. As speakers, they must not found in haikai.” This argument is not merely compose in accordance with the expectation of a defence strategy. It is also an effort to use the the audience, while as listeners they are always Daoist classic to supply hon’i to their new lan- expected to understand what the preceding poem guage, haigon. In order to prove that the is intended to say and to respond immediately Zhuangzi has been a source of hon’i of Japanese with an appropriate poem. Therefore, a familiar poetry since the classical age, Ichu quotes exten- set of codified signs communicating the poetic sively from the Zhuangzi to interpret the essence conventions and criteria to all the participants is of Japanese poetry, not only that of haikai, but essential. In other words, haikai needs a body of also that of the waka and renga. He painstakingly mediating signs to translate the surface meaning shows how a personified cuckoo in a Kokinshu of the limited words and to explain the deeper poem finds its hon’i in a gugen in the Zhuangzi, signif icance the poem suggests. which personifies a perch in a carriage rut. He A word with hon’i functions as a mediating also argues that a haikai verse which depicts the sign that generates two or more texts as well as early haikai poet Sokan as a shogi ዁ᫎ player the associated significance(s) simultaneously actually conveys the hon’i of the fictional figures within the poem, greatly increasing its signifi- in the Zhuangzi. By demonstrating that “even cance-carrying capacity.22 Hon’i also guides the the poems in the ‘Haikai’ section of the Kokinshu reading of the poem, providing the necessary take [Zhuangzi’s] gugen as hon’i,”23 Ichu tries to context or subcontext for the extemporaneous demonstrate that what is articulated in the dialogue of a linked verse sequence. Therefore, Zhuangzi has long been part of the accepted nor- not only did conservative Teimon poets such as mative essence of Japanese poetry. The Danrin’s such effort can also be clearly seen in Ichu’s de- fense for Kabashira hyakku. 21 Tensuisho ᄤ᳓ᛞ (Notes of Heavens and As mentioned earlier, Soin’s Kabashira Waters, 1644), KHT 2, p. 399. hyakku is a work that intentionally breaks the conventions of the existing signifying systems. 22 The discussion on the hon’i, honka and hon- The Teimon school, therefore, criticized Soin for zetsu as mediating signs and texts is inspired by “having lost the hon’i and simply spitting out Michael Riffaterre’s discussion on intertextuality in Semiotics of Poetry (Bloomington and London: Indiana University Press, 1978), p. 81. 23 Haikai mogyu, p. 84.

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whatever he wants to say.”24 Refuting such criti- ‘I have this one leg that I hop along on, cism, Ichu provides evidence of how each of though I make little progress. Now how Soin’s verses has its hon’i derived from Japanese in the world do you manage to work all and Chinese classics. Among the classics, the those ten thousand legs of yours?’ The Zhuangzi is a prime source. One of Soin’s poems millipede said, ‘You don’t under- in Kabashira hyakku deliberately changed the stand.’”27 This is a conversation be- normative essence of mushi ⯻(insect): tween Kui and a millipede. As I have mentioned in Haikai mogyu, the mama kuou to ya “I want to eat a meal!” Zhuangzi also has birds and fish that mushi no naku ran An insect is crying. can talk. . . . But some haikai masters believe that this kind of expression be- In the waka tradition, an insect’s cry typi- trays hon’i and they wouldn’t describe cally signifies the autumn melancholy: an in- anything that does not exist. It is the sect’s faint singing breaking the stillness at night fortune of our time that we have a verse evokes profound loneliness and an awareness of as the above which awakens those hai- the passing of the season. In Soin’s verse, how- kai masters from the sleep of their ever, the insect cries hungrily for its meal, creat- minds. Although in renga there was ing a humorous picture entirely different from the nothing like this kind of expression, traditional essence. The first half of the verse uses haikai should take this as its own hon’i. vernacular language, “I want to eat a meal,” From now on when one composes hai- which has never been part of the normative es- kai, one should understand this point sence associated with the image “mushi,” the in- and create a verse like this.”28 sect. The writer of Shibuuchiwa, therefore, com- mented on the verse: “I never knew of an insect Ichu’s reply revealed the purpose of the Dan- that eats meals or drinks wine. This must be an rin’s embracing the Zhuangzi. By finding the extraordinary bug. If the speaker never saw or hon’i of the fictional depiction and wild images heard of such insect either, I would say this is a in the Zhuangzi, the Danrin poets tried to break total fabrication. It is merely the speaker’s fib.”25 the fossilized poetic associations and invent new The Teimon’s criticism reflects the orthodox poetic significance, which was otherwise prohib- point of view that a poem is a means to convey ited by the conventional signifying system. the truth of things. Fabrication, therefore, is con- As a well-known classic, the Zhuangzi also sidered to be against the nature of poetry and equips the Danrin with a handy source of refer- harmful to its quality. To this criticism from the ence to attach poetic essence to the vernacular Teimon, Ichu writes: words, that is, to transform newly invented hai- gon into a mediating sign, which translates the In the “Autumn Floods” chapter of the surface meaning of the verse into the intended Zhuangzi, there is the following pas- significance and provides the context of the po- sage: “The Kui26 said to the millipede, etic dialogue. A verse from Soin’s Kabashira hyakku, for example, uses a peculiar place name:

24 Shibuuchiwa, p. 42.

25 Shibuuchiwa, p. 43. don: Columbia University Press, 1968. Hence- forth abbreviated CWC.), p. 183. The romaniza- 26 Burton Watson in his translation of the tion of the translation has been altered. Zhuangzi explains that Kui is a “being with only one leg. Sometimes it is described as a spirit or a 27 Watson, CWC, p. 183. strange beast, sometimes as a historical person- age--the music Master Kui.” See his The Com- 28 Shibuuchiwa hento, p. 61. plete Works of Chuang Tzu (New York and Lon-

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utsuke no yamaji The mountain path in an unknown place name based on personal pref- Mount Emptiness, erence is a serious flaw. Annoyed by Soin’s lib- kayoiji no tsuyu And a drop of dew on eral use of place name, the author of Shibuuchiwa the passing road.29 says: “I have never heard of this ‘famous place.’ This, again, must have been made up according The use of famous place names, meisho ฬ to the speaker’s own opinion.”31 ᚲ, together with honka ᧄ᱌ (classic verses that Laughing at this accusation, Ichu replies: became the foundation of allusive variations) and honzetsu ᧄ⺑ (classic texts used as foundation You don’t even know what Mount sources of allusive variations)30, is one of the Emptiness means by now? In the frequently used intertextual devices which dem- Zhuangzi there is ‘Not-Even-Anything onstrates the authority of the classic reference in Village ή૗᦭ਯㇹ’and ‘the Field of Japanese poetry. In the traditional poetics, the Broad-and-Boundless ᐢ⩨ਯ㊁’ The “famous place” does not simply mean a famous Zhuangzi also writes about places like site such as a tourist attraction. It refers to the ‘north of the Red River and in the hills places famous in literary history, places to which of Kunlun ⿒᳓ਯർፓፚਯਐ’ but many poems have been dedicated; hence specific there are no such mountains or fields. hon’i have been attached. The use of a place ‘Mount Emptiness’ is the same kind of name, therefore, is limited to the famous places image. You should understand that the defined by the classical works and expected to entire verse is to express what is meant embody certain hon’i. “Mount Emptiness” in by the word Emptiness.”32 Soin’s poem, however, is a fictional place name. From the conventional point of view, the use of Not-Even-Anything Village and the Field of Broad-and-Boundless are both fictional places

29 depicted in the first chapter of the Zhuangzi. Shibuuchiwa hento, IV, p. 69. Rather than the literal meaning of the names, 30 these metaphorical images signify a boundless The concept of honzetsu is closely related to world that transcends all worldly existences. honka. While honka refers to the classic texts of Ichu’s reply shows that metaphorical expressions Japanese poetry, honzetsu includes almost all like Not-Even-Anything Village and the Field of other types of canonical works, such as the early Broad-and-Boundless in the Zhuangzi has already Japanese narratives, Chinese poems and classics, become common knowledge among the Danrin proverbs, etc.. If a word with hon’i functions as a school poets and this shared knowledge is the mediating sign, honka and honzetsu are mediating basis of their understanding of Soin’s verse. He texts, which, when quoted in a poem or alluded to, ridicules the author of Shibuuchiwa for his not provide rich associations with another text or knowing these famous words of the Zhuangzi, texts, setting an authoritative code of reading pointing out that the essence of the entire poem based on the normative tradition or convention. lies in the place name mediating the two texts. Honka and honzetsu are particularly helpful to the Like the metaphorical images in the Zhuangzi, short forms of Japanese verses; it amplifies the “Mount Emptiness” reveals the intended meaning poetic expression through an intertextual con- of the verse--the existential emptiness and tran- struction. While honka and honzetsu are com- sience. monly used by different haikai, the Danrin is par- From the examples above we can see that the ticularly interested in using the Zhuangzi as a Danrin poets’ taking the Zhuangzi as the authori- major source of mediating texts. The Danrin po- ets not only draw upon the Zhuangzi to generate hon’i of images and words, but also directly use 31 Shibuuchiwa, p. 48. the Zhuangzi as honzetsu to construct new poetic essence. 32 Shibuuchiwa hento, p. 69.

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tative source of the hon’i of haikai is not an acci- A well-known gugen in the Zhuangzi, dental choice. It first has to do with the Japanese “Zhuang Zhou’s dream” relates the following poetic tradition that gives ultimate authority to story: classics. To the Danrin poets who sought a classic Once Zhuang Zhou dreamt he was a authority, the Zhuangzi is an appropriate choice: butterfly, a butterfly flitting and flutter- its free spirit, imaginative expressions, evocative ing around, happy with himself and do- images and deliberate reversal of meaning fit ing as he pleased. He didn’t know he their needs perfectly. Moreover, the Zhuangzi was Zhuang Zhou. Suddenly he woke asserts an aesthetic attitude that sees beautiful up and there he was, solid and unmis- qualities in ordinary and even “low” beings. This takable Zhuang Zhou. But he didn’t attitude makes it immediately possible to provide know if he was Zhuang Zhou who had the vernacular haikai language with “wonderful dreamt he was a butterfly, or a butterfly meaning,” or poetic essence. In addition, the dreaming he was Zhuang Zhou.34 Zhuangzi as a Chinese classic has been known in Japan since the Nara period. Though never so Comparing Kigin’s entry and the passage much emphasized as by the haikai poets, the from the Zhuangzi, it is clear that the essence of Zhuangzi has the status of classic and popularity butterfly as a seasonal word is infused with the among educated people. These qualities readily meaning of the gugen in the Zhuangzi. To dem- make it a useful referential source for the group onstrate the use of the image, Kigin provides composition of comic linked verse. Thus, the some verses in the entry. One of them is as the Zhuangzi is chosen as an effective mediating following: source to fill up the void in haikai’s signifying system. chiru hana ya Scattering blossoms: kocho no yume The dream of a butterfly— The Essence of Haikai Image and the hyakunenme A hundred years in a Zhuangzi gleam.

Among many images that carry hon’i from An informed reader can easily recognize that the Zhuangzi, the butterfly is the most the essence of the images, as well as that of the well-known and frequently used. Even before the entire verse, are situated in the intertext of the Danrin’s assertion, its association with the Zhuangzi. The butterfly links to dream through Zhuangzi had already been part of the normative the gugen on Zhuang Zhou’s dream and these essence of the image. When defining the hon’i of two images as mediating signs form the primary the seasonal words in haikai, Kigin writes the metaphor: the transient reality can hardly be dis- following under the entry “butterfly:” tinguished from a brief dream. This essence de- rived from the Zhuangzi is favorably presented in Butterfly: The scene of a butterfly the poetry of the Danrin as well. One of Soin’s alighting on rape blossoms, napping poems reads: among the flowers with no worries, or its appearance as it flutters its feathery chocho no yumeji ya The road in the dream wings, dancing like snowflakes whirling. of the butterfly-- Also, it is assoc iated with Zhuang do ni mayou ran It must have lost its Zhou’s dream, suggesting that one hun- Way.35 dred years pass as a gleam in the butter- fly’s dream.33

34 Watson, CWC, p. 49. The romanization of the 33 Teimon haikaishu (Tokyo: Nihon Haisho name has been altered. Taikei Kankokai, 1926), p. 426. 35 Monodaneshu ‛⒳㓸, KHT, III, p. 453.

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As in the poem cited above, in this verse The Danrin school favours the content link. The “butterfly” and “dream” are paired, pointing to way of joining also has its hon’i, in which the the canonical text upon which the poem is con- conventionalized associations of words, images, structed. Interestingly, Soin makes a parody of and themes are the core. Zhuangzi’s gugen through the use of a pun in The existence of hon’i in linking is very im- the poem. The word do in Japanese can signify portant to a group composition, because it forms both the “road” in the ordinary meaning and “the the basis of the shared knowledge that helps to Way” as the universal principle in the Daoist, create an extemporaneous sequence. But, when a Buddhist, and Confucian teachings, but the pres- haigon is used as the central image or theme, the ence of the mediating sign, “butterfly,” suggests a conventional association of words, images, and reading of the word in the Daoist context. By us- themes are no longer available to form the link. ing the pun combined with the butterfly’s dream, In order to bridge this gap in linking, the Danrin the poem casts a comic version of its model poets borrow the asobi ㆆ䈶--the non-pragmatic, gugen: the butterfly--the transformed self of carefree, and iconoclastic attitude--of the Zhuang Zhou (Zhuangzi)--has lost his Way, the Zhuangzi to renew the principles regarding the Do, in his dream. Soin’s verse makes perfect link. After the verse about the hungry bug, Soin sense either with or without the model text. Yet, has a joined verse as the following: only with the normative essence of the other text, Soin’s deceptive transfer of the butterfly’s dream creates a comedy, the haikai spirit the Danrin noasobi ni Outing to the fields -- poets much valued. kakeri mawarit Running around matashitewa Once and again. The Essence of Haikai Linking and the Zhuangzi Teimon’s Shibuuchiwa considers this verse as an inappropriate tsukeku, arguing that since The Danrin poets not only uses the Zhuangzi there are no established connection of either the as a cardinal source of hon’i to enrich their poetic words or the contents between this and the pre- expressions, but also to increase the possibilities ceding poem. In other words, the linking of the of joining verses together in a linked sequence. In two verses is not based on the traditional hon’i. renga and haikai, how to relate a joined verse, To disprove the Teimon’s accusation, Ichu, again, tsukeku ઃฏ to its preceding verse, maeku, is a refers to the Zhuangzi. He says: “Regarding the complicated art. There are many different types intended essence of joining, ‘Running of linking, but the major ways of joining verses around/Once and again’ is connected to ‘I want to together, as described by the Shomon poets, are eat my meal,’ and ‘Outing to the fields’ relates to three types: connection by words (kotoba-zuke ‘An insect is crying.’ Also, without changing ⹖ઃ), connection by contents ( kokoro-zuke ᔃ anything, the combination of the two verses --the ઃ), and connection by scent (nioi-zuke ൬ઃ).36 insect, at its outing to the fields, is running around and crying for a meal--reflects the hon’i of Zhuangzi’s gugen I have just mentioned. There 36 Matsuo Basho has typically associated the is nothing inappropriate.”37 As seen earlier, the Teimon haikai with the “word link” and the Dan- gugen Ichu cites is full of wild imagination and rin haikai with the “content link.” He character- free fabrication, and when citing the gugen Ichu izes the haikai of his own school, the Shomon, asserts that “haikai should take this as its own with “scent link.” “Scent link” relies neither on normative essence.” Here Ichu applies this liberal classical lexical associations nor on content con- spirit of creation to their method of linking. Ev i- nections. Instead, the joined verse is linked to the previous verse by shared mood or atmosphere. For an in-depth discussion on the methods of Poetry of Basho (Stanford: Stanford University linking in haikai, see Haruo Shirane, Traces of Press, 1998), pp. 82-115. Dreams, Landscape, Cultural Memory, and the 37 Shibuuchiwa hento, p.62.

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dently, by referring to the Zhuangzi the Danrin (xiaoyaoyou ㅖ㆝ㆆ, shoyoyu in Japanese) and poets not only immensely expanded their signi- “Natural and non-interference” (ziran wuwei ⥄ fying system but also enjoyed much greater free- ὼήὑ, shizen mui in Japanese). dom in creating novel links. Note that the sig- The Shomon’s early poems that draw on the nificance of this new way of linking is not limited Zhuangzi reflect Danrin tastes. A hokku contest to its novelty. By associating their way of linking entitled Inaka no kuawase ↰⥢䈱ฏว (Hokku with the Zhuangzi, the Danrin introduced the contest in the boondocks, 1680), for example, asobi spirit into the essence of linking, adding contains a number of poems that make explicit or philosophical overtone to the witty verse play. implicit allusions to the Zhuangzi. One of them However, the Danrin’s use of the Zhuangzi had limitations. Their understanding of the says: Zhuangzi was limited main ly to its unrestrained Riding on a kite expressions and a few notions from the famous tobi ni notte haru wo okuru ni To see the spring off-- gugen stories. As one might expect, the verses shirakumo ya The white clouds.38 they produced with reference to the Zhuangzi did not have enduring appeal, although some of them While appearing to be an imaginary portrait left very novel impressions. of a late spring scene, this verse makes a hidden Nonetheless, the Danrin’s attempt to use the allusion to the “Free and Easy Wandering” chap- Zhuangzi to regenerate the existing signifying ter in the Zhuangzi, which creates an image of a system inspired later haikai poets. Matsuo Tosei Peng bird that soars in the vast sky with great ᧻የ᩶㕍 (Matsuo Basho ⧊⭈), who studied freedom. Although the poem does not use any with both the Teimon and the Danrin masters and word directly from the Zhuangzi, Basho’s com- later founded his own group, the Shomon school, ments on the poem reveal their connections: attained a deeper understanding of the poetic “Riding on a kite and wandering freely in the possibilities suggested by the Daoist classic boundless infinity, the joy expressed in the verse through his observation of Chinese poetic tradi- of the right group is indeed boundless.” 39 tion. In Basho’s poetry the Zhuangzi as an inter- In the Zhuangzi, “free and easy wandering” text is organically integrated in the poet’s lyrical is a figurative description of the state of ultimate depiction of his aesthetic experience, creating a freedom, and to achieve this state is considered to world at once expressive and profound. be the culmination of joy. Apparently, Basho’s criterion is based on this essence of the Zhuangzi The Essence of the Haikai Experience and the and he praises the verse because it creates an at- Zhuangzi mosphere reminiscent of what is described in the “Free and Easy Wandering” chapter. As in the The Shomon school became prominent dur- verses of the Danrin school discussed earlier, ing a time when “Chinese style” became very here the intended metaphor is established through popular among haikai poets. Different from the its intertextual reference to the Zhuangzi. But Teimon and the Danrin, who borrowed the instead of citing key images and words directly Zhuangzi for didactic or rhetorical purpose, from the model text, the reference in this poem is Basho and his followers found correspondences concealed in an imaginary scene. To understand between the Daoist principles and the Chinese poetic tradition, particularly the relationship be- tween the Daoist spirit and the recluse traits in Chinese poetry. From the beginning, Basho and 38 Komiya Toyotaka ዊች⼾㓉, et al, comp., his disciples drew upon a staggering body of Kohon Basho zenshu ᩞᧄ⧊⭈ో㓸 (Tokyo: Chinese sources in their works, and Basho’s allu- Kadokawa Shoten, 1962-69. Henceforth abbrevi- sions and citations showed a salient inclination ated KBZ), VII, p. 362. towards the reclusive taste that could be charac- teristically described with the key notions of the 39 Inaka no kuawase, KBZ, VII, p. 362. Zhuangzi, namely, the “free and easy wandering”

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this kind of mediating sign, a good knowledge of kori nigaku Ice -- bitter-tasting-- the Zhuangzi is required. Indeed, at this time, the enso ga nodo wo Just enough to moisten Shomon poets already knew the Daoist classic uruoseri The throat of the very well, as Hattori Ransetsu (1654-1707), a mole. 43 major poet of the Shomon school, proudly wrote in his preface to the Inaka no kuawase: “Master While the verse is easily comprehensible as a Tosei’s comments encapsulated the quintessence humorous sketch of the hardship of Basho’s life of Zhuang Zhou’s thought. It could make the at the hut, the peculiar choice of the haigon, the eloquent Lin Xiyi speechless.”40 Yet, at this mole, draws the reader’s attention and causes him stage, the Shomon’s adoption of Daoist ideas was feel unsatisfied with a mimetic reading. This pe- still on a conceptual level, not far beyond that of culiar image, in fact, is not a description of an the preceding Danrin school. This tendency was animal that happened to be in the sight of the changed by Basho’s observation of the spirit of speaker. As has frequently been pointed out, it is free and easy wandering as the quintessence of an allusion to a gugen in the Zhuangzi. According Chinese poetic tradition; the great haikai master to the gugen, Yao, the legendary monarch, wants asserted this spirit with both his poetry and his to cede the empire to recluse Xu You ⸵↱. Xu life. says: In the early winter of 1680, Basho moved from one area of Edo to a thatched hut on the You govern the world and the world is al- less-developed east bank of the Sumida River in ready well governed. Now if I take your the Fukagawa district. Hirota calls this dwelling a place, will I be doing it for a name? But “site for Basho to put free and easy wandering name is only the guest of reality -- will I be into practice.”41 Although not in the exact sense doing it so I can play the part of a guest? of a believer’s practice of his religion, Basho’s When the tailorbird builds her nest in the move to Fukagawa was a sincere effort to pursue deep wood, she uses no more than one the poetic ideals of eccentricity and unconven- branch. When the mole drinks at the river, he tionality (fukyo 㘑⁅ and furyu 㘑ᵹ), which, as takes no more than a bellyful. Go home and he saw, were embodied in the aesthete-recluse forget the matter, my lord. I have no use for tradition of China and Japan and highlighted by the rulership of the world.44 the spirit of free and easy wandering.42 The poems in Minashiguri ⯯ᩙ (Empty chestnut, About this passage, Lin Xiyi’s annotation 1683), a collection of haikai published after explains: “That Xu You does not want to play the Basho’s move to Fukagawa, clearly reflect this part of a guest means he does not let outer things pursuit. The following poem from that collection dominate him. The ‘tailorbird’ and the ‘mole’ are is Basho’s portrayal of his hut life: metaphors Xu You uses for himself, implying that he, like the mole, is contented with what he has.”45 As indicated by Lin’s explanations, the

40 Inaka no kuawase, p. 375. 43 KBZ, I, p. 72. The poem is a hokku in the col- lection. 41 Hirota, Basho no geijutsu, p. 323. 44 Watson, CWC, pp. 32-33. 42 For a fuller discussion of the relationship of the Daoist idea and the reclusive traits in Chinese 45 Lin Xiyi, Zhuangzi Juanzhai kouyi (J. Soji poetry, see Peipei Qiu, “Poetics of the Natural: A Kensai kogi, Kyoto edition, 1627. Henceforth Study of Taoist Influence on Basho.” Ph. D. abbreviated ZJK.), 1/8a & b. The work is re- dissertation, Columbia University (Ann Arbor: printed in Nagasawa Kikuya, comp.,Wakokubon UMI, 1994), pp. 83-109. shoshi taisei ๺ೞᧄ⻉ሶᄢᚑ (Tokyo: Kyuko Shoin, 1976), IX and X. It has been noted by both

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metaphor of the mole evokes a preference for kuwanomi ya The mulberries -- simplicity and spiritual freedom, which carries hananaki cho no Without flowers, they are the essence Basho seeks when using the word in the butterfly’s his hokku. Thus, the “mole” functions not merely yosutezake Hermit wine. as an element in the picture or reality, but also as a mediating sign that signifies the specific hon’i. In this poem, the familiar association be- With this mediating sign, all the other details are tween “butterfly” and “dream” is replaced with a translated, and the humour of the tableau takes on novel combination: “butterfly” is combined with philosophical depth: the mole is in fact the eccen- the “mulberries,” a seasonal word for summer tric self-image of the speaker, who, following the and an image of the countryside, creating a aesthete-recluse tradition, finds perfect happiness close-up shot of a peaceful moment of rural life. in the solitary and humble life. At first glance the allusion seems to have com- Basho’s allusion above demonstrates a fun- pletely faded in the rural scenery, but the occur- damental difference from that of the Danrin rence of the last image, yosutezake ਎ᝥ䈩㈬, or school: while forming an intertextual construct the hermit wine, alerts the reader to consider the that amplifies the poetic significance, it also ex- meaning of the first lines in light of the recluse presses the speaker’s emotive experience that taste. Yosutezake is not a commonly used word. It resonates with the tradition represented by the is a compound made of two nouns: yosute, re- model text. In this meaning, Basho’s use of the nouncing the world, and sake, wine. With a ret- classic is not only referential, but also lyrical. It roactive reading, the intertextual context surfaces restores lyricism to haikai, which, in the hands of and adds layers of signif icance to the seemingly the Danrin, had become a kind of intellectual simple poem. An informed reader will realize that game. This quality of Basho’s poetry owes much each of the first two images is loaded with sig- to his unique way of life as a hut-dweller and a nificance accumulated in previous texts. The im- constant wayfarer. As a sincere artist he lived a age “mulberries” has long been used in Chinese life in the way he wanted to portray in his art. poetry to signify rustic country life. Since the Of course, not all of Basho’s verses which foremost Chinese recluse poet Tao Qian 㒻ẜ refer to the Zhuangzi are expressive, but, in his (365-427) uses the image in his famous poem mature works, whenever an intertextual reference “Returning to Gardens and Fields to Dwell” (Gui is used, the poet skillfully fuses it with his own yuantian ju Ꮻ࿦↰ዬ), the mulberry tree has aesthetic experience so that the intertextual con- been used as a typical image to signify the life struct and the expressive/descriptive mode form a and taste of a recluse. More specifically, it is a natural unity. Basho seems to have deliberately symbol of the setting in which a lofty recluse avoided using those “worn-out” expressions cited finds home. In waka tradition, too, the image is from the Zhuangzi, such as the butterfly in always associated with pastoral scenes. Since Zhuang Zhou’s dream, perhaps because they Basho’s works often make direct quotations from make it more difficult to achieve natural unity. Tao Qian’s poetry, his depiction of the mulberries But when he does make an allusion to a as the hermit wine here is apparently a careful well-known gugen, he shows his mastery in choice that evokes the association between his melting it naturally in his poetic world. The fol- immediate experience of the hut life and the long lowing poem is also from Minashiguri. recluse tradition. The transfer of the significance of the first image leads to an intertextual reading of the second one, suggesting the possible inter- pretation of butterfly as a special sign from the Nonomura and Hirota that Basho’s allusion per- gugen about Zhuang Zhou’s dream. In this con- haps draws not only on the Zhuangzi, but also on text, the butterfly becomes an agent of the phi- Lin’s explanations. See Nonomura’s annotation losophical perception of the fleeting nature of to Minashikuri, KBZ, III, p. 232, and Hirota, reality. It is to this butterfly that the retreat from Basho no geijutsu, pp. 311-313. the transient world is preferable, and the mulber-

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ries at a hermit’s yard are tasty like delicious wine. From the opening sentence, the haibun seems As seen above, the spirit of free and easy to resist deciphering according to the normal wandering had a remarkable impact on the the- meaning of the words. The reader is forced to matic tendency of the Shomon school in the determine the implications either by guessing or 1680s. Along with the maturity of his poetic style by searching for references. If we agree that po- in the 1690s, Basho consciously applied the Dao- etry is meant to express concepts and things by ist principles in his critical theories. His critical indirection, this paragraph is no doubt poetry, for thought in this period placed much emphasis on its language deliberately avoids directness and naturalness, a tendency closely related to the clarity. Daoist hallmark of the Natural. Stressing natu- It has been repeatedly pointed out that ralness in poetic expression, his hokku and linked Basho’s peculiar description of his body at the verses tended to use fewer allusions and quota- beginning of the paragraph is inspired by the tions. But his prose poems, the haibun େᢥ Zhuangzi. In the second chapter of the Zhuangzi, (haikai prose) and kikobun ♿ⴕᢥ (travel ac- there is a similar description: counts), still frequently make references to hon- zetsu, and the Zhuangzi was among the sources The hundred joints, the nine openings, he draws upon the most. Perhaps one reason for the six organs, all come together and this is because the intertextual signifier is essen- exist here (as my body). . . . It would tial to indicate the poetic quality of a haibun, seem as though there must be some since a haibun has no conventionally fixed form True Lord among them. But whether I that sets it apart from ordinary narratives. One of succeed in discovering his identity or Basho’s famous travel accounts, Oi no kobumi not, it neither adds nor detracts from his 47 ╅䈱ዊᢥ (Manuscript in my knapsack), for Truth. example, begins with the following paragraph: Using the Zhuangzi as a reference, the reader In my body, which has one hundred realizes that the phrase, “the hundred bones and bones and nine openings, exists some- nine openings,” though not the exact words of the thing I have called furabo 㘑⟜ဌ. I Zhuangzi, serves as a mediating text that calls for a retroactive reading. In this context the reader must have meant that my body resem- can also realize that the furabo indicates the true bles spun silk that is easily torn in the identity of Basho, just like the “True Lord” in the wind. From long ago, this furabo has body of Zhuangzi. Furabo, which has been loved the “eccentric poem,” and at last, translated differently into “wind-swept spirit,”48 made this its life’s task. Sometimes it “Gauze-in-the-Wind-Priest,”49 and has become tired and ready to abandon it; other times it has become so proud that it feels superior to others. Then, “right” and “wrong” would conflict in- side it, leaving its body with no peace. At one time it wanted to establish itself through worldly pursuits, but its poetry 47 stopped it; for a while it also wanted to Watson, CWC, p. 38. devote itself to learning and become a 48 scholar, but again its hope was shattered Nobuyuki Yuasa, trans., Basho: The Narrow by its art. In the end, being incapable Road to the Deep North and Other Travel and talentless, it has been bound to a Sketches, (Harmondsworth: Penguin Press, 1966), single line of poetry.46 p. 71.

49 Donald Keene, World Within Walls (New 46 Oi no kobumi, KBZ, VI, p, 75. York: Grove Press, Inc., 1976), p. 92.

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“wind-blown-hermit,”50 etc., is a creature that is wind and rain, we can see that vanishing along easily broken, is devoid of worldly values and with nature’s course is not presented as a tragic willingly submits itself to nature’s force, the wind. experience in Basho’s world. Instead, he high- In Basho’s works there is another metaphorical lights the total acceptance of nature’s working image the poet likes to use as his self-portrait--the and the ultimate peace of being one with nature. plantain tree. Plantain, the word in Japanese is This spirit is the essence of free and easy wan- basho ⧊⭈, represents the same qualities as that dering. It is also the hon’i the poet tries to convey of Furabo. In his prose poem “On Replanting the in his poetic prose. Plantain Tree,” Basho describes the plantain tree In the retrospective discourse that follows his as the following: depiction of furabo, the poet deliberately sets his eccentric way of life apart from that of a diligent Shaken by the wind, the leaves wave scholar. The statement of “being incapable and as a phoenix’s tail. Torn in the rain, they talentless, he has been bound to a single line of look like a green dragon’s ears. The poetry” may sound illogical to Western readers. new leaves grow rapidly each day, as This simultaneously self-depreciating and what Zhang Hengqu has wished for his self-praising tone, however, is characteristic in learning, and as if they are eager to un- traditional Chinese and Japanese writings, and the roll under master Huaisu’s writing glorification of incapability and uselessness brush. But I don’t follow these two represents Daoist values. Thus, with the Daoist models. I simply enjoy my le isure time classic and the related literature as the intertextual in the shade; I love these plantain leaves reference, this seemingly ambiguous and gloomy for the ease with which they are torn in narrative is turned into poetry, a lyrical portrait of the wind and the rain.51 the speaker’s poetic self. As seen in the examples discussed above, the The attitude toward life as symbolized by the Edo period haikai poets’ interests in the Zhuangzi plantain leaves is clearly Daoist. Zhang Hengqu had much to do with the tradition of Japanese ᒛᮮᷯ (1022-1077), a celebrated Song Confu- poetry that emphasized the authority of the clas- sics. Following this classical tradition, the haikai cian scholar, and Huaisu ᙬ⚛ (634-707?), a poets borrowed the old to invent the new, and it famous priest and calligrapher, were both model was in this context that they used the Zhuangzi as scholars who achieved success through hard work. an authoritative reference to justify comic linked It is said that when seeing the rapid growth of the verse and to regenerate its poetic essence. From plantain leaves, Zhang wrote a poem to express the Danrin to the Shomon, the continuous efforts his wish for his learning to grow as fast as the of the haikai poets achieved success, and the po- plantain tree. Huaisu’s name was related to the etic essence invented through the intertextuality plantain because he used plantain leaves as paper between haikai and the ancient Daoist classic to practice writing skills. But Basho declares that helped turn the witty comic linked verse into a he will follow neither of them; what he prefers is profound poetry. the life of non-doing--to enjoy his leisure time in the shade of the plantain leaves. Noting the beau- tiful images Basho chooses to describe the ap- pearance of the plantain leaves broken in the

50 Richard B. Pilgrim, “The Religio-Aesthetic of Matsuo Basho,” in The Eastern Buddhist, 10 (1977) p. 38.

51 Basho o utsusu kotoba ⧊⭈䉕⒖䈜⹖, KBZ, VI, pp. 504-505.

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cifically on senryu (“comic haiku”), rakusho At Wit’s End: Satirical Verse (graffiti in verse), and hayariuta (popular songs), it explores correspondences of class and genre Contra Formative Ideologies during this period of ideological transformation in Bakumatsu and Meiji Japan from last years of the Tokugawa Bakufu to the modern nation of Japan. Reading representative Dean Anthony Brink examples of these anonymous verses, it attempts Japanese Studies to analyze these verse genres and subgenera in Saint Martin’s College their historical contexts to identify their ideo- logical positioning relative to current social is- Rap on a half-cut head sues. In increasing our understanding of the there is the sound of makeshift conserva- ideological uses associated with specific verse tism. genres, forms and conventions, these verses, os- Rap on a full-cut head tensibly rooted in protest and satire, provide de- you hear the restoration of imperial rule. tailed sketches of changes in the ideological con- Rap the close-cropped head texts within which they were written. One can there is the sound of civilization and see most dramatically in senryu of the mid Meiji enlightenment. period a transformation from being protest verse ඨ㜬㗡ࠍߚߚ޿ߡ⷗ࠇ߫ޔ࿃ᓴᆑᕷߩ㖸 to being mildly satirical verse in confluence with broader national policies and ideological tenden- ߇ߔࠆޕ cies. ✚㜬㗡ࠍߚߚ޿ߡ⷗ࠇ߫ޔ₺᡽ᓳฎߩ㖸 One can see in these verses various struggles ߇ߔࠆޕ to make sense of the change from an officially ࠫࡖࡦࠡ࡝㗡ࠍߚߚ޿ߡߺࠇ߫ޔᢥ᣿㐿 isolated Tokugawa context and ideology to a ൻߩ㖸߇ߔࠆޕ multinational array of ideologies within which “Japan” resituates itself. One of the recurrent themes in satirical verses of this period is how to The Place of Satirical and Protest Verse Forms solve widespread problems and build a great na- in Bakumatsu and Meiji Japan1 tion in comparison with European nations. These verses demonstrate the range of debate in the This paper examines the historical parame- process of this transformation, and are ideologi- ters for writing satirical verse during the late ba- cally productive, not merely “reflective” of any kumatsu and early Meiji period.2 Focusing spe- tenuously established ideologies. These verses detail evidence of class-specific accommodations made as writers surmised broadly acceptable 1 I would like to thank William Sibley at the ideological bases for mutually tolerated beliefs University of Chicago for his suggestions in nu- and behaviors among the various existing and merous translations and regarding keys points nascent classes. made in this paper, Kano Masanao and Haru From the mid 1850s through the crushing Shiro at Waseda University for introducing me to defeat of the last serious samurai rebellion in rakusho and sources, and to the anonymous re- 1877, the country remained precariously balanced viewers who raised clarifying issues. between reactionary samurai seeking a return to power, peasant protestors, and the new bureauc- 2 Bakumatsu is the historiographical term for the racy in Tokyo. The government stood on shaky period of the downfall of the Tokugawa Bakufu, ground not only in terms of the threat of a the government and system that had unified the counter-revolution by the old guard of the warrior country since the early 17th century. Its decline class; it was thought that a revolution from below extends from the 1830s to 1868, the year the could grow out of the People's Rights Movement, Meiji period begins and imperial rule is restored. which had successfully built its movement in part I will treat verse as late as the 1890s. by the “word of mouth” effect of disseminated

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hayariuta (popular songs), some of which resem- We soldiers of the empire have our enemies, ble shintaishi more than songs. For instance, Ueki imperial enemies impermissible in the Emori's (1857-1892) “Minken Inaka Uta” (Rural realm. Song of People’s Rights, 1879), which, though Though the enemy general be great, published before the seminal Shintaishisho a hero unsurpassed in any age, (1882), has elements of both shintaishi and ha- Tthough the warriors marching in his wake yariuta: go together to their certain death, Courage to stand undaunted before fierce Freedom, endowing the body of man gods from head to foot, surpasses cannot justify rebellion against heaven. the many fleeting things of the heart, merges mind and body – call it ๋ߪቭァᚒ߇ᢜߪ ᄤ࿾ኈࠇߑࠆᦺᢜߙ a realm of heaven and earth ᢜߩᄢ዁ߚࠆ⠪ߪ ฎ੹ή෺ߩ⧷㓶ߢ with oneself a person standing on one’s own ߎࠇߦᓥ߁ߟࠊ߽ߩߪ ౒ߦᘋᖉ᳿ᱫߩ with nothing else lacking, ჻ declaring the liberation of man. freedom, freedom, man is free…. 㝩␹ߦᕯߓߧാ޽ࠆ߽ ᄤߩ⸵ߐߧ෻ ㅒࠍ ⥄↱ߥࠆߙ߿ੱ㑆ߩ߆ࠄߛ ⿠ߎߖߒ⠪ߪᤄࠃࠅ ᩕ߃ߒߚ߼ߒ᦭ࠄ 㗡߽⿷߽஻ߪࠅߡ ߑࠆߙ ᔃߩ㔤ᅱਁ‛ߦ⿧߃ࠆ ᢜߩ੢߱ࠆߘࠇㄥߪ ㅴ߼߿ㅴ߼⻉౒ߦ ᔃߣりߣ߇୾ߪࠆࠊ ₹ᢔࠆ೶ᛮ߈ߟࠇߡ ᱫߔࠆⷡᖗߢㅴ߻ 4 ৻ߩᄤ࿾ࠍવ߽߰ࠃߒ ߴߒ ⥄ಽ৻ੱߪ৻ੱߢ┙ߟࠃ In terms of style and ideology, “Minken ߥߦ߽ਇ⿷ߪߥ߭ߙ޿ߩ Inaka Uta” used colloquial language (zokugo) and was in the “enlightenment style (keimocho), ߘߎࠄߢੱ㑆ࠍ⥄↱ߣ↳ߔ 3 which intended to empower the subjects of an ⥄↱ߓ߿⥄↱ߓ߿ੱ㑆ߪ⥄↱ envisioned democratic Japan, while “Battoutai” used a kanshi (Chinese poetry) style aligned with Kubota Masafumi even recognizes it as the the samurai of the former Tokugawa ruling class, first original poem in a new style, beside transla- and was written in a “commanding style” tions by Nakajima Hirotari (1792-1864) and Ka- (meireicho), which intended to inculcate in the tsu Kaishu (1823-1899), translations of hymns reader a sense of patriotic mission. “Battoutai” (sanbika), very popular "crazy poems" (kyoshi) sought to unify the country by rousing in unison by Narushima Ryuhoku (1837-1884), and Fuku- the forces that had been opposed in the Seinan zawa Yukichi's Sekai Kuni Tsukushi and Ansho War, and depicted both gover nment and rebels as Jushi, all of which lack the rhetoric of rhapsodic patriotic, though Saigo’s side as having been integration found in both the “Minken Inaka Uta” tragically misguided. 5 and the translations and original poems of the This demonstrated power of song and poetry Shintaishisho. Composed at the peak of the jiyu- convinced the Meiji government and its allies of minken movement, Kubota correctly sees Toyama the ideological potential of verse, and it spon- Masakazu’s (1848-1900) “Battoutai” as having sored deployments of poetry that championed been written in "strict opposition" to Ueki's unity of purpose in its policies of nation-building “Minken Inaka Uta.”“Battoutai” (ᛮಷ㓌, Sword-Drawing Brigade) opens: 4 Yamamiya 43-44.

5 See ’s Kubota Masafumi. Nihon Gendaishi Jiten, 3 Ueki Emori. Ueki Emori Zenshu, v. 1. Iwanami, Hokujindo, 1955, 262-263. 1990, 30-34.

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under the program of the Kaika (or Enlighten- see in the Shintaishisho the use of verse to co-opt ment, as in the slogan Bunmei Kaika, “Civiliz a- the rhapsodic, patriotic vision found in Ueki’s tion and Enlightenment”).6 The government’s jiyuminken hayariuta-shintaishi, so as to supplant influence on shintaishi is disucussed by Honma the threat of unrest and focus on “freedom” the Hisao, who while calling Ueki’s poetry “no more exaltation of discrete subjects with a more than infantile, propagandistic literature,”7 argues duty-bound patriotic fervor for an em- that the use of poetry and song by Ueki Emori peror-oriented nation. and other participants in the jiyuminken move- It was in no small part this governmental ef- ment to disseminate their ideals directly lead to fort to maintain power that engendered shintaishi, the use of such forms for other propagandistic the high-profile, “literary” verse form emerging purposes, though with less ostensibly poli- after the Meiji Restoration and modeled mostly tico-ideological ends.8 We must add, precedents after English verse in the Shintaisho. In this way, for such uses of verse are found most notably in the grass roots satirical verses and hayariuta Fukuzawa Yukichi‘s Sekai Kunizukushi (Meiji 4), stimulated ideological counter measures by the and others who found in the model of the versi- Meiji regime, which attempted to discredit them fied textbooks of the terakoya (Tokugawa era by offering literary shintaishi as a superior alter- schools especially for merchant children) an apt native. The successful propagation of the jiyu- form for educating and influencing people ideo- minken movement by disseminating hayariuta logically. What was different in shintaishi, as it (some of which have been called shin-hayariuta drew on the jiyuminken movement’s use of poetry, [new popular songs]9 as well as shintaishi was the emotional and patriotic investment in the [new-style poems]) lead the government itself to voice, something virtually absent in the dry use of sponsor anthologies of shoka (school songs, verse by earlier writers such as Fukuzawa, who songs for singing), which figure prominently in had been trained in the writing of scholarly kan- the history of shintaishi.10 Similarly, shi, which tend to demonstrate restraint and a pro-government writers translated and wrote rhetoric of sound Confucian equanimity. Thus we shintaishi, aligning themselves with the govern- ment and viewing hayariuta as a destabilizing threat to it. As the government censored hayari- 6 “Bunmei Kaika” was a slogan to modernize on uta of the people's rights movement, in their the model of advanced European countries and the United States. Thus the “Kaika” is the period from the 1870s through the 1880s when the gov- 9 See Soeda’s discussion of the jiyuminken ernment exacted policies, such as the support for movement songs as “shin-hayariuta” in Soeda translating Western public ations, and changes in Toshimichi [Azenbo]. Hayariuta Meiji Taisho Shi. the legal codes so as to encourage the adoption of Tosui Shobo, 1983 [1933], 37. For poems or Western socio-political culture and expunge what songs included in both hayariuta and shintaishi was considered vulgar and not meeting Western collections and anthologies from the Meiji period standards of being “civilized” as they were un- to the present, see, for instance, Soeda, 26, 41ff; derstood at the time (military might, wealth, Fujizawa Morihiko. Ryukoka Hyakunenshi. Dai- technology and industry figured prominently). ichi Shuppansha, 1951. 1951, 267, 233; and Ya- mamiya Makoto, ed. Nihon Gendaishi Taikei, v.I. 7 Though the intertextual politics surrounding the Kawade Shobo Shinsha, 1974, 88-89. uses of various shintaishi styles (such as in “Minken Inaka Uta” and “Battoutai”) by different 10 On the government’s role and motives in the political and literary interests will be developed publication of shoka see Tadayoshi Keizo. in a later work, a brief overview of pertinent is- Kindai Nihon Ongaku Kyoikushi (2 volumes), sues is presented here. Honma Hisao. Meiji Bun- Gakubunsha, 1980; and Yamazumi Masumi. gakushi [shimo] . Tokyodo, 1949, 68. Shoka Kyoiku Seiritsu Katei no Kenkyu. Tokyo Daigaku Shuppankai, 1967. 8 Honma 69.

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place it encouraged verse reflecting the aim of the nation vis-à-vis foreign powers as well as in- unifying the populace and dissuading people ternal issues and the language of grandeur be- from calling for human rights and democracy. came the wellspring of jokes and extended com- Backers of the government sought to "enlighten" parisons in satirical verse. their audience with patriotic sentiments that ap- In this state of affairs, as in any society ex- pealed to a sense of national duty and beckoned periencing major disruptions and changes, current all to emulate an aristocratic tone of valorous events and discursive aims dictated “style” as self-sacrifice and to extol the greatness of the well as subject matter. For example, because of national polity (implying subordination, not “lib- this matching of uses and style, waka, which eration,” of the subject).11 were steeped in a tradition based on a strictly lim- The examples presented below demonstrate ited poetic lexicon and standardized range of how ironies and conflicts surrounding the topics, were incapable of treating current events socio-political and cultural upheavals that define involving so many changes on such a broad and the period were not lost on any of the classes, and material scale. Therefore, simply the attempt to how verse became a tool for shrewdly shaping engage new topics in waka (even in unorthodox and amending positions with regard to the na- or haikai) would necessitate lapsing into the tion’s state of affairs as well as the symbolic “vulgar” or comic verse style such as is found in characterizations of the “nation.” From the crises kyoka (“crazy poems”) and senryu.12 Yet waka of the 1860s through the changes of the Kaika, composition and appreciation continued to be one the social order was extremely unstable in terms of the most ideologically potent symbols of ac- of political leadership, economics, legal codes, complished status and sovereignty for former accepted cultural practices, and foreign relations. samurai, scholars, the titular aristocracy of the Communities across Japan were shaken by infla- court, and others. Senryu, rakusho and hayariuta tion and shortages, prolonged terrorist attacks and on the other hand, formed the frontlines in the use fighting by samurai, humiliation at the hands of of verse to garner political support or public foreign powers wielding gunboat diplomacy and sympathy at a grass-roots level. Comic, satirical the threat of increased coercion (as they had seen and protest verses tentatively drew together di- happen in China). People witnessed the abolish- verse discourses (producing their comic effects) ment of the Shogun-centered bakuhan governing and tended to contribute to the potential estab- system, and a policy of Westernization under the lishment of political subjects contrary to the elit- emperor as restored monarch unifying and trans- ist and didactic polities of Meiji government of- forming the old Tokugawa coalition into a mod- fices. ern nation. Much satirical verse is "serious" at the same While there were internal economic and ag- time as it elicits a raucous round of laughter in ricultural problems, a Darwinian sense of world protest and leaves the problem of governing ulti- history (within and without Japan) threatened and mately to others. The satirical and protest verses challenged Japan to compete in the “struggle of often do not imply assertions of sovereignty or the fittest,” so that a sense of national danger even a will to rule. Indeed, even in the yonaoshi13 would become integral to an intoxicating patriot- ism that developed. Even while Japan was still vulnerable, pompous declarations of greatness 12 “Crazy poems” is the designation used by the and military might were common in Japan as in late Andrew Marcus in research on kyoka. See other modernizing nations during this age of im- Markus, Andrew Lawrence. The Willow Tree in perialism. The gap between the precariousness of Autumn: Ryutei Tanehiko, 1783-1842. Cambridge, Mass.: Council on East Asian Studies, Harvard University Press, 1992. 11 On the politics of “Battotai” and other poems in the Shintaishisho, as well as shoka, see Aka- 13 Peasant yonaoshi “world renewal” protests tsuka Yukio. Shitaishisho Zengo — Meiji no were directed against rich merchants who had Shiika. Gakugei Shorin, 1991, esp. 59-76. upset the precedence of peasants before mer-

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and Eejanaika14 songs, there is little that, strictly With the complexity of the relation of poetry speaking, can be called utopian or revolutionary; and nation being compounded by issues of class it is restricted protest not preoccupied with an and subject-position in Japan, poetry provides an overarching vision. There is “renewal” in a cy- opportunity for review of how we understand the clical, agricultural sense or as in a carnivalesque origins of the modern Japanese nation and its religious purification, but not a visionary early “working” ideologies. It is not an exaggera- “movement” toward wide-sweeping changes. tion to say that ideological testing of modes of While not underscoring grandiose treatises aim- integrative and centralizing enunciation took ing to change the world (as one finds, for instance, place in verse. Though senryu in the late 1890s in P. B. Shelley and Yoshida Shoin), protest and displays a dramatic change in the correlation of satirical verse at this time often evidences a this verse form with disputes leveled against shrewd critical apparatus. Remonstrative prac- prevalent government positions. With a growing tices are highly compatible with Confucian ideas capitulation to an ascendant nationalism, one of socio-political order and expectations of be- finds that the uses of verse as a form of protest nevolence on the part of the rulers, who the peo- (limited primarily to senryu at this time) were ple appeal to with respect from below.15 attenuated on the left of the political spectrum. Hayariuta, senryu, kyoka and kyoshi (crazy kanshi [Chinese poems]), as well as rakusho and chants in the class hierarchy. “With a desire to variants of all these forms, were modes of ex- level the accumulated wealth and landholdings pression that were readily adapted to and even that no longer coincided with the former status thrived in the changing lexical and social terrains hierarchy, peasants felt it necessary to destroy the of the bakumatsu and early Meiji period. Senryu prevailing power structure that had brought vil- have the distinction of gracing the front pages of lage life to an impasse and to reinstitute the moral most major newspapers in Japan still today. community in which their fathers used to live the However, most of the forms have disappeared, life of ‘peasants.’ They petitioned for ‘the conti- with the exception of hayariuta, which have nuity of the peasantry.’ In world renewal move- evolved into enka and pop music (poppusu, ka- ments (yonaoshi) they demanded lives suitable to yokyoku, or ryukoka), and rakusho, which have their social status. Acting upon their expectations become simple, usually non-versified rakugaki of world renewal, they destroyed houses, furni- (graffiti). ture, and goods, the concrete manifestations of insufficient benevolence and the private interest Senryu in the Age of an "All-encompassing of the rich and powerful. Destruction was an ex- Truth": Discursive Images from the Bunmei pression of peasant’s indignation toward the ac- Kaika to the Sino-Japanese War tual world.” Hashimoto, Mitsuru. “The Social Background of Peasant Uprisings in Tokugawa As documentation of the forces that impacted Japan,” in Najita, Tetsuo and Koschmann, J. Vic- the fall of the Bakufu, senryu provide historical tor. Conflict in Modern Japanese History. references by which we may glimpse the popular Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1982, 157. hubbub over issues of the day. Senryu probe the imagery of public discourse with witty associa- 14 Eejanaika refers to specific instances of yo- tions that usually refer to unstated assumptions, naoshi-like “spontaneous” religious and political so as to flesh out certain ideological values. protests that occurred on the eve of the restora- tion. See Norman in Dower, John W. Origins of the Modern Japanese State: Selected Writings of use of the medium of poetry to critique rulers is E.H. Norman. New York: Pantheon Books, 1975, especially notable in samurai class writing. See 343-349. Moriya Hidekatsu. Nihonshiseki kyokai sosho. Tokyo Daigaku Shuppan Kai, 1974; and Saiko 15 In kanshi by Yoshida Shoin and imprisoned Hikoichi. Yoshida Shoin Zenshu, 7. Iwanami Mito Restorationists, the conventional Confucian Shoten, 1939.

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George Lakoff and Mark Turner provide a com- nunciatory attacks on public policies or exposés pelling analysis of how words are applied in the of scandals) and other openly bitter graffiti, many context of supporting arrays of metaphors and rakusho (which can include senryu) and most associations within linguistic communities. Their senryu authors found value in a process of writ- work has the virtue of not being bogged down in ing and distribution that characterized hardship, contentious meta-theories that construct abstract unfair treatment, and official scandal in their models for how metaphors mean. Rather, they terms as commoners or disgruntled lower samurai. show how words are used with intertextual de- These songs of protest and verse tracts "from be- pendency on hitherto formed contexts for their low" developed ironically from a position of usage, which are open to deliberation. In this ap- subservience and dependency (on the good will proach, it is a small step from discussing the of the sword-bearing warrior class) to speak out metaphorical backdrop for idiomatically sound in spite of their lack of political position or rep- enunciations to discussing the formation of ideo- resentation. Such verse engendered a transgres- logical expectations. Manipulating words in all sive energy and means of enunciation that could their metaphorical potential (vis-à-vis other be propagated, enjoyed, and potentially create words) already assumes the potential for imbuing bonds of solidarity. Though one would be hard certain words with evaluative connotations and pressed to claim that late Tokugawa verse cul- establishing discursive contexts by which classes tures of the lower classes could have developed jockeyed for influence.16 into a revolutionary discourse, they certainly cre- Senryu are ideological, in their condensed ated in their example the potential for all ideo- form, both in the sense of making a statement logically oppositional parties (in relation to the de from a restricted historical point of view, and in facto Tokugawa ruling government) to draw on the “spin” they put on the news, reflecting the the idiom of these "voices" of protest, whether of relative importance not only of a point of view, sarcasm, dire urgency or righteousness. This but of one discourse over another (in terms of point helps explain how hayariuta became such a contending values, paradigms, and ways of potent tool in the Freedom and People's Rights speaking about the topic at hand). Senryu are a Movement (peaking in the early 1880s), which great genre for demythologizing the assumed pri- the government would censor while publishing its ority of one discursive context or set of issues own verse to stage its own positions as it faced an over another. The proliferation of puns derives increasing threat of revolution “from below.” from foregrounding such divisions of attention in In the process of unifying Japan as a modern senryu. Puns function as fulcrums for resituating nation, factions of former classes competed for ideological givens in terms of subtexts, “misun- legitimate voices and authority in printed texts of derstandings,” and displaced reasons for the oc- all types. Even during the bakumatsu period, currence of observed events. The satire of current fixed relationships between classes were no events in senryu involves staging and distorting longer a given, as the official orthodoxy had been words in ways that expose ideological tensions, challenged with considerable cumulative success. often by recasting decisions and actions by the Questions regarding Japan's relation to the world ruling class in terms of common, local points of and history on a global scale now had been on reference. everyone’s mind since Perry’s arrival in the 1850s, Unlike the usually drier and always illegally if not from the 1840s when news of the Opium circulated kudoki (underground printings of de- War spread.17 As a sense of shared stakes and

16 See George Lakoff and Mark Turner’s two 17 Though uncertain of the degree to which the books: More than Cool Reason: A Field Guide to general populace was aware of the Opium War Poetic Metaphor. Chicago: University of Chicago and the general threat of colonial powers wan- Press, 1989, especially 1-26, 60-71; and Meta- dering the globe in search of lucrative profits, phors We Live By. Chicago: University of Chi- recent research by Miura Tadashi suggests that cago Press, 1980, especially 3-105. there was a considerable exchange of information

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responsibilities (a national consciousness) grew on a samurai tilling the fields, rather than only the during the early decades of the Meiji period, there reverse situation. were diminished possibilities for relying on an authoritative and serious (deadpan) “other” Rustic samurai: not so much poetasting against which parody and punning could be ef- as mucking in the paddies. fortlessly sustained. Yet, senryu remain to this day a means of lampooning specific events in ↰⥢ᱞ჻ޔ੹ߪ⹞ࠃࠅ߽↰ࠍ૞ࠅ18 their historical contexts (indeed, they are often indecipherable without such knowledge); how- Much of the satire and irony derives from the ever, in periods of imperial expansion and in- fact that a poem is being written by a newly em- creased censorship (enforced and voluntary) the powered commoner. Moreover, the character for parody of serious “national” plans made "above" “poetry” (⹞, shi) referred primarily to kanshi, would lose some of its force. For instance, gunka which were composed almost solely by samurai (military songs) and shoka (school songs) were and former samurai (or educated rich land- published often as part of national and local gov- owning peasants and merchants who emulated ernment plans to propagate stability based on an them). The commoner now writes this senryu so emperor-centered and fundamentally Confucian that part of the irony (of depicted incongruity) mode for representing moral action in the new derives from the reversal of their places as peas- context of the modern Japanese state. ant and warrior and in this instance the ranking of The gap between the Bakufu ideology and their preferred forms of poetry: a vulgar form has the tentative Bunmei Kaika ideology (of “civiliz- supplanted the exalted kanshi of the old guard. ing” socio-economic Westernization) became the This typical senryu of the Kaika (Enlightenment) driving irony for many senryu and humorous period dryly illustrates an ironic reversal that de- writings of the Bunmei Kaika period. There was a livers its satirical punch with a degree of histori- tendency to juxtapose extreme differences be- cal complication that undermines its comic ges- tween life in the former Edo period and in the turing; there is less of a performance to chuckle at new Kaika period. In this way, senryu can be seen than a situation to examine ironically from a dia- as complicating how the literature of satire had chronic historical perspective. been written in the Bakumatsu period, in a Satire depends on a relationship of inferiority self-effacing, critically askew manner “from be- to those that the verse is satirizing (the samurai), low.” Senryu, then a disenfranchised medium, even if it is only a rhetorical infer iority. Yet, the came to participate reactively in the formation of very act of writing in this instance suggests seri- the new order. The following senryu displays a commoner’s view of reapportioning work and leisure time allocations after the dismantling of 18 Yamamoto Seinosuke. Senryu Meiji Seso-shi classes. Former peasants and merchants now (the history of the way things appeared in the supposedly would have had time to write poetry Meiji period through senryu). Makino Shuppan, 1983, 17. (Japanese language materials are all published in Tokyo unless specified.) It should be between merchants even in the far north of Hon- noted that this book is more of a selection and shu and various ports around Japan. He shows arrangement of senryu by topic or current issue how merchants in Hachinohe communicated in- than a study of senryu. Yet, the limited amount of formation on the socio-political events of the day notes and commentary has proven essential to through channels in Edo, Osaka and Kyoto, sug- understanding these senryu, which are almost gesting that the exchange of news had the effect always context-specific. The interpretive work is of strengthening merchants’ general awareness of mine unless otherwise noted. Dates of the ap- events beyond their locale, and even contributing pearance of given senryu, when available, are to an increasing sense of political independence. provided in these footnotes and are according to See Miura Tadashi. “Kitaoku ni Okeru Shonin no Yamamoto. All translations are mine unless Joho Katsudo.” Nihon Rekishi, 1997(2), 64-82. noted.

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ousness over levity, regardless of the form. There in its intention."19 Senryu engage in such satire is an implied continued capitulation to the will of from the point of view of the cooperative com- the samurai in beginning the poem with an ad- moner and is associated with non-revolutionary dress to the samurai, but it is a parody of the old protest and commentary from below. system of names and ranks: “rustic warrior.” At the same time, the ironic reminders of the While the former status quo has been discounted, former Bakufu can be seen as transforming nos- it remains a point of reference in negotiating the talgia into a weapon working to find pleasure in current social order and conventional behaviors. the rapid deterioration of faith in the “good old The irony in this case evokes a point of view days” (which posed a threat of a counter-resto- that is not in a subordinate position in relation- ration, a return to the shogunal system). However, ship to the prevailing thought of the day, but we should not overemphasize this delight in dis- merely in terms of the past common sense, before mantling the old regime, since many people were the current age of the Enlightenment. The com- irritated by all the changes, the way that small moner stands level with, if not gazing with con- details of daily life were cursed as “evil customs” tempt at, the toiling samurai. Writing a poem to be purged from the new society. Senryu written about samurai no longer writing poems is a tran- during the Bunmei Kaika period typically reflect sitory event that merely underscores this aspect of mistrust of the status of the historical present as ironic change, not hilarity amid alienation. The the government was framing it: as a great "en- larger irony here is that the satirical bite is dimin- lightenment" and opening up to the world. People ished to the degree the relationship is no longer of all walks of life were called upon to make sac- “from below” but rather “from above” or at least rifices in terms of the way they lived their lives on roughly level terms (rather than written in vain then. Largely because of the complex minutiae of protestation). This combination of a satirical laws and customs that governed former hierar- shadow and reflective, perhaps modern irony chical relations, the new Victorian codes of law makes this senryu especially rich as a historical and fashions superceding them created a comical and literary record of ideological change. situation. Thus senryu, hayariuta, kyoka and Satire of this period played upon ironic jux- kyoga (humorous pictures) can be seen to boom tapositions within the confines of the increasingly during the Bunmei Kaika. Nowhere could lam- influential place of historical consciousness in pooning find a better home than in the juxtaposi- Japanese society. The fall of the Bakufu and the tion of the old and new. opening of the closed country created a context in The above example suggests the samurai of which historical consciousness came to the fore old were “nothing but” makers of poetry, and thus in people’s daily lives, and the juxtaposition of “good for nothing,” a prevalent opinion in an age former and present class divisions in a way un- of internal peace and external threat that required dercuts the superior position of the senryu poet bombs not swords. Other senryu comically rep- by reminding the reader that the situation used to resent them as formerly great lovers, suggesting be different and that humorous instability is part that the practical concerns of the Meiji shizoku of the present social situation. However, the pri- (former samurai) had deprived them of the luxu- mary tone here is one of quiet exuberance. Such riating time they once had for satiating their sex- diachronic references to change form the division ual appetites. The once at least nominally sover- by which the ironic gap is opened up. eign class had had guaranteed income (koku sti- Senryu are usually used to express grievances pends) as well as status, and would have attracted in a way that does not suggest aspirations to exact the attention of lovers and mistresses, but now the control within the socio-political context. As times had changed. Linda Hutcheon has most recently pointed out in her study of parody, satire is characterized by a "moral and social" focus, which is "ameliorative

19 Hutcheon, Linda. A Theory of Parody. London and New York: Routledge, 1985, 16.

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With their sweet memories of when This senryu assumes readers had a familiarity they stood tall, old samurai. with the immediate association in popular usage ᭶┙䈩䈢ᤄᕜ䈚 䈐 ⠧჻ᣖ20 of Satsuma and potatoes (inhabitants of the prov- ince were referred to as “potatoes”). The vanity “Standing tall” (yaritateta) combines the of the grandiose ideology of the samurai in an age more literal “doing great things” with a secondary of practicality also seems to be an inspiration for meaning, “having sex.” Yari can mean “to do,” this senryu. “to have sex," and be another name for the male In the wake of the Meiji Ishin, new Western organ. Tateta is the past tense from of tateru, “to and established Confucian abstractions and ideals erect.” The translation “old samurai” collapses appeared in senryu, reflecting their use by the “old” (ro) and “former samurai” (shizoku). government. They are often rearranged in crea- A minor theme that appears in the pe- tive combinations, providing much material for riod between the new and the old regime is that senryu in the parody of the rhetoric and pompous of Buddhist karma and previous lives. One sen- language of empire. Parody and satire in ryu simply states: pre-Meiji literature included various figures, such as modoki (satirical mockery, especially of major The old Bakufu, the past figures or lead actors), chakashi (satirizing life of former samurai. something serious), ugachi (a cutting comment or ᣥ᐀ߩᤨ߇჻ᣖߩ೨਎⇇21 “dig”), mitate (in satirical works, enigmatically depicting the object of satire in terms of some- Implied is “what goes around comes around," thing else), and mojiri (changing lyrics in parts of as it would have been understood that the times a song, so as to make it humorous or allegorical). These satirical figures tend to remain indirect, were now difficult for former samurai, as if they 23 were paying dues for their past laziness. A pleas- mocking and parodying putative authorities. urable sense of avenged inequity and reversed Another figure of interest is keiku (⼊ฏ), a privilege is implied. concise condemnation of the principles of some Not all such senryu focused directly on novel and exceptional idea. It emphazes on the the samurai’s reversal of fortunes. There are separation of the parodic composition from the 24 many examples of more obtuse (and historically world of what is being parodied. We see this specific) senryu that pun on names and words figure in much of the satire of the Bunmei Kaika, associated with current events. Because the fa- in all three senses of keiku mentioned by Yanagi- mous and widely (but not universally, at this sawa: treating something as strange in condensed, time) revered Saigo Takamori had died taking the penetrating expression; overturning social ap- lead in the failed Seinan War (1877), the final pearances through novel, unexpected phrasing; uprising by former samurai to threaten the integ- and paradoxical expression. Takahashi defines rity of the Meiji state, he was satirically immor- parody (parodi) in Japan in particular in terms of talized in such verses as the following. modoki, which he lists as having the following senses and functions, varying according to his- While the average potato passes as gas torical examples at hand: a "translation" imitating Saigo becomes a star. ⦱ߪޔያߣߥࠅ⷏ㇹߪᤊߣߥࠅ22 23 See “Parodi” by Takahashi Toru in Kokubun- gaku Henshubu (Japanese literature editorial de- partment), Koten Bungaku Retorikku Jiten (Dic- 20 Yamamoto, 17. tionary of Classical Literary Rhetoric), Gakuto- sha, 1993, 56-57. 21 Yamamoto, 17. 24 See “keiku” by Yanagisawa Ryoichi in Koten 22 Yamamoto, 21. Bungaku Retorikku Jiten,25.

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an original, canonical text; a vulgarization of reading of senryu, cutting, sharp-witted, and “in- something sacred; criticism; and comic laugh- tuitive” (chokkanteki).27 For Arai, senryu aim at ter.25 In the Kaika world, which was already “ugachi” or “opening a hole,” “digging up some- predicated on a severance from the immediate thing not visible on the surface. In other words, it past of Tokugawa society, the allure of entering is that which renders an interior visible.” Ugachi liminal world and compounding its duality with (a “dig”) involves the exposing of weaknesses in parody would have been hard to resist for a gen- a person, or contradictions in society. Without eration raised on the playful, popular Edo fiction becoming completely “serious,” it is both ironic (gesaku shosetsu) and kyoka and senryu verses. and satirical. 28 In short, by entertaining irony in The juxtaposition of the old and new not only evident multiple perspectives, senryu provide a extends to the Bakufu and the Meiji government, means for closely examining ideologically con- but to cross-references between ancient Kojiki tentious language in the process of defining the myths and historical representations of the em- new nation. peror, and European monarchies, histories and Senryu from around the time of the Bunmei ancient civilizations (Judaic, Greek, and Roman). Kaika emphasize distinctions between the new Some examples of how abstractions from the old and old, often with a critical eye on the coercion regime were applied satirically to pending situa- implicit in many of the new laws. Many senryu tions suggest the fine line between elevating imply that the whole redefinition of a society as grand absolutes from various literary and histori- based on “civilization and enlightenment” is itself cal contexts in the name of making Japan into a a sham, and that distinctions between the old and great, modernized nation, and the collapse of new are only superficial matters of parroting the such abstractions as seemingly hopeless dreams. jargon of the Kaika and aping the mannerisms Parody in senryu thus drew attention to the fragil- perceived to be common to the people of the ity of such feats of the imagination that underlie "Great Powers." society at this time: The bad old ways lead the Way Dispense the medicine of benevolence to enlightenment. and root out the country’s ills. ᣥᑷߪ㐿ൻߩ㆏ߩᢎᏧߥࠅ29 ੳߩᣉ⮎ߦ࿖∛ߩߨࠍ⛘߿ߒ26 The masters who wield the rod seem to take Here the lampooner questions how the Meiji the form of constant prohibition and negation, so government has played the “tenno card” in tan- that all the new ways are a purging of the past dem with Confucian ideals. While not mentioning ways, and to become "enlightened" one need only the emperor per se, the use of jin or “benevo- know the evil ways as those things one should lence” (on the part of the emperor to his loyal eschew. Similar, self-explanatory examples in- subjects) in this sardonic manner clearly implies clude: the imperial institution. Though the emperor was now an actual rather than titular ruler, the lan- In perfume catch a whiff guage of Confucian rule, applied to the new con- of enlightenment. text, would still have been broadly seen as a stra- 㚅᳓ߢ৻ኸ㐿ൻࠍ൬ߪߖࠆ30 tegic attempt to justify the right to govern with smooth words. Such political subtexts are what make senryu capable of being, in Arai Akira's 27 Arai Akira. Nihon Inbunshi, Ofusha, 1979, 145.

25 See Takahashi Toru in Koten Bungaku Re- 28 Arai, 149. torikku Jiten, 56-57. 29 Yamamoto, 86; Meiji 11 (1878). 26 Yamamoto, 23. 30 Yamamoto, 85; Meiji 10 (1877).

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Newspaper vendors’ mouths The punster in the latter senryu frames “civi- get used to enlightenment and progress. lization” (bunmei) as a humbling arena within ᣂ⡞ደޔ㐿ൻㅴᱠ߇ญߦ㚔ࠇ31 which one learns to assimilate new critical con- Even the parrots laugh! cerns. One becomes hypercritical of one’s own mimicking the makeshift Enlightenment. inadequacies, especially, it is implied, since ࠝ࠙ࡓ߽╉߰ญ⌀ૃߩ↢㐿ൻ32 adults would have been “above” such products of an age now held in disdain. In the fledgling Enlightenment The dry irony is in part derived from pleasure even the tadpoles seem like fish. taken in this process of developing a critical sen- ↢㐿ൻ߅₹⚂ሶ߽㝼߱ࠅ33 sibility that conforms to the new order all the while expressing a degree of resistance. There is This last senryu interestingly associates the an awareness of an intrinsic masochism in par- grandiose "Enlightenment" with being a fish, ticipating in this “progress,” and pleasure to be while emphasizing that it is a project "in the found in its lampooning. There is a paradoxical works" (nama) so that at present one must de- empowerment of a new, broadly disseminated ceive oneself in order to see great beginnings as critical consciousness and coercive framing of consummated dreams (tadpoles as fish). Similarly, critical propositions in senryu discourse. What is the middle two senryu lampoon the rote mouthing being sounded out in such senryu includes both of the buzzwords of the day, and the first one questions regarding the impossibility of following pokes fun at the minor contribution of wearing the proposed ideology and the difficulty in re- perfume (in Victorian fashion) in elevating the sisting it. The irresistible joy of empowerment, in nation. the very act of composing these witty senryu, The following is based on an ironic discrep- certainly overshadows their criticism of the pro- ancy between the stated objectives of the Bunmei liferation of prohibitions. Kaika and how these aims appear to the broad More contextually specific senryu record spectrum of society. various reactions to new laws issued in Tokyo and in rural areas in 1872 and 1873 (Meiji 5 and 36 In the world of Enlightenment 6). There were senryu on the prohibition everything is worth looking up to. against urination in public: 㐿ൻߩ਎ޔ਄⷗ߡ෸߱੐߫߆ࠅ34 Wanting to pee on the roadside, the feelings of the fallen samurai. How enjoyable this world of civilization 37 〝ற߳ዊଢޔ⪭ᱞ⠪ߩᔃᜬߜ where we note all our own faults. 38 35 When you hear the squeak of leather shoes Ꮖ߇㕖ࠍ⷗ࠆᢥ᣿ߩ਎ߪᭉߒ stop the water pump. 㕦㖸ࠍ⡞޿ߡࡐࡦࡊߩ᳓ࠍᱛ߼39

31 Yamamoto, 86; Meiji 11 (1878). 36 See examples of these laws in Ogi Shinzo et al, 32 Yamamoto, 86; Meiji 12 (1879). Yamamoto Fuzoku Sei [customs and sexuality], in Nihon includes obsolete characters for omu and furigana Kindai Shiso Taikei 23. Iwanami Shoten, 1990, in katakana. 3-26.

33 Yamamoto, 86; Meiji 13 (1880). 37 Yamamoto, 49; Meiji 7 (1874).

34 Yamamoto, 85; Meiji 8 (1875). 38 ”The squeak of leather shoes” was the sound of a “modern” gentleman, who would have been 35 Yamamoto, 85; Meiji 4 (1871). known to regard public urination with distain.

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Inspired by the ideas of democracy and hu- Five sen to relieve myself – man rights, People’s Rights Movement senryu a ticket for peeing. combine the sense of indignation found in peas- ዊଢߩᢱࠍ੖㌛ߢߴࠎߒࠂ߁ߒ40 ant protest songs and rakusho of the bakumatsu period with the wit of the above Bunmei Kaika With a furtive look, peeing senryu. Furthermore, they are. I see the nightstick and shrink. ⷗ᑫߒߡዊଢޔ᫔ࠍߺߡ❗ߓߺ41 The bricks [of the Ginza] glisten with the oily sweat of the people. 43 If we emphasize the discursive practices that ੱ᳃ߩ޽߱ࠄߢᾃⅽࠃߊశࠅ were sustained beyond the bakumatsu context and into the Kaika, we recognize continuity in Reaction to oppression — these lampooning practices. Yet, if we underscore steam boiling the lid off. the changes in the discursive context due to the ࿶೙ߩ෻േޔ⬄ࠍૃ਄߇ࠆḡ44 new government and society, we find the rela- tions between the punster poet, the government, Such senryu were written in reaction to gov- and a broader general audience have been altered. ernment demands to make sacrifices of labor for The new controls over the actions and bodies of grand projects, to increase production, to redefine Meiji subjects stimulated a vigilant, continued established customs, and to establish a “blood use of senryu, which both contested the new laws tax” as military conscription was called by farm- and were a means of realizing some benefit from ers. Many senryu employ the imagery of being the dismal prohibitions, if only by generating “ready to explode,” and senryu beginning spe- fodder for an economy of laughter and pleasure cifically with “oppression” (assei) are abundant as compensation. In this way senryu can be seen and varied. Such senryu on government oppres- as part of the naturalization of new ideological sion often include representations of the public expectations; they are a continued source of en- reaction to it as pushing the populace toward a tertainment derived from converting increased great uprising. But by far the most common social restraints into opportunities for disrupting image is built around the pun of ken (rights or the language of the new order.42 authority) and ken (sword). In songs calling for people’s rights, especially from Meiji 10 (1877), we find senryu such as: 39 Yamamoto, 49; Meiji 12 (1879). Cf. a verse from an iroha-uta: “Before the unblinking eyes of Undo the sword from your obi and trade it in cops on the beat there will be incursions by uri- for the freewheeling force of rights. nators thieving a pee” (ᛮ⋡ߥ߈Ꮌᩏߩ⌒᛬ޘ ࿶೙ߩ෻േജߪྃ᳓ེ45 ߪޔ⋑ߺዊଢߔࠆੱ߽޽ࠅ). See Yubin Hochi Shinbun, Meiji 8.1.29. In Meiji Jidai Bunka Ki- With the abolition of swords roku Shusei, 168. commoners hold the rights (ken). ᑄ೶ߦߒߚߢᐔ᳃ߌࠎ㧔೶࡮ᮭ㧕ࠍᜬߜ46 40 Yamamoto, 49; Meiji 13 (1880).

41 Yamamoto, 49; Meiji 16 (1883). bakkin ha nashi natsu no Fuji), Yamamoto, 49, Meiji 13 (1880). 42 Among the senryu on similar themes, there are the following two on the new prohibition against 43 Yamamoto, 35. public nudity: "Undress a shoulder and no sooner / will the police burn moxa on it" (Katanugu to 44 Yamamoto, 36; Meiji 21(1888). sugu ni junsa ga kyokau o sue), Yamamoto, 49, Meiji 11 (1878); and "Though naked, there are no 45 Yamamoto, 39; Meiji 13 (1880). fines / for Mt. Fuji in the summer" (Hadaka demo

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functions; this is the meaning of “With the abo- In a world where hips have lost their swords lition of swords / commoners hold rights.” Fur- (ken) thermore, “In a world where hips have lost their people sprout rights (ken). swords (ken) / people sprout rights (ken),” sug- ⣶ߦ೶ߥ޿਎ߢ᳃ߦᮭ߇಴᧪47 gests the power vacuum all people, samurai in- After the abolition of swords cluded, would fill as the privilege to bear swords they polish people’s rights in Tosa. was exchanged (in the ideology of the People’s ᑄ೶ߩᓟޔ᳃ᮭࠍ჻ᣖߢ⏴߈48 Rights movement) for inherent (natural) rights for all. A world under a despotic government As if the fetishistic magic of the word puts rust on the sword of people’s rights. “sword” in the former governing order were dis- ኾ೙ߥ਎ߪ᳃ᮭߦߐ߮߇ઃ߈49 pelled by the abstract word “rights,” not by the actual abolishment of swords per se, these senryu These numerous senryu are playfully predi- lampoon the class tensions underlying the de cated on the fact that it was after the order abol- facto samurai revolution and governing leader- ishing the wearing of swords (ken) that the call ship in contrast to the oppositional People’s for people’s rights (minken) came to flourish.50 Rights groups, which while being lead primarily Tosa, in the fourth verse, was a hotbed of Peo- by samurai were empowered by commoners (es- ple’s Rights movement activities. Former samurai pecially farmers). It is from the perspective of here, notably Ueki Emori and Itagaki Taisuke, someone who became an impassioned activist became local and national leaders of the move- that the author of the final senryu above writes: ment.51 The most common motif in these senryu Not to take advantage of the new, still intangible is the continued, somewhat parodic repetition of sword/rights would expose Japan to the danger of ritualistic actions associated with wearing and being “A world under a despotic government / caring for swords (cleaning and polishing) here [that] puts rust on the sword of people’s rights.” transferred onto a concern with human rights. In There were also senryu critical of the Free- the bakumatsu period, the sword was not only a dom and People’s Rights Movement, often label- symbol of samurai sovereignty, but also of their ing it “wagamama”(selfish): laziness and uselessness (first as “warriors” dur- ing a time of peace, then in the face of the more Freedom to follow your every whim will never amount to people’s rights. advanced Western armories). Thus there was an 52 underlying sense of justice in commoners gaining ᚒଖߩ⥄↱ޔ᳃ᮭߦߪߥࠄߕ rights while doing the work by which society Stretch out your limbs and go to work! It’s a free workaday world [now]. 53 46 Yamamoto, 36; Meiji 10 (1877). ᚻ߽⿷߽િ߫ߒߡⒿߋߪ⥄↱

47 Yamamoto, 36; Meiji 10 (1877). Though the first example sides with the op- position to the Freedom and People’s Rights 48 Yamamoto, 36; Meiji 11 (1878). movement, the second is less clear-cut. Its “dig” (ugachi) could be against laziness, celebrating the 49 Yamamoto, 37; Meiji 12 (1879). advent of a self-determined working world, but more ironically it cuts against the ideal of free- 50 Yamamoto, 37. dom, underscoring that it too is a call to work.

51 On the importance of former Tosa Domain samurai in the movement, see Bowen, Roger W. 52 Yamamoto, 39, Meiji 20 (1887). Rebellion and Democracy in Meiji Japan. Berke- ley and Los Angeles: University of California 53 Yamamoto, 39; Meiji 21 (1888). Press, 1980, 108ff.

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A decade after this movement had been crushed one finds a growing abundance of na- The imagery is outlandish, suggesting the tionalist senryu. Senryu employing the phrase Japanese spirit is the overseer and inspirational “Yamato-damashii” or “Japanese spirit (of old)” axis on which the earth finds its moral bearing. It flourished in the periods of the Sino-Japanese and presumably mimics the nationalism of contem- Russo-Japanese wars.54 “Yamato-damashii” is an porary chauvinists. It must be interpreted as both abstract word used to arouse patriotic emotions parodying the absurdity of such national mega- by associating it with its believed manifestation, lomania, and of tacitly enjoying such chauvinist often images of military prowess or national su- discourse as a source of entertainment. premacy.55 The senryu form is well equipped to lampoon the overuse of this jingoistic buzzword. The Japanese spirit bound up in two words: Yet, as senryu are usually based on current events a rainbow of loyalty and righteousness. or discourse of the day, and depend upon resitu- ᔘߣ⟵ߩੑሼߦ❈ࠅว߁ᄢ๺㝬57 ating these in droll juxtapositions, it is not always easy to distinguish mere observations from witty Here “Yamato-damashii” is represented as associations without referring to historical details. the synthesizing entity by which Confucian val- In examples of senryu built around the patriotic ues of the old regime are reified. One anachro- jargon of “Yamato-damashii,” virtually anything nism is shown being used to justify another. The in Japan can be included and identified as its following is more openly wary of such relations: manifestation. The humor in such convocations of images is obvious; part of their entertaining The righteousness of those united under the value in the Meiji period stemmed from expecta- throne [like the sworn brothers of Ryubi, tions that yet another everyday, insignificant item Kanu and Chohi, of the Three Warring would be ironically placed under the glorifying States], rubric of the Yamato-damashii. Some of these and not to mention the dreary Japanese spirit senryu seem to be mere citations or snapshots of of those united under [our] throne. uses of the word Yamato-damashii, and it is often ᩶ਅߩ⟵ޔᗱ߆᩿ਅߩᄢ๺㝬58 unclear whether their humor or “amusement” is derived more from a critical mode or a celebra- As this is a senryu and all puns are within the tory nationalism. For example: realm of possibility, we are compelled to read the oroka in both senses of "not to mention" and of As pupils to eyeballs, "insipid." Along with the allusion to the vows the Japanese spirit to the globe. made by the brothers of the Three Warring States, 56 ⌒ਛߩ⍓ޔ࿾⃿ߦᄢ๺㝬 it is a good example of an author drawing a fine line between eloquent praise and mockery. From the time of the Sino-Japanese War, 54 See Yamamoto, 33. Yamato-damashii became a buzzword to express elation at having overcome the threat of coloniza- 55 To understand how “Yamato-damashii” was tion and embarking on an aggressive pursuit of used, consider the phrase “the American way.” It Japan's own empire. From being controlled by is virtually meaningless, yet in any given context unequal treaties and necessarily reactive, living in conjures up vague associations, perhaps of “rug- the shadow of resentment and condescension, ged individualism,” in the context of sports, in- Japan was at a point at which it could now stage vention, finance, and space exploration. “Ya- mato-damashii” is just such a metaphorical ex- pression and very broad abstraction that is bound 57 Yamamoto, 32; Meiji 27 (1894). up with the rhetoric by which the nation is popu- larly defined. 58 Yamamoto, 32; Meiji 27 (1894). This transla- tion incorporates Yamamoto’s note. 56 Yamamoto, 31; Meiji 19 (1886).

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its own plans for seizing control of surrounding planning actions that could affect the direction of territories and markets. Even after the insult of specific policies. the Triple Intervention, the language of patriotism The following senryu illustrates the expand- and nationalism would increasingly compensate ing range of the form. It employs irony of a sort for the residual threat of the West. Examples of made possible by the successful attainment of senryu in the wake of the Sino-Japanese War overseas territories after the first Sino-Japanese suggest how pliable “Yamato-damashii” was, War. The black humor emerges from a mixture of applicable to anything with chauvinist or violent the new national consciousness and traditional overtones vis-à-vis the foreign: satirical humor, which was most often used to attack rulers and their policies or to lampoon Cannons forward on the double – scandals. Here the shrewd wit emboldens chau- such is the Japanese spirit vinism in the subjects of the common Japanese ᄢ⎔ߩ⌀㨇ߞ㨉వដ㧔㚠㧕ߌߪᄢ๺㝬59 state. The images of “strong country” and “real estate agency,” identifying strength and wealth, What no one cannot replicate overseas – recall the earlier slogan “rich country, strong the Japanese spirit. army,” employed at a time when Japan’s own ᄖ࿖ߢᮨㅧߪ಴᧪ߧᄢ๺㝬60 sovereignty was being threatened by colonizing European nations. By presenting these as produc- Preserving national purity: tive associations in “natural” juxtaposition, a the Japanese spirit of the troops. Japanese upon reading it would have discovered ࿖☴ߩ଻ሽޔ౓჻ߩᄢ๺㝬61 the achievement of that slogan’s goal in the uni- fied image of a strong nation that demonstrates its These works may be read as braggadocio military and financial strength by its maintenance compensating for insults in foreign affairs and of control over Taiwan. reflecting actual military battles; however they can also be read as parodying the figurative move The real estate broker of a great power: the Japanese spirit. that uses “Yamato-damashii” as a form of bound 63 potentiality (in the sense that Nietzsche describes ᒝ࿖ߩਇേ↥ߥࠅᄢ๺㝬 resentment and “priestly vengeance” in the first section of The Genealogy of Morals).62 In this The following are of interest in that they way, there is a continuation of the rhetorical pat- recognize gunka as part of a plan to instill milita- tern found in Freedom and People’s Rights period rism in children. They are part of the preparation senryu on “oppression” (assei) above, whereby of weapons of revenge against their nemises Rus- the language of threatening innuendo compen- sia, Germany and France who, in the Triple In- sated for insufficient political power. Moreover, tervention, were seen as having robbed Japan of reproducing the political order of the bakuhan, its victory in the field of empire-making and senryu remained removed from the realm of colonization by forcing it to return the Liaotung Peninsula to China.

59 Yamamoto, 32; Meiji 29 (1896). Military songs even for the toddlers – the wrath of the Japanese spirit. 64 60 Yamamoto, 32; Meiji 30 (1897). ዊఽ߽ァ᱌ޔᢜ߇޿ߩᣣᧄ㝬

61 Yamamoto, 33; Meiji 31 (1898). In lullabies as in martial songs,

62 Nietzsche’s discussion of resentiment and cul- tural expression describes the structure of 63 Yamamoto, 33; Meiji 31 (1898). “priestly vengeance.” See Nietzsche, Friedrich. The Genealogy of Morals. Tr. Walter Kaufmann. 64 Yamamoto, 32; Meiji 30 (1897). New York: Vintage, 1969, 33.

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the rousing beat of marching feet. The rhetoric of “civilization and enlightenment” ሶ቞߹ߢാ߻ァ᱌ߩ⿷ᜉሶ㧔ࠕࠪࡆ࡚࠙ meant the degradation of existing popular culture. ࠪ㧕65 In the realm of song and poetry, this policy meant supplanting comic poetry and song with a more There is a mocking of the shrewd if not “civilized” poetry of the new nation: shintaishi thoroughly mean-spirited appropriation of young (new-style poetry). While not subsuming satirical children as pawns in plans of colonial expansion. verse genres, shintaishi contributed to the elim i- Such indoctrination is at the core of the ideologi- nation of many comic genres. In contrast to cal: entrusting to youth, who look up to their “vulgar” comic forms, shintaishi was touted as part of the acculturation of the nation to a vision teachers for guidance, ideas that they themselves 66 as adults may believe in or rebel against. But, the of a “Western” Japan. The pressure to do away issues are firmly planted in their minds, becom- with the “bad customs” of the past and the impact ing part of their ideological common sense by it had on cultural production in general is in these which they situate themselves ethically so that very senryu shown to be extensive, as is found in militarism rings true to them. the countless satires of the Kaika. To expunge The senryu in this section illustrate how sen- vulgar forms and to implement shintaishi went ryu evolved from the late Bakumatsu to the mid beyond distinctions of former class-based verse Meiji period, from forms of satire largely re- forms. Major genres with historical class associa- moved from voicing public policy to more dis- tions include courtiers writing primarily waka cursively participatory forms. Senryu began to (and kanshi); higher-ranking samurai primarily contribute to national ideologic al centralization kanshi (and waka and kyoka); and commoners and unity rather than remain a marginal “shaking singing and writing folk songs, hayariuta (inclu- fist.” A qualitative shift in the role of satirical sive of countless forms), senryu as well as waka, verse is related to the identifications of the indi- kyoka (crazy poems), and haikai. vidual with the interests of the nation. Each citi- Yanagida Izumi used the phrase "all-encom- zen was to contribute to a central, focal agenda passing truth” (issai no shinjitsu) as a metaphor to describe the new quality of the dissemination (symbolized by the emperor, but also by slogans 67 such as “rich country, strong army” [fukoku kyo- of knowledge in the Bunmei Kaika. In the con- hei] and “produce and industrialize”[shokusan kogyo]). That is to say, the ideological function of the nation had taken root in the subjects, who 66 See, for instance, the prefaces to the Shin- became increasingly assured of the stability of the taishisho and Yamada Bimyo’s introduction to the new order after the quashing of the Freedom and Shintaishisen in Yamamiya Makoto, ed. Nihon People's Rights Movement. Individual subjects Gendaishi Taikei, v.I. Kawade Shobo Shinsha, would find their audience for oppositional rheto- 1950, 23-26 and 90-91. ric increasingly hard to find, being unable to rely on a rhetoric that parodies others without taking 67 Yanagida goes into details about the common- note of their own place in the picture, so that the sense underlying the “grasping of principles,” humorous became easily engaged in “serious” which he takes as the contemporary standard aim and historically motivated issues, which dispels of all study. The Bakufu also had a policy of en- and attenuates what otherwise would have been couraging learning and study, but the “con- humorous. sciously established aims of studying” (gakumon) Also contributing to the blunting of the op- were different. He explains, “the dissemination of positional aspect of senryu was the influence of a knowledge that extended an all-encompassing Western ideas of literature, nation, and history truth (issai no shinjitsu) to the people involved that became immensely popular and influential, the enlightenment of the people (jinmin no kaika), even, to some extent, before the Meiji Ishin itself. a redefinition of the lives of the people in the culture, and [the inculcation of] a grasping of principles. Though this was not the primary aim 65 Yamamoto, 72; Meiji 31 (1898). in the ‘encouragement of learning’ (gakumon

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text of comic poetry and song,“ all-encompassing ary histories suggest that we distinguish it from truth” meant a seriousness that threatened to di- “rakushu” (⪭㚂, lit. “fallen verse”) and “raku- minish the enjoyment of these subcultures, as gaki” (⪭ᦠ߈, graffiti). Kamisaka disagrees with well as many aspects of commoner culture in Motoori Norinaga’s explanation that rakushu is a general. At the same time, the introduction of this phonetic transformation of rakusho, preferring seriousness itself was one of the most satirized the explanation that rakushu designates aspects of early Meiji society. lower-grade work and rakusho higher-grade work. In these one recognizes a pattern of using Regardless, it is clear that rakushu, which came senryu to expose folly and to find means of mak- to refer specifically to 31 or 17 syllable verses, ing sense, in this ironic language, of the historical were more narrowly defined than rakusho, complexities that led to whatever events were at though they both came to be used interchangea- hand and scene being depicted. Though the range bly in the Edo period. However, the more het- of subject matter is far broader than the slice of erogeneous rakusho too came to be most closely senryu discussed here in the context of nation and associated with such short forms, especially 31 ideology, these adequately illustrate a form of syllable verses, which often resemble kyoka.69 expression that retained the language of Kamisaka sees rakusho as developing out of the pun-filled wordplay while reflecting changes in emulation of a senryu mode of satire, but empha- how commoners viewed and participated in pub- sized that senryu tend to confine themselves to lic opinion-making during the struggle to con- events within the lowers echelons of society (ru- struct a new Japan and an ideological consensus mors, talk of illicit trysts, prostitution) and do not that settled well with enough people to stave off 68 evidence the broader awareness of multiple class any further serious revolutionary coup. Part of relations that distinguishes rakusho.70 It is in this the significance of senryu lies in relation to other doubly defiant sense of outdoing and even “serious” verse discourse, especially shintaishi, mocking senryu and kyoka themselves that rak u- which would virtually ban puns in favor of uni- sho were “fallen writing.” vocal stylistics resembling high European poetry. Though once prominently including prose as well, from the Edo period, rakusho most often Rakusho: Verse as Underground Exposé take the appearance of “crazy and playful poetic language.”71 They substituted for legally sanc- Rakusho are anonymous, versified lampoons tioned means of expressing dissent and flourished or satirical ditties in the most general sense, during the late Tokugawa period.72 Unlike le- encompassing many varieties of illicitly printed gally published yomiuri and kawaraban (clay and posted graffiti. The use of “rakusho” (⪭ᦠ, tablet-printed news), which reported news and lit. “fallen writing”), thought to have existed since the Muromachi period, varies widely. Some literary histories suggest that we distinguish it 69 See Kamisaka, 4.

70 shorei) by government offices, it was a natural Kamisaka, 38. result….” See Yanagida Izumi. “Meiji Shin-Seifu 71 Bungei Seisaku no Ittan.” Jinbun Kagaku Kenkyu In the Edo period there also appeared rakusho 11. Undated offprint, Yanagida Collection, Wa- expressions consisting solely of the pictorial, with seda University Library, 2. no script. Though falling under the broad rubric of rakusho, they are more specifically referred to 68 For a more general sense of the range of sub- as fushiga (㘑ೝ↹, satirical pictures). Kamisaka jects in the form, see the major collections of 4. For a general pictorial overview of the period senryu in Haifu Yanagidaru (1796) and Haifu treated in this paper, see the works of Yoshitoshi Yanagidaru Shui (1801), in Sukimoto Nagashige (1839-1892). and Hamada Giichirou. Senryu Kyouka Shu. Ni- hon Koten Bungaku Taikei 57. Iwanami Shoten, 72 See Kida, 129-130; Kamisaka, 3ff. 1958.

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contained editorials in a direct prose style, raku- sho were figurative, 73 so as to disguise the mes- in this set of circumstances, no matter how sage in the medium, and avoid the excessive unequal the people (jinmin) were, there was wrath of the censors and the particular officials no room for addressing this inequality. Thus scrutinized in their lampoons. However, the use it was only natural that by way of ‘rakusho’, of figurative language also reflects the lack of ‘tobun’ (written challenges) and the like did more or less contractual obligation to provide criticism of the realm inadvertently come to current news and events, as was the case with the be circulated in abundance.76 yomiuri (lit., “read-and-sells”), which were sold by vendors as they walked around reading them Though they had been written since the aloud. While yomiuri were printed in order to Genpei period, it is in the Tokugawa period that turn a profit, and depended on ordinary public they came to flourish at a new level. When Ba- channels, rakusho were not for profit and could kufu failures to address the needs of the common be distributed under the censors’ radar. They were people grew extreme, rakusho were written in posted and distributed primarily by viewing and profusion. When the Shogun’s Council suggested subsequent retelling by word of mouth. Yomiuri to the Shogun that the prohibition of rakusho and kawaraban had to conform to censor regula- genres be ordered, the Shogun on the contrary tions lest the authorities stop their distribution, told them they were becoming ministers of which was of course essential if they were to turn admonishment.77 From this exchange one can a profit. Those producing rakusho were relatively see the attention attracted by the proliferation of unfettered by such entanglements.74 rakusho, and the seriousness with which some Discussing the widespread use of rakusho as officials sought to quell this affront to their a means of eluding censorship laws, Sakuraki authority.Though rakusho is a broad rubric, including Akira writes in his Sokumenkan Bak umatsushi, a numerous verse forms, I shall focus especially on multi-volume collection of rakusho: kanshi (Chinese poetry) acrostics, satirical dia- logue, and enumerating verses such as kazoe-uta Preceding the Meiji Ishin, in the feudal world (counting songs) and iroha-uta (ABC songs). As of the Tokugawa, freedom to criticize the a particular mode of social expression, rakusho government of the realm in newspapers and use many of the same verse forms used by com- magazines as we do today, and to denounce moners (senryu, kyoka, and hayariuta). However, social ills, was not permitted at all. Thus hi- rakusho are not always written from the point of erarchical distinctions as they stood in their view of politically disenfranchised commoners. proper order did not allow for interference, Most rakusho appear to have been written by however minor, by the lower classes.75 disgruntled ronin (masterless samurai)78 and some by merchants. A deluge of rakusho of the Commoners (including low-ranking samurai) sutebumi (opinion/grievance handbills) and hari- had to submit to anything the Bakufu ordered, fuda (pasted handbills) types accompanied the and

73 See Kamisaka, 8. 76 Sakuraki, 2.

74 Kamisaka, 7-8. On laws against rakusho and 77 Sakuraki, 2. punishments, see Kamisaka 25ff. 78 Ronin or roshi are samurai who had renounced 75 Sakuraki, 1. For an overview of developments their lords, leaving their domains against the in censorship from the bakumatsu into the Meiji wishes of superiors, or who otherwise had be- period, also see Rubin, Jay. Injurious to Public came unaffiliated with their former domain or Morals - Writers and the Meiji State. Seattle: house because of, for instance, disobedience. University of Washington Press, 1984, 19-23.

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rise of independent bands of ronin, who formed its development from a form differentiating in- terrorist groups making strikes against govern- terests (rigai) with respect to various social phe- mental powers and challenging their legitimacy. nomena, to a form employed to foment class It is an ideologically interesting form that dis- opposition to the ruling top-tier samurai.82 tinctly reveals dissent within certain strata of the The following rakusho, arranged as a se- nominally ruling samurai class, as well as the quence of kyoka that can be read individually or economically empowered merchant class. Rak u- in the context of a narrative series, treats the arri- sho exhibit a spectrum of positions, from humor- val of Perry. ously conciliatory, silly satires of current events (similar to what can be found in senryu) to calc u- In June everyone out in fishing lated formulations of grievances and plans for boats, rebellion, as well as to bitter references to failed going back and forth, an uproar terrorist attacks.79 The form is so diverse that, in in the harbor. this brief introduction, I can best explore exam- A cold sweat in the heat, gath- ples of representative subgenres rather than try to ering as ordered characterize rakusho by way of vague generaliza- boats speed to the mouth of the tions. dragon. Research of rakusho has focused predomi- The morning sun goes down in nantly on the historical.80 Kamisaka emphasizes the white sails and into the the historical setting reflected in rakusho, which high rigging, he calls “particularly biased” and containing a The news goes out to all do- “corrective evaluation” that reflects critical ob- mains [or countries] in rapid servation of the underside of how situations ap- order. pear. In a way complementing my ideological Japanese would rather eat dregs examination of verse, Kamisaka defends the use than be a country eating of rakusho as historical documentation that is Amer ican rice. necessarily of a fragmentary nature. For him, the Japan, muckraked clean by a compression of expression is an outstanding fea- foreign country — ture of rakusho, which he praises for its capacity looking back, what an awful time at the [Ur- to reveal core complexities of contemporary aga] harbor. events.81 Kamisaka situates rakusho in terms of

᳓ή᦬߿྾ߘ߁ߩ⦁ߩߺߥ 79 Kamisaka writes that rakusho were dissemi- ߣੱ nated by pasting them where people could see ਄ࠍਅ߳ߣߐ㨣ߋᶆ߆ߥ them, such as on gates. Kamisaka, 3. ᥤਛߦߡ߭߿᳨ᵹߔᄺⴕⴐ ㄖߩญ߳ߣ޿ߘߋᣧ⥱ 80 Major titles of research and annotated collec- 㜞✽ߦ⊕Ꮤߩ⛯ߊᣩᓇ tions of rakusho include: Kamisaka Kuratsugu. ⻉࿖ᵈⲁᰏߩᱤࠍᒁ Shakai Jihyo toshite no Rakusho. Takahara Sho- ten, 1930; Kida Jun’ichiro. Rakusho Nihonshi. ޽߼ࠅ߆ߩ☨ࠃࠅ㘩ߧ࿖ߥ San’ichi Shoten, 1967; Suzuki Tozo and Okada ࠇߤ Satoshi. Rakusho Ruiju (3 Vol.). Tokyodo Shup- ᣣᧄੱߪ޽ࠊࠍߊ߰ߥࠅ pan, 1984; Sakaraki Akira. Sokumenkan Bak u- matsushi (2 Vol.). Tokyo Daigaku Shuppankai, 1982 [1905]. Three of these collections focus on 82 See Kamisaka, 2. This class division of not the historical importance of rakusho in their titles. four principles classes but rather of samurai and non-samurai is affirmed by W. G. Beasley in The 81 Kamisaka, 1. Rise of Modern Japan, New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1990, 7.

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ᣣᧄߩ޽߆ࠍ⇣࿖ߢ⨹߭ߪ of what current events entailed in terms of the ࠅ symbolic capital and status within and without ߆߃ߒߡߺࠇ߫߁ࠄ߇ᄢᄌ83 late Tokugawa Japan. A particular senryu collected as a rakusho The first two verses are about the stir Perry suggests the impact of imagery and depiction of caused, the fourth deals with ongoing trade issues, current events on how people viewed events. Ob- and the fifth verse suggests the possibility that vious interpretive orientations and values are part of the energetic satire of the events unfolding couched in the following imagery that certainly most likely produced a degree of pleasure, at least carried the power to disseminate and popularize for the non-ruling classes, in watching the already attitudes and ways of formulating views on the failing Bakufu have to agonize even more under events of the day. For instance, we come across foreign pressure. The concern for the country as a pieces like the following (which I hesitate to whole rather than in local domains would appear quote), a textbook example of the use of sexual in these verses to have been stimulated by the imagery of feminization and violation in coloni- external threat that Perry brought to Japan, al- alist situations: ready on top of the internal problems alluded to with “muckraking.” These historical facts are Visible to America between the rain, the Japanese pussy. well known, but these verses depict local reaction 84 with details about the different angles from which ޽߼ࠅ߆ߦ޽߹߹⷗ࠄࠆࠆᣣᧄ߷߷ people tried to sort events into a loose narrative. Satire in the third kyoka is grounded in the Amerika ni amama miraruru Nihon bobo play of twice-removed relations of symbols caught between conflicting forces. It reflects both In this short, very playfully prosodic rakusho historical contingencies and discursive possibili- one can see how this form had the potential to ties in the situation. The indirect, symbolic play derive its impact from the exploitation of every suggests various relational possibilities and nuance and from the conversion of landscape into anxieties concerning the symbolic and ideological a memorable (albeit in bawdy taste) caricature of stability of a society in crisis. Perry came at a the situation with regard to foreign affairs and time when it had become increasingly clear that national sovereignty. Such self-parodying depic- structural change, including the possibility of the tions of Japan’s humiliation, in being, for exam- restoration of imperial rule, was not unlikely. In ple, forced into accepting unequal trading agree- this verse, the rising sun, symbol of Japan, is re- ments and extraterritorial rights for foreigners, placed by the image of morning sunlight filling were inevitably linked to sexual images invoking the white sails of the “black ships.” It is as if the gendered stereotypes of dominant and subordi- sunlight being caught in the high rigging puts into nate powers. Like the senryu examined earlier, images the capture of the very symbol incorpo- which deal with the sexuality and sovereignty of rated into the name of the nation itself, the “rising samurai after the abolishment of swords, this sun.” Moreover, the “spreading of the news” is to senryu displays a nexus whereby such images and “various domains/countries” (shokoku), which motifs reinforce each other’s misogynist and na- then could mean both foreign nations and internal tionalist views. domains, implying a cross-referencing of points Another form of rakusho takes the form of of views and concerns in terms of symbolic and acrostic kanshi rebus. Though it appears in many actual power, and the sovereignty and solidarity forms, including maze-like chains of kanbun of Japan. Embarrassment was both internal to the (Chinese prose written by Japanese), the most archipelago and international. These verses are prevalent form is a series of grids of 9 characters among the most entertaining and historically in- sightful, revealing a witty if not bitter awareness

84 Sakuraki, 7. 83 Sakuraki, 10-11.

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forming a square.85 They are read as four lines, ⾚ᔘ⦟ with each line utilizing the central character, \ | / however the English delineation removes the ᄙ㧙⤿㧙ㅒ pleasure of deciphering the reading and posted / | \ message. Though more cerebral than poetic, the 㓝ή㓸87 form as read in the original is invested with a rhythm based on the repetition of the central These acrostics are read as four lines, begin- character in the acrostic, providing a locus for ning with the upper-right character and diago- both linking diverse associations and creating nally down, secondly from the upper-left charac- humorous effects such as presenting alternative, ter diagonally down, then from the central char- ironic sides of a given situation, and incorporat- acter of the top row vertically down, and finally ing amusing, sudden or clever turns. Some of from the central character of the rightmost col- these acrostic poems have some characteristics of umn horizontally across to the left. They are read sorites (logically progressing nonsensical syllo- in the order indicated in the following example gistic chains), which can be found in comic lines 86 (from a work to be treated later), following the in Shakespeare. numbers and repeating the “no” in each line. Being linked by a central Chinese character, there is the added element of a rhythmic unity as Above there is no trust, well as a somewhat ”logical” play with shifting below no propriety, contexts and aspects linked by the axis of the the retainers have no loyalty central, recurrent character. These acrostics, like and the masters have no heads. sorites in English, make a mockery of coherent lines of relation or reasoning by underscoring the ਅ⤿਄ discrepancy between lived and ideal relations in the surviving socio-political order, the “logic” or \| / “reason” involves falling between reference to 㚂㧙ή㧙ਥ / | \ the historical situation, and the use of the central 88 character in the acrostic as a pivot for a “circling ାᔘ⑥ back” effect, which for the sake of situating such 4 7 1 repetition in an English-language context may be below [there’s] retainers [have] above [there ‘s] compared with devices of repetition in a villa- 12heads no (in each line) 10[&] masters [have] nelle or sestina (though the tone in these acrostic blocks is usually serious and political rather than 3trust 9loyalty 6propriety aesthetic ally detached). The following is a very concise, direct example: When translating this acrostic into English, “no” adequately provides a substitute for the cen- The good retainers are in hiding, tral, repeated “nai” character in this acrostic. The the rebel retainers are amassing; central character would have been read as the there are no loyal retainers final character in the typical Japanese method of and many traitors reading kanbun, reversing the order of the final two characters in each line and thus further com- plicating the reading as would be desirable in 85 For examples of the maze-like chains of kan- these outlawed satires. The first line would be bun acrostics used for rakusho, see Kida, 49-51; and Suzuki Tozo and Okada Satoshi. Rakusho Ruiju (3 Vol.). Tokyodo Shuppan, 1984, III:35. 87 Kida Jun’ichiro. Rakusho Nihon- shi. San'ichi Shoten, 1967, 191. 86 See Sister Miriam Joseph’s treatment of sorites in her Shakespeare’s Use of the Arts of Language. 88 Kida, 165. Also in Sakuraki, I:337. New York, 1947.

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read, “ue de shin [ga] nai,” and “ga nai” would ⇣㧙୸㧙⻉ round off every line, creating a dry rhythm punc- \ | / tuating the message. As we will see below, this ᗜ̆࿖̆⥄ “stanza” concludes a series of four such blocks of / | \ kanshi acrostics. A rhythm based on the repetition 㛳㛍ᒝ of the central character in the acrostic provide a locus for both linking diverse associations and creating humorous effects in the juxtapositions ౏㊁ᶏ that arise. This is precisely how the form is \ |/ adeptly used in the above example. In other uses of the form, unfair relations of ⾟̆ ㄝ ̆ㄭ / | \ power in hierarchical oppositions are exposed, as 90 well as financial contradictions that burdened the ၷᾍས non-sovereign classes: This last acrostic “stanza” makes full use of A foreign country’s ship the form, creating a sense of reversals and confu- comes to an eastern domain [country]89 sion by situating the most unobtrusive puns in sending the country into turmoil imbedded multiple-kanji words (jukugo) and by changing domainal rule. reinforcing the image of hysteria and rebellion. Here, all four “lines” (readings) vary the meaning Many domains are surprised of the central character, imbedding the following by another country’s strength. different jukugo: “seashore” (kaihen), “the pub- Nippon is in an uproar, lic” (kohen), “around the fields” (nohen; fields), the country under duress. and “neighborhood” (kinpen). Moreover, in the first two versions, the first two lines describe the With the seashores fortified menacing danger from outside, while the latter rumors circulate among the public, two lines suggest internal turmoil. In English smoke rises around the fields translation these word-plays may not be apparent and neighborhoods are bustling. when there are variations in the reading of the central character of the acrostic. ᧲ੂ⇣ \ | / Changing his residence, ᄌ㧙࿖㧙ᴦ bitter under house arrest, / | \ plotting a quiet retreat a warrior in retirement. ⦁ၔ᧪ A time in the future before the troops set off, they won’t have changed their base ways before awakening. 89 I.e., Perry arrived in Shimoda, in eastern Japan, In a world full of decay and Japan was a country in the East. The distinc- today this is too much, tion was ambiguous, and became an issue in 1867, the barbarians prosper when the Satsuma Domain, providing evidence in sending people bustling. its possession of the Ryukyu Islands, applied as a sovereign nation for a place in the Paris Exposi- Above there is no trust, tion. See Marius B. Jansen, “The Meiji Restora- below no propriety, tion,” in The Emergence of Meiji Japan, ed. Marius B. Jansen. Cambridge: Cambridge Un i- versity Press, 1995, 184. 90 Kida, 129-130.

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the retainers have no loyalty pecially important within the samurai class — and the masters have no heads. within each domain and, ultimately, with respects to domainal ambitions and their relative standings vis-à-vis the shogunate. As unrest grew among all Ⲿ㑄૑ classes and domains, the ruled (all lower-samurai \ | / and below) no longer bothered to exhibit a sense ࿯㧙ዬ㧙㓝 of respect and decorum, which conveyed trus t- / | \ worthiness in compliance with the firmly estab- ઍડᕱ lished ideological orthodoxy. The retainers, who were the mediators between the very top and the other classes, exhibited no loyalty, so that the ァ⌒ ᤨ relations between ruler and ruled no longer bene- \ | / fited from a unity of command, actions, and le- ᱛ㧙ᧃ㧙ᐊ gitimacy to govern and be governed under a / | \ Confucian model of reciprocal relations between ᧪ⷡ⊒ ruler and ruled (the ideas of which were hotly debated to diverse ends). Such relations became ੹ᄱ਎ murky and loyalties diverse. \|/ “The masters have no heads” refers espe- 㛍㧙⋓㧙ੱ cially to Ii Naosuke who was assassinated outside / | \ the Sakurada Gate of Edo Castle, in revenge for ຟ਽ㆊ the purge of Mito retainers who advocated the overthrow of the Bakufu and the restoration of ਅ⤿਄ the emperor. Thus the “warrior in retirement” is \ | / probably Yoshinobu (Keiki), son of the shogun Iesada and potential successor who Ii Naobumi 㚂㧙ή㧙ਥ / | \ had forced into retirement. 91 A very similar, but extremely dry and direct ାᔘ⑥ acrostic appears as politically empowered inde- pendent bands of roshi began making terrorist Class schema, and their insolvency, are strikes and employing a deluge of handbills in the mapped out in this final acrostic “stanza,” easily early 1860s. rendered in English, by reading the central word, “no,” in its appearance in diagonal, vertical and The lord’s words esteemed, horizontal lines. For a merchant, this crisscros s- the retainer’s words taken lightly; ing of negations (discussed as the example used heaven’s will is flawless, to illustrate how to read kanji acrostics) would the barbarians good as dead. have symbolized the decline of transactions by which he collected his profits.92 The country’s authority is strong, The ruling class needed to be able to trust the barbarian’s authority in ruins; those below them, the lower samurai, who were the lord’s authority is awesome, in normal circumstances obliged to convey retainers’ authority gains backing. trustworthiness to their sworn masters. Thus the “trust” (shin) was between high and low and es- The country’s authority is strong, the barbarian’s authority in ruins; 91 Kida, 165. See also Sakuraki, I:337. the lord’s authority is awesome, retainers’ authority gains backing. 92 Kida notes that though rakusho were written mostly by lower samurai, the shomin still figure The lord holds the Way, prominently in this genre. See 261. the retainers hold loyalty;

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the people are in order those upper merchant (commoner) class and the the barbarians will be punished.93 lower samurai, where the ruling ideology was most at odds with the realities of the day: wealthy ⤿ᄤำ merchants were buying last names so as to attain \| / samurai status and privilege, while samurai, be- ੢㧙๮㧙⾚ came more indebted to merchants. The ruled / | \ (lower-ranking samurai and below) no longer ㊀ᱜシ stood in awe of the power of samurai ceremony and decorum, which represented the orthodox ᄱำ࿖ Confucian ideology’s firmest consummation. \ | / In a broader perspective, these kanshi acros- ஻㧙ᆭ㧙⤿ tics are the most serious of the satirical verse / | \ forms that include most prominently kyoka as ᒝ෩ຟ satirical with respect to waka, senryu as satirical ⤿᳃ำ vis-à-vis hokku, and kyoshi and this kanshi acros- \ | / tic as satirical with respect to the more philoso- ⟏㧙᦭㧙⾚ phical and abstract kanshi. These acrostics, be- / | \ cause of the tendency of the repetition of the cen- ㆏ᴦ ᔘ tral character to exaggerate parallelism that is already prominent in kanshi, in practice are more This acrostic, as Kida writes, illustrates the analytical in their critical raids on established 95 thought of independent bands of roshi and their ideological and structural assumptions. As terrorist groups. It maps the political ideals and kyoka parody the elevated literary court language the unresolved, tense relations between factions specific to waka, kanshi-based satire parodied advocating various solutions to the country’s and twisted the rules of kanshi precepts, specifi- problems. The opening acrostic reflects sonno joi cally those of Confucian values. These bitter (revere the emperor, expel the barbarians) acrostics did not always attack these values thought, and the last “stanza” reaffirms the main themselves and certainly not so as to dispense tenets of Confucian ideology in general. In this with them altogether. Neo-Confucianism of some acrostic, as Kida writes, “lord” versus “rebel” kind was all they knew, and even when calling indicates restoration thought, and “country” (or for the Restoration of Imperial rule, their argu- domain) versus “barbarian” (foreign countries) ments were usually based on these very values. reflects “Expel the Barbarians” thought. Both are Kida sees the partisan propagandistic uses of ra- situated within the binary conceptual pattern at- kusho, from around 1863, as having robbed the 96 tendant to Confucian thought. After the opening genre of its “original esprit.” of the ports, the cost of living rose, and the first to be affected were the people at large (minshu) and the lower class samurai, who become the most 95 It would be easy to label them “deconstruc- vociferous proponents of “expelling the barbari- tive,” but I believe this terms has been overused 94 ans.” for the sake of unifying a critical ideology in the This form more than any other reflects the late 20th century at the expense of understanding turbulent class relations from the point of view of the complexities of the way language was han- dled and wielded in these bakumatsu and Meiji contexts, where Western notions of an integrated 93 Kida, 170. subject associated with expression are but one dim possibility for situating linguistic and ideo- 94 Takahashi Shin’ichi. Takahashi Shin’ichi logical practices. chosakushu, v.10. Hayariuta de tsuduru Nihon Gendaishi, Ayumi Shuppan, 1985, 12. 96 Kida, 171.

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The governing order was at that time break- ing down on all fronts: politics, economics, social Quick, over here Mito lords in retirement order, and foreign relations. The somewhat bitter don’t be so loud public affairs of state mode of protest in these acrostics, whereby the about it subjects (the ruled) exhibit a concern for the I am delighted. the abbot at Zojoji realm as a whole, is important to Confucian mod- Temple els of state. As is apropos in a Confucian manner They’ll really change? rumors of their return of sympathetic remonstration, both anger and my chest is pounding, impoverished (sho- paternal concern over the state of affairs is ex- gunal) retainers pressed. aren’t they cute? Japan’s ‘great vessels’ Rakusho of yet another variety take the form How could it be? these hard times of a satirical assemblage of snippets of purported the dirty things ... dialogue. In some of these rakusho lines are at- Dreadful! anything over 100 tributed, with varying degrees of innuendo, to koku specific classes or stations. The device of enu- enlisted into service ... meration that structures such rakusho resembles the numerous hayariuta in the subgenera of ߪ߿ߊ߅޿ߢࠃ ᳓ᚭᲚᓮ㓝ዬ mariuta (ball songs), iroha-uta (ABC songs), and 㕒߆ߦ߅ߒࠃ ౏௾ߩߪߥߒ kazoe-uta (counting songs), all of which utilize ሜߒ޿ߨ߳ Ⴧ਄ኹߩߪߥߒ the vehicle of catalogue to assemble a litany of ߶ࠎߣ߁߆߃ ᏫᏔߩས complaints, usually about social ills and unjust situations. While hayariuta tended to make light ⢷߇ߤ߈ߤ߈ߔࠆࠃ ⽺ਲߥᓮኅੱ of all in “good humor,” rakusho were in general ߆ߪ޿޿ߨ߳ ᣣᧄߩᄢ⦁ more serious, intimating the challenge of an op- ߣ߁ߒߡߎࠎߥߛ ਎ߩਛ߰ߌ޿߈ positional force with which to be reckoned. Being ࠄ߁ a broadly inclusive genre defined by its illicit ߈ߚߥ޿ߎߣޕޕޕ means of distribution, they often utilized an enu- ޿߿ߛࠃ98 ⊖⍹ਃਔߩᓮᚻવ merative, cataloging device to add rhythmic and mnemonic staying power along with a sense of 97 The left column suggests the multiplicity of conviction. banter one might overhear in an imaginary public The following example is an extended, play- sphere that reaches into the back rooms of con- ful and satirical "graffiti verse" (with missing cerned players in pre-Restoration politics. The fragments indicated by ellipses). The left column right column provides solid points of reference, of lines represents an array of distinct voices ut- which quite interestingly evoke ideologically di- tering various opinions on current events. The verse voices, which cohere in their consistently right may be read either as a direct attribution or ironic tone and as a medley of fragments of con- a clarifying gloss on the utterances. versational utterances. The contrasting voices create a cacophony designed to amuse, and which can be read as From the Back Streets: One’s Fortune on columns and confusedly, with interruptions, as Slips of Paper in this World of Change somewhat arbitrarily divided lines designed to (਎ߩਛㄞ߁ࠄ Yo no Naka Tsujiura) convey a sense of disorder. This example epito- mizes Kamisaka’s emphasis on rakusho as being “critical, mocking (choroteki), satirical (fu- 97 These lampooning dialogues were rakusho shiteki),” and “incorporating overlapping (jufu- that sometimes were based on or became popu- kuteki) and associative (engoteki) expression.” He larly circulated hayariuta, such as is the case of the well known “Close-Cropped” (Jangiri), which will be treated below. 98 Sakuraki, 23.

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continues, rakusho “began with the aim of dis- seminating throughout the community informa- ᄢ࿖⥰ tion about the advantages and disadvantages of ৻ߦ ࠗࠡ࡝ࠬ߅ߒ߆ߌߡ things of interest, by raising [questions related to] ੑߦ ᣣᧄࠍߐߪ߇ߒߡ every sort of event or incident in the government ਃߦ ߐࠎߐߧࠈߚ߳ߡ and blunders in someone’s actions.”99 Historical engagement and lack of fixed topics for composi- ྾࠷ ਎ߩਛᑿ㏹߷߁ tion distinguishes rakusho as an anti-literary form ੖࠷ ੹߆ࠄⓀฎߒߡ of verse, performing as an affront not only to ౐࠷ ߻߆ߒߩァቇ߽ specific policy issues, but also to the ascendancy ৾࠷ ਛߥ߆߹ߦ޽ߪߕ of higher poetry as distinguished by proper dic- ౎࠷ ߿ߒ߈ߪᓮ‛౉ 100 tion, and inclusions and exclusions of topics. ਻࠷ ੹ᐲߩᓮ࿕߼߽ Similarly interesting in its treatment of his- ච࠷ ߣ߁ߣ߁ߏ቟ᔃ101 torical imagery is the kazoe-uta or “counting song” “Daikoku-mai,” which is written with the Here the punster begins with a general allu- characters for “dance of the great nations” but sion to samurai who advocated “expelling the which is homophonic with a folk dance devel- barbarians” and expressed their infuriation over oped in the Muromachi period as a prayer for the the presence of foreigners by assaulting English new year, called “Dance of the Great Black.” The subjects (who were shielded by extraterritorial dancers would don masks so as to take the form rights).102 In 1861 and 1863 the English are said of Mahakala, a Buddhist protectorate deity, and to have ‘picked a fight’, and in actuality one Eng- sing prayers of thanks to the deity. This subtext is lishman lost his life, leading the English govern- significant as a framing device, noticeable in the ment to seek compensation and punishment of the closing word, “go-anshin,” translated as “royal Japanese who killed the British subject. Because peace of mind.” But rather than a prayer for the of inter-domainal conflict, it could not be re- new year, it reads like a lament for a chain of solved to their satisfaction, and this incident cul- misfortunate events: minated in the British bombardment of Kago- shima in August 1863. The opening lines conflate Dance of the Great Japan the national subjects of England and the Shogun with the local subjects involved in this physical First The English pick a fight fight. The ‘turn’ in the rakusho comes midway, as Second Japan is stirred into an uproar comparisons of weaponry available to back “the Third Blinded by the confusion great nation” are made, so as to satirize how Ja- Fourth The bows and javelins of our world pan has not living up to its samurai bravado. With Fifth To practice from now on an antiquated “military science of old,” it seemed Sixth With our military science of old like Japanese would not “make it” in time to stop Seventh Just seems like we won’t make it outright colonization. The use of enumeration Eighth Estates are royal warehouses underscores the parody of the understood order of Ninth And ensuing royal pledges the daimyo with their “royal” estates, pledges, Tenth Will surely insure royal peace of and security, which were all rendered ineffectual mind. by the dangerous combination of military inferi- ority, lack of political order, and brash actions by stalwart samurai. This rakusho displays some of 99 Kamisaka, 2.

100 According to Kamisaka, topics for rakusho 101 Sakuraki, 25-26. are various, without a broadly accepted generi- cally defined range of topics and objectives for 102 See Samson, George, A History of Japan, writing rakusho. Kamisaka, 5. 1615-1867, Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1963, 239-240.

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the dangers of the late 1850s and 1860s known as tude), / and what’s left is the land of America.”105 “troubles within [open the country to] disaster The purport here is that the Bakufu had capitu- from without” (ౝᘷᄖᖚ).103 lated to American demands and had orientated its Semantically playful rakusho, could express actions and principles in line with America. It resistance to the glib application of new names also suggests that America, given such appeasing and ideas. Such words were often presented as policies, will rule at every latitude, throughout the a panacea capable of transforming a troubled so- world. cial milieu into a glorious one. Though gover n- Similar songs include two appearing in the ment supporters may take them seriouslyly, for Yubin Hochi Shinbun in 1874, under the heading satirists such words were seen as ruses employed “a few hayariuta.” They reflect in song various to mislead lower classes into acting against their attitudes toward imposed changes in social cus- own interests, as the following kyoka suggests: toms. One is very similar to the previously cited song, on the futility and sheer stupidity of trying Read backwards by the underlings, to change deep-rooted customs, values, and insti- it means they shall not prevail. tutions overnight by mere proclamation.

਄߆ࠄߪ᣿ᴦߤߥߤߣ޿߰ߌࠇߤᴦ᣿ Though mouthing the words 㧔߅ߐ߹ࠆ߼޿㧕ߣਅ߆ࠄߪ⺒߻104 ‘Civilization and Enlightenment’, dyed-in-the-wool bigots

“Meiji,” read “backwards” (lit. “from below,” 106 in usually vertically written Japanese) is ᢥ᣿㐿ൻߣญߢߪવ߳ߤᨴߺߚ࿕㒞 “osamarumei,” or “they shall not prevail.” This punning portrays class tension invested in the Another song reads: ideological bent latent in the very designation O august body politic of equal rights “Meiji” itself. This kyoka lampoons the name for between men being merely a nominal attempt to decree a last- and women, where today’s women are ing remedy for the country’s problems. nobody’s fools. Kida correctly cites this as an example of the people’s (minshu) opposition to “revolution from ੹ߩᅚߪ㚍㣮ߦߪߥࠄߧ↵ᅚหᮭߩᓮ᡽ above” (ue kara no kakumei). However, we must ૕107 also point out that the form for such oppos ition to the government by lampooning the name of the It is a song on the hypocrisy of suddenly reign was not new. One finds in the Somenk an treating women as equals when diminutive atti- Bakumatsu-shi similar play with the “Ansei” pe- tudes toward women were still the norm. This riod name (1854-1860). At that time many criti- song parodies the solemn, exhortative voices that cized the Bakufu for opening the country to characterized proclamations of ‘rights’, whether broader foreign relations: “Ansei (peaceful gov- general human rights or specific cases of margin- ernment) read backwards is Isen (parallel of lati- alized groups such as women.

Here are a few comical examples of how senryu ditties expressed the feeling of absurdity 103 On naiyu gaikan see Marius B. Jansen, “The Meiji Restoration,” in The Emergence of Meiji Japan, ed. Marius B. Jansen. Cambridge: Cam- 105 Sakaraki, 1: 109. bridge University Press, 1995, 144-150. 106 From the Yubin Hochi Shinbun, included in 104 Kida, 218. Furigana appear in parentheses. Meiji Jidai Bunka Kiroku Shusei, 129. Note that the name of Edo was changed to Tokyo in 1866.7.17. 107 Meiji Jidai Bunka Kiroku Shusei, 129.

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upon seeing the pomp invested by the ruling class uta has been how these verses negotiated of intellectuals: class relations, and the relation of the forms of power represented in the exam- Across the page sideways ined verses to the developing field of vari- like the crab-letters, so go people’s minds. ously competing ideologies. The class con- Ⳝᢥሼߩᮮ߳ߘࠇⴕߊੱᔃ flict manifest in these ideologies may be understood, as I have suggested, in terms “Enlightenment” is summoned of resentment towards “the revolution from and shapes are magically transformed. above”110 and the impositions made by 㐿ൻߣߪ㐿ߌߡൻߌࠆᆫߥࠅ leaders who wielded and distorted lan- guage in ways to advance their positions For as long as we have some life in us, and diminish the voices of those with dis- our eyes will only get bluer. senting opinions. From the point of view of 108 ߎࠇ߆ࠄߪ⋡₹߇㕍ߊߥࠆ߫߆ࠅ the dissenters themselves, these verses show how the words and slogans of the All of these satires reflect differences be- new leaders became entertaining fodder tween former ways of conducting daily affairs for satire, became means of expressing and the new ways, which were imposed from bitter criticism publicly displayed as acros- above and often enforced by law, giving rise to tics and versified dialogue, and became in much dismay and scrutiny. The comic element 1890s senryu voices reinforcing the ruling here derives from what Bergson described as a bureaucracy’s position on national issues. situation that “belongs simultaneously to two Senryu especially can be seen to migrate altogether independent series of events and is capable of being interpreted in two entirely dif- from being forms of annoying marginal ferent meanings at the same time.”109 Here the dissent to being ironic voicing only mildly “series” are Tokugawa rules and routines in con- taunting the nation as it quietly applauded trast to the newly reformed “enlightened” rules Japan’s rise to regional dominance as an for living. It is hard to imagine a situation more industrial, modernized nation with various prone to such clashing of norms of established issues of ideological backing that these series than in this period, especially with the verses document. grandiose claims of “Kaika” publicists abutting the pettiness and superficiality of the actual im- pact. This essay attempts to demonstrate how historically contextualized satirical verse, though reactive in most instances, visibly interacted in the formation of sub- jects and ideological commonsense of the former Bakuhan classes and formative Meiji classes. Changes in the uses of these forms also reflect variations in ideological stability. The most recurrent theme in this study of senryu, rakusho, and hayari-

108 Kida, 221-222.

109 Cited in Susan Stewart, Nonsense - Aspects of Intertextuality in Folklore and Literature, Balt i- more: John Hopkins University, 1978, 157. 110 For instance, see Kida, 218.

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The lead essay, co-written by editors Book Reviewsᦠ⹏ McClain and Wakita, gives a broad survey of "Osaka Across the Ages." It is a solid introduc- James L. McClain and Wakita Osamu, eds. tion to the history of both region and city from Osaka: The Merchants' Capital of Early Mod- the Jomon period through end of the Tokugawa ern Japan. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, period, and is accompanied by photographs, re- 1999. productions of artwork and, most helpfully, by several clearly drawn historical maps. McClain Of the various forms of scholarly writing, the and Wakita set the tone for the essays that follow topical essay collection most expediently intro- by seeking to show "what made Osaka Osaka." (p. duces a broad range of research topics and meth- 20) This is an implicitly comparative query, one ods to a reading audience. Despite its occasional whose task is to contest the characterization of shortcomings it remains the most efficient way to the entire early modern period as the "Edo Pe- "cover" large tracts of historical territory, as well riod." (ibid) McClain, Wakita, and most of the as to engage new theories and methods. Despite contributors argue that Osaka's history was quite the relatively prominent role essay collections distinct from the histories of Edo and Kyoto, and have played in the writing of medieval Japanese by understanding its role in the larger scheme of history in English, until fairly recently, the genre early modern Japanese history, one can better has not exerted an especially great influence on appreciate the "richness and diversity of urban the historiography of the early modern period. life." (p. 20) The various contributors undertake This situation may be changing somewhat with this task in quite different ways. the appearance of Osaka: The Merchants' Capital Wakita Haruko's essay on "medieval urban- of Early Modern Japan. Osaka follows on the ism" in the Osaka region is a concise and pro- heels of Edo & Paris: Urban Life and the State in vocative discussion of urban and economic the Early Modern Era (Cornell University growth between the thirteenth and sixteenth cen- Press, 1994). Together these volumes, diverse in turies. She shows convincingly that Osaka had subject matter and in methodology, have laid the deep roots as a commercial center well before the foundation for the subfield of early modern early modern period. The early development of Japanese urban history in English. ports, and subsequently of warehousing and Osaka brings together Japanese and Ameri- transhipping activities led to a pattern of settle- can specialists on early modern history and cul- ment she terms the "medieval urban community." ture. All have previously published on topics re- (p. 30) These communities were characterized by lated to, if not specifically within the field of ur- "concentrated, nonfarming populations; the per- ban history. In the editors' preface, James L. formance of economic activities that revolved McClain and Wakita Osamu explain that they around the distribution of commodities supplied asked each contributor to address three central by peasant and artisan producers; and a decline in themes: the first was to give a sense of "the dy- the influence and power of the traditional pro- namics that resulted in Osaka's emergence as one prietary lords…." (p.30) By this definition, she of Japan's leading cities during the early modern argues that while Kyoto, Nara, and Kamakura period," the second was to "expand our under- could be called medieval cities, "the new urban- standing about the distinctive nature of Osaka's ism was associated particularly with entrepôt urban experience, especially in contrast to Edo communities." (p. 31) and Kyoto," and the third was to "explore the James McClain's essay on "Space, Power, contributions that Osaka's residents made to po- Wealth, and Status in Seventeenth-Century litical, social, and economic developments across Osaka" shows how new political and economic Japan." (p. xiii) Moreover, the editors intended developments in the early modern period mani- the essays to be of interest to specialists as well fested themselves in the changing physical and as accessible to students new to the study of social geography of Osaka. By reading the urban Japanese history. This is a tall order, but it is one landscape, McClain argues that while the city was the volume is, for the most part, able to fill. in the early seventeenth century a "city of samu-

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rai and power," it became over time a city of some, despotic expropriation of commoner "merchants and commerce," and one of "artisans wealth…." (p. 102) The tactic of direct remon- and production," as the commoner population stration, then, forms just one example of the ways grew in size and power and spread throughout the in which "pressure from below" transformed city. He shows that while mid-seventeenth cen- Osaka into the "people's city." (p. 103) tury maps of Osaka are dominated by the loom- In the first of two essays on Osaka culture, C. ing presence of Osaka Castle (and by metaphori- Andrew Gerstle's "Takemoto Gidayu and the In- cal extension, the official/samurai presence), by dividualistic Spirit of Osaka Theater," Gerstle the mid-eighteenth century, the castle is squeezed shows how an "individualistic, self-reliant spirit" out toward the margins of the map and dimin- (p. 105) came to pervade Osaka joruri in the ished in size. (p. 75-77) As in McClain's earlier eighteenth century, and continues to characterize essay on "power, space, and popular culture" in the modern bunraku puppet theater to this day. Edo (in Edo & Paris, pp. 105-131), one sees This is striking because it stands in contrast to the clearly how the Tokugawa policy of balancing more familiar iemoto system of lineage- or com- control from above and autonomy from below munity-based institutional organization that affected settlement patterns and economic and characterized kabuki and other traditional arts in cultural activity in the city. In other words, the Edo and Kyoto. Gerstle gives a brief history of reader gets a revealing picture of Osaka's distinc- joruri, and describes the important roles of two tive historical geography. Osaka-based artists, Kaga no Jo and Takemoto In Uchida Kusuo's essay "Protest and the Gidayu, in shaping and refining its practice. He Tactics of Direct Remonstration: Osaka's Mer- shows how the particular views of Kaga no Jo chants Make Their Voices Heard," the author and Gidayu, combined with the fiercely competi- highlights the dialectical relationship between tive atmosphere of the eighteenth-century Osaka shogunal authorities and Osaka commoners by theater to create a teaching and performing showing how merchants forged new types of al- method that valued innovation and individuality liances and developed new forms of protest dur- over the formulation of a school-based style ing the early modern period in order to contest transmitted through a family or lineage. the heavy-handed regulatory policies employed Gary Leupp's essay, "The Five Men of Na- by the shogunate to regulate the prices of rice and niwa: Gang Violence and Popular Culture in other commodities. Merchants began petitioning Genroku Osaka" reveals a different aspect of city magistrates in Edo in 1733, and when they Osaka, and by extension, early modern culture proved unresponsive, these peaceful tactics were through representations of a gang of hoodlums followed by the first urban riots of the early who raised havoc on the streets of Osaka, com- modern period. The conflict spread to Osaka in mitting robbery, assault, and murder at the turn of 1735-36; as in Edo, the process began peacefully, the eighteenth century. For the most part, the Five with appeals making their way up through the Men of Naniwa and their cohort targeted wealthy urban chain of command. But as each round of commoners. In 1701 the local police captured the protest was met with only partial concessions by men and they were executed the following sum- officials, Osaka's merchants began to devise new mer. Rather than being disparaged for their tactics, which culminated in the unprecedented crimes, after their deaths the five men "became direct remonstration to the city magistrates for transformed into protectors of ordinary people postponement of payment for mandatory grain and the embodiment of the best and most noble purchases. In the end, Uchida argues that al- aspirations and values espoused by the common- though "the protest movement did not result in ers of Osaka." (p. 126) This transformation was any major concessions on the part of the govern- effected largely through song, drama, storytelling, ment," the merchants did not see this as defeat. and woodblock prints, and it was a phenomenon "On the contrary, the unfolding of events almost that was not limited to Osaka; Edo kabuki play- seems to have given birth to a sense of wrights also dramatized the affair beginning in self-satisfaction among the merchant estate…for 1716. Leupp argues that commoner outlaws were having stood up against the arbitrary and, for lionized by the public because they tapped into "a

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very conscious, if unfocused, class hatred." (p. other folk religionists also were busy communi- 154) cating with Inari on behalf of grateful clients." (p. Two essays in Osaka discuss early modern 192) As the trend toward increased Inari worship religion. Yoshida Nobuyuki's article discusses a spread from Osaka to surrounding areas, the brotherhood of mendicant monks in Osaka and shogunate began to worry that such popular be- their relationships to the local authorities (the liefs might lead to the emergence of "peculiar Osaka city magistrates) and to the religious es- heterodoxies" and ult imately, to social unrest, and tablishments with which they were affiliated (in officials began to crack down on prominent Inari this case, the monastery Daizoin on Mount sects and to regulate folk religion in general. Kurama north of Kyoto). The monks themselves These regulations had the effect of stifling Inari quarreled over alms-gathering practices; in par- worship, but, as Nakagawa concludes, in an un- ticular, they disagreed over whether or not to en- usually strident tone, Inari still "constitute[s] a gage in the somewhat unorthodox tactics of means, however modest, for ordinary people to dressing up as Buddhist or even Shinto deities, or defy modern rationalism as it tries to crush un- as "spirits and apparitions," or of putting on derfoot the feelings of reverence toward nature, street-corner performances in order to gather and to resist an omnipotent state that so often alms. To resolve these disputes, in 1672, Kurama seems bent on destroying happiness in this life." authorities issued a "notification" (oboe), which (p. 212) the Osaka city magistrates then enforced. As a In Tetsuo Najita's essay "Ambiguous En- result, both church and secular officials com- counters: Ogata Koan and International Studies in pelled the brotherhood to organize and regulate Late Tokugawa Osaka," the author shows clearly itself, in an "amalgam of religious law and gov- that Koan, a leading scholar of so-called rangaku, ernment-approved code of conduc t." (p. 162) or "Dutch studies" fused his "Western" learning Yoshida points out both the similarities and dif- with Tokugawa Confucian thought. Koan did so ferences in the organization of brethren in Osaka in practice, by requiring his students to study both and in Edo, and relates them to the structural dif- Dutch and Confucian thought at his academy in ferences in the political and social organization of Osaka, the Tekijuku, and in theory, for he under- each city. (p. 165-66) Ultimately, Yoshida argues, stood Dutch studies, especially medicine, to be a rather than forging a separate and distinct identity, form of "ethical action" (insofar as its goal was to "the friars have passed into historical memory as save lives) of the sort advocated by Tokugawa just one among several groups that helped to cre- Confucian thinkers like Kaibara Ekiken. The ate popular religion and fuse it with commoner roots of this thinking lay in the concept that hu- culture during the early modern era." (p. 176) man knowledge was fundamentally incomplete, The second essay on popular religion con- but that individuals were obligated to do their cerns the worship of Inari in Osaka. Nakagawa utmost to learn how to sustain life: "What the Sugane uses the case of Inari to provide a clearer theory allowed was that the Dutch knew more view of the problems besetting forms of "popu- about certain things. And while that knowledge lar" religion in early modern Osaka. The worship was worth mastering, it, too, was relative, an of Inari, which reached "explosive" proportions epistemological presupposition that would persist by the nineteenth century, had its roots in the de- into the early industrial era." (p. 223) The preci- cline of community Shinto shrines, whose main- sion and economy with which Najita explicates a tenance had become difficult and costly for many quite complex set of ideas is difficult to repro- neighborhoods and villages. Shrines thus initiated duce here; the essay fully succeeds in, as the au- the worship of popular deities like Benzaiten, the thor puts it, "forsaking [the] dualities" that have Seven Gods of Good Fortune (shichi fukujin), and marked early modern intellectual history: Ogata Inari specifically to increase the number of wor- and Fukuzawa Yukichi, Osaka and Edo, past and shippers and thus broaden the shrine's base of future. (p. 216-223) One comes to understand support. This move had the effect of also diver- each component in the duality by understanding sifying forms of worship, as "mountain ascetics, its "other." Of all the essays in the book, Najita's sorcerers, seers, clairvoyants, and all manner of perhaps addresses the concept of Osaka's dis-

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tinctiveness most effectively by illuminating its initiative, energy, and acumen in making Osaka (more precisely, its intellectuals') connections the city it was (and, to a certain degree, remains). with other places and ideas. In addition to the historical voices, however, are In the penultimate essay in the collection, the historians' voices, and they add a murmuring Murata Michihito provides a "geography of gov- chorus of catchphrases to which the reader is ernance in central Japan" (p. 245) by looking at meant to hook the information gleaned from the Osaka's role in regional governance. Arguing that essays: Osaka is the "merchants' city," the "mer- commoners have often been ignored in studies of chants' capital," the "people's city," or the "coun- governance in the Kansai area (though he does try's kitchen." Almost every essay resorts to one not really explain why), Murata focuses on the or several of these phrases, in great part because roles of the yokiki, later known as yotashi, they are apt descriptions. For the novice student Osaka's "merchant delegates" who assisted sho- (to whom the volume is in part addressed), such gunal officials at various levels with governing reiteration might prove helpful, but to "advanced tasks. As in Edo and other cities, commoners in specialists in [Japan's] urban history," (p. xiii) for Osaka assumed a variety of governing tasks; their whom the volume is also intended, these al- duties tended to expand over time, and become ready-familiar catchphrases emphasizing Osaka's increasingly integrated into the official adminis- merchant-centered identity begin to raise more trative system. The yokiki/yotashi were no excep- questions than they answer. This is not to say the tion. Murata argues that they played a part in the volume fails to convince the reader that Osaka "complex geography" of power in the Kansai was in fact the "merchants' city"; on the contrary, area. the research gathered here is impressive and per- The concluding essay is an afterword of sorts suasive in its both breadth and depth. The by Wakita Osamu, and combines a recapitulation smoothness of the narrative, however, whets the of Osaka's early modern development with a brief reader's appetite for further discussion of mer- synthesis of each of the preceding essays' contri- chants themselves. For example, one wants to butions to understanding Osaka's early modern know more about divisions within the merchant urbanism (as opposed to its medieval urbanism, class (hinted at in Leupp's essay); about the na- as conceived by Wakita Haruko). What were ture and organization of labor; about material these characteristics? We might note first trends culture and lifestyle; about gender relations related to political, social, and economic growth within the merchant class. and change in the urban context: increasing mer- Further questions arise from the emphasis on chant self-governance; expanding merchant merchant activity as a cornerstone of Osaka's presence in the city, both vertically (up into the "distinctive" urban identity. As noted at the be- lower rungs of political administration) and hori- ginning of this review, highlighting Osaka's dis- zontally (across the physical space of the city tinctiveness contributions to the larger society, itself); continuous merchant protest against sti- polity, and economy was part of the agenda set fling shogunal policies; persistent class conflict, before the contributors. But in the absence of not only between merchants and samurai, but relevant comparisons, what does it mean to say within the merchant class itself. At the same time that early modern Osaka was politically, eco- there were cultural and intellectual movements nomically, or culturally distinctive? Osaka's that flourished or foundered (or both) in the con- predecessor, Edo & Paris, contained within it an text of Osaka itself: the growth, regulation, and/or inherent tension because the comparison between suppression of popular religious movements; the the two cities was overt, as was the thematic ap- development of distinctive styles in Osaka per- proach (the relationship between urban life and forming and literary arts; the differing intellectual the state). The comparative angle made the Edo currents joining and separating the city's acad- essays stand out in greater relief, their arguments emies, schools, and individual thinkers. honed against the European opposite number. Throughout the volume, one hears quite This is a tension Osaka lacks. The absence of clearly the voices of common people, and one consistent comparisons to other cities is perhaps grasps immediately the importance of commoner the result of a more or less explicit desire to de-

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throne Edo as the representative early modern Japanese city. But there are several instances in This is a fascinating and remarkably readable which a comparison to Edo would have been book, effectively describing how the various fig- helpful. For example, why did popular riots fail ures and narratives of the supernatural were dealt to break out in Osaka, as they did in Edo in the with during Japan’s rapid modernization. 1730s? Similarly, why was gang violence more Have you seen a ghost today? Never en- prevalent in Edo? Can these phenomena be ex- countered tengu in your life? Seemingly our plained by the weaker presence of the samurai enlightened modernity has succeeded in expelling class in Osaka? Another question might address the supernatural monsters and ghosts out of the the comparative spatial dynamics of the two cit- real, and thus, our of the historical. Then, why ies: how did their differences in physical geogra- should a modern historian be concerned with phy influence urban geographies of power? mythical monsters and superstitious spirits? Isn’t Osaka fills a significant gap in the historical it the very task of a historian to de-mythologize literature, and readers and scholars should be our understanding of mysterious events? grateful for the wealth of information and inter- Shouldn’t the modern historian tell us that the pretation this volume provides. At the same time kamikaze wasn’t a divine intervention at all, but one detects a tendency to fill the historiographical merely an incidental meteorological phenome- gap with "pure" Osaka--that is, to dow nplay the non? Doesn’t modernity dictate to us to convince many and important connections that tied Osaka my Japanese granny that there is no divine spirit to its environs, and to other major and minor cit- living in that weather-beaten stone statue of a ies in Japan via trade, travel, and information fox? networks. It could be argued that one distinctive Figal, as a historian, is of course concerned feature of early modern Japan was its connected- about this fundamental desire of modern history ness; the emergence of shared political, economic, to expel ghosts from its territory. Yet, he finds the and cultural practices is surely one of its defining tenacious presence and vicissitudes of the super- characteristics, and Osaka was, as Tetsuo Najita natural within various Japanese modern dis- points out, an international city. Osaka was also courses a key to understanding better, historically an early modern city, marked by the interconnec- to wit, the formation of Japanese modernity itself. tion and cross-pollination that defined the era, in Figal points out three major discursive operations Japan as elsewhere. In contrast to this image, with regard to the mysterious (fushigi) in Meiji. with a few exceptions, Osaka's Osaka seems to One is the rationalization of the mysterious, float in a void. Osaka was certainly a center of driven by the scientific will to demystify all su- merchant power, but merchants all over Japan pernatural phenomena. The second is the incipi- became increasingly powerful, organized, and ent development of folk studies spearheaded by autonomous during the early modern period. To Yanagita Kunio as well as the extraordinary, in- what degree, then, is merchant power an "Osaka" tellectual jack-of-all-trades Minakata Kumagusu. trend versus an "early modern" trend? More The third is the political reorganization of re- explicitly comparative analysis would allow the gional “spirits” into a centralized, nationalized reader to judge for him/herself, and would make “Japanese Spirit.” this useful and informative volume more pro- If this book were overtly focused on the po- vocative and open-ended. litical aspect implicit in the last issue stated above, Marcia Yonemoto it would have been a rather predictable, ideologi- Department of History cally driven study. I admire this work for not be- University of Colorado, ing pontifical or accusatory in tone even when it Boulder discusses some clearly political issues. In fact, it seems to me that Figal is at pains to be fair to all Gerald A. Figal, Civilization and Monsters : the main figures in his narrative. Instead of nar- Spirits of Modernity in Meiji Japan. Durham rating another one-dimensional political tragedy [N.C.]: Duke University Press, 1999. of Japan’s empire, Figal delineates a complex web of diverse discourses surrounding the super-

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natural, including science, medicine, psychology, and superstition, is somehow forcefully and per- folklores, and literature. As the author of a book versely thwarted by the state’s will to resurrect or transformed from a dissertation, I see Figal eager preserve at least a portion of folks’ beliefs in the to distinguish this book from others’ on a similar supernatural. You are an enlightened citizen now, topic. He declares that his is the first study on so you shouldn’t be worried about fox deities Japan’s modernity that takes monsters seriously. bewitching you. As for spirituality, just trust the Moreover, while other historians of Japanese central divinity of our nation, the Emperor! modernity have ignored or marginalized the This is an ambitious work in that it attempts mysterious, Figal wants to claim that “a discourse to encompass different disciplines, yet what Figal on the supernatural, the mysterious, and the fan- presents after all is their modern histories: the tastic . . . was constitutive of Japan’s modern history of folk studies, of medicine, of science, of transformation” (7). He also finds it necessary to literature. Being a literature specialist, I may want differentiate his work from Marilyn Ivy’s seminal to complain about Figal’s facilely generalized work, Discourse of the Vanishing. But the differ- presentation of Japanese Naturalism or about his ences he proposes seem too paltry for me to take competent yet not very exciting reading of note of here. The only impression I received from Kyoka’s texts. (It is too bad that he did not have a his effort to respond to Ivy’s use of the term “un- chance to read the important, recent works on canny” is that Figal is less inclined to pursue the Kyoka by Charles Inouye and Nina Cornyetz.) now fashionable Freudian / Lacanian path to But I have no desire to force these complaints on analyze his topic. So be it. this “history” book. Also, his main “theoretical” thesis that the There is one thing that leaves me somewhat supernatural was constitutive of Japan’s moder- puzzled after reading this excellent book. And I nity may seem somewhat trifling and too pedantic. know that this question is not really fair to Figal, Doesn’t any identity require its “other” to consti- the historian. It is about the divisions of dis- tute itself as such? It is perfectly understandable courses (genres, disciplines, academic fields). that tengu have disappeared from our sight, that This work is in a way about how the irrational, or modern rationality continuously attempts to expel the mysterious, gets incorporated into various various elements of the irrational from the official “institutionalized” discourses. The two main center of Japan’s modern culture. Thus, it is re- characters in the book, Yanagita and Minakata, freshing to hear that the monsters were doing were both well aware of the distance between well and playing havoc within the modernizing their interests in the irrational and the institution- process of a nation. But, perhaps that is to mis- alized academic discourses of the rational. What I read Figal’s true intention. What he brilliantly want to know is how we should understand the shows us is, again, the complex, political and institutionalized aspect of this book — the book institutional network of discourses on the super- that makes us aware of the risks of institutional- natural appearing quite conspicuously and abun- ized knowledge / language. Should we just go on dantly in Japan’s modernizing era. He categorizes feeling secure in the academically sanctioned a certain discourse on the supernatural, such as historiography, even when it is talking about Izumi Kyoka’s literature, as having a potential monsters? Figal writes with exemplary clarity subversive force against the central enlighten- and academic rigor. But shouldn’t we be nervous ment program of Japan’s modernization. Having about such an exemplary, enlightened academic the same resistant impulse as Kyoka early on, style? After all isn’t that what this book is asking however, Yanagita Kunio’s effort to establish a me to question? Where are the monsters in your new academic discipline of “national” folk stud- text? ies is seen as being co-opted by the government’s Hosea Hirata will to shape a homogenized nation under one Department of German, “Japanese Spirit,” whose incarnation was of Russian, and Asian course the Emperor. A fascinating paradox then Languages and Lit becomes visible: modernity’s basic impulse to eratures censure the past, along with its outdated spirits Tufts University

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Memorial Translation of the Memorial of The whole country [of Tosa]2 is in distur- Imakita Sakubei to the Lord of bance because there have been bad harvests of Tosa, Yamauchi Toyochika the five grains throughout the tenka ìVâ_ (Japan) Luke Roberts in recent years. The people have become impov- Department of History erished because the price of rice has risen to un- University of California, Santa Barbara heard of levels. I think it is indeed a case of the saying, "If the people lose a secure living, then  they lose secure hearts and cannot avoid selfish Translators introduction: The following wrongdoings". I think, however, that there is an- document is a petition submitted by a samurai of other related source of the recent disturbances: Tosa domain to his lord in 1787. Many samurai In recent years the high and low have been drift- submitted memorials that year offering advice on ing apart. how to improve a government that was in deep Because your lordship's primary duty is to be crisis. In the previous years famine had aggra- vated deep dissatisfactions with corruption in ruler of this country, I expect that you think of nothing but how to maintain the people in peace government. Widespread peasant and townsmen and security. However, as your intentions pass protests had rocked the domain in the spring of down through the hands of officials their true 1787 and induced the lord to initiate a govern- content becomes lost, and your lordship's will mental reform to restore more legitimacy to rule. does not reach the low. Therefore, I think that you Sakubei’s petition is remarkable in that he calls for inclusion of commoners into the councils of government, but it also includes much thought by Yamauchi house historians. The original me- about government and corruption common to his morial was held in the archives of the lord of contemporaries. Sakubei was a full samurai but Tosa but the portion of the archives in which it of low rank. He had served as a castle guard and was held ('Tenmei monjo') was burnt in the air as a shinobi, a kind of secret investigator for the raids of World War II. The transcription is the lord. At the time of the petition he had been re- only known version to survive. I have published cently promoted to magistrate of the tax store- the original Japanese in “Tosa hanshi Imakita houses. Sakubei was decently learned but not a Sakubei ni yoru hansei kaikaku an--Tenmei scholar. His petition is filled with originality as shichi-nen no jiyu minken shiso no ichi genryu,” well as reliance on continental learning such as Tosa Shidan (Jan. 1996), no. 200, pp. 53-61, and Confucianism and the I-ching. The lord did not an extended English discussion of the petition in adopt the suggestions in Sakubeis petition but did “A Petition for a Popularly Chosen Council of subsequently employ Sakubei as a member of the Government in Tosa in 1787,” Harvard Journal reform government. of Asiatic Studies, vol. 57, no. 2, (Dec. 1997), pp. 575–96. Translation of the Memorial of Imakita 2 In the documents of early modern Tosa the Sakubei to the Lord of Tosa, Yamauchi Toyochika1 word kuni ࿖ refers almost invariably to Tosa, while tenka or Nihon ᣣᧄ refers to Japan. I prefer to translate kuni as 'country' rather than 'province' or 'realm' because I think that many 1 "Kojo oboe" (6/26/1787) transcribed in ms. aspects of modern nationalism in Japan were "Toyochika-ko ki" "Tenmei shichinen ju- formed within large domainal countries such as gatsu-junigatsu no kan", 65-74th folios held in Tosa. For my thoughts on this matter see my the Yamauchi jinja homotsu shiryokan in Kochi book, Mercantilism in a Japanese Domain: The city, Japan. I have assigned my own folio num- Merchant Origins of Economic Nationalism in bers counted from the first folio of the volume. Eighteenth Century Tosa (Cambridge University This is a transcription made in the 1920's or 30's Press, 1998).

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should return the way of government to what it expenses, and even when they receive office sti- was a hundred years ago, and in order to do this pends they should naturally be poorer than re- you should, at the right time, directly ask the tainers without office. But what does one see? lower people what they think as well, and con- Their houses and whole style of life are full of sider how to do things so that in all respects the wealth. feelings of the high and low are communicated to Because people see these officials take care each other. of those close to them, and ignore those of no Of course because your lordship's finances relation, the people are not honestly obedient. are in a poor state, you cannot order things for the Thus the government of the country suffers welfare of the people just as you would wish. greatly. The ruler of tenka rules by spreading his Although you may think that with the world as it intentions over all of the tenka, the ruler of a is today it would be extremely difficult for the country by spreading his intentions over that high and the low to become close, it is the way of country. It is a great crime for an official in the heaven and earth that when they are in harmony middle to alter your lordship’s intentions. For one then all things flourish. This has not changed person to cause many people distress for his self- through the ages. If your lordship places impor- ish benefit is a crime against heaven. There is the tance on righteousness and sincerely thinks of saying, "The benevolent man loves people well nothing but the welfare of the people then that and hates people well" which is apt. To punish truth will be communicated to the low, and high one for the benefit of the many is the way of be- and low will become as one body. nevolent government. If you investigate thor- Why should your lordship forget your finan- oughly and punish severely then the country will cial straits? If you order things directly and hon- become peaceful. estly, and if all officials came to live properly according to their status, then the high and low ITEM. If you wish to govern the would come to trust each other. Then, even if you country peacefully then you should give great did not disburse rice and money, your intention of thought towards improving the public morals of benevolent care would be communicated to the both the high and the low. With the current way low and they would receive your benefits. But of government the low have nothing but distrust there is a saying, "the more you rake in wealth, of your lordship. If public morals became healthy the more the people flee". Although your lordship again, then the high and low would come to trust is in financial straits, officials with power are each other. If you wish to order things to improve amassing wealth and the people are fleeing.3 public morals, then you should select a number of There is also the proverb, "criticising others while "people of fidelity" (chushin no hito ᔘାߩੱ) not holding oneself accountable to the same from among people throughout the country high faults." Currently all of the officials entrusted and low, regardless of status. If you then place with instructing the people live themselves these people at your side and have them discuss merely for their own benefit. Therefore the peo- and investigate everything, then public morals ple are not submissive in their hearts, and all will improve and the people will trust your lord- scorn and despise those on high. Although your ship. lordship is in financial straits, the people see the better half of your officials getting wealthier and ITEM. Because it is the recent cus- they come to develop hearts hating your lordship. tom for many people to desire appointment to For retainers to arouse such hatred of your lord- public office only to make a living, from the day ship in this way is the extreme of disloyalty! they are employed all they hope for is to do their Retainers entrusted with positions have many job without incident for a certain number of years so that they may achieve a promotion and an in- crease in their fief. They abandon righteousness 3This is in reference to one of the spring protests and pursue wealth. They take care of those close wherin over 700 mountain villagers fled the do- to them and ignore those who are not. Because of main. this they bring hardship to the masses and cause

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you great expense. in history showing that when a ruler gains good people their realms are well governed. Even in ITEM. A person of fidelity is one these times there are good people living within who strives to reject profit and carry out what is the country. righteous, who strives to abandon self interest and carry out the lord’s public will. Such people ITEM. After you have assembled these people are without ambition for fame or fortune. But of fidelity, they should report to you all of the there are two kinds of people without ambition: details of the good and bad of the country's gov- There are those born inept and unable and thus ernment. Beginning with: without ambition, and there are those who have intelligence and virtue and can perceive what is One. Frugality for the high and the low. righteous. Likewise, there are two kinds of ambi- Two. Public morals, from the samurai down to tious people: There are those who when they at- the very low, as well as occasional rewards tain office hope to raise their families in ease and and punishments. who hope for later advancement and fief raises, Three. Methods to reduce transportation corvée and there are those who look at the customs of during the three seasons of spring, summer, the day and put themselves forward so that they and autumn so that it does not interfere may do something. Although these are quite dif- with peasants’ farming. ferent from the virtuous type without ambition, Four. The punishment of peasants who neglect because they desire to do something, they can farming and methods to promote agricul- still be made useful and should be given full and ture. careful consideration. And many other things, such as government of- On the whole, although it is possible for fice expenses at all levels, concerning which you those on high to know in a general way about the should order these people of fidelity to report to conditions and feelings of the low through writ- you. ings, it is very hard to get a real understanding of things without talking directly to people who live ITEM. Setting these people of fidelity to work in that location and are routinely involved with will certainly crimp the freedom of greedy people. the things [under consideration]. People who live Therefore some people will slander and reject the in an inferior position know all about what is people of fidelity, and plead difficulties so as to wrong and right, profitable and unprofitable in obstruct your use of these people of fidelity. government. However, if you ask the average However if you investigate these issues thor- person about the conditions and the feelings of oughly the common people and retainers without the common people, you will come up against the government office will be put at ease. problem that they will answer according to their own interests, and for their own benefit and ITEM. You send secret investigators around righteousness will be hidden. Because this would the country entrusted with investigating the good have the opposite effect of giving your heart con- and bad of people high and low. The effectiveness sternation, you must choose people of fidelity. of government and the comfort or hardship of the Now, because people of fidelity are of a will people depends upon whether the hearts of these different from the mass of people, they cannot be investigators are true or false. When good and chosen in the ordinary way. You should order all evil, corrupt and true are revealed plainly then of the people of the country to choose such peo- people of fidelity will come forward, wicked ple, and if you order a careful investigation then people will retreat, and all of the people will en- such people will be found. Certainly there will be joy peace equally. When good and evil are un- those who merely pretend to be people of fidelity, clear then people who race after profit will ad- and you must be careful about this. If you can vance, righteous people will retreat and all of the find one good person then there will be others like him. If you do the above then public morals will naturally improve. There are many examples

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people will experience hardship.4 he secret in- common people will become honest. Indeed, it is vestigator is a very important post, so in the fu- impossible for me to convey on paper the impor- ture you should choose a few understanding and tance of this one item. honest men from among the ranks of the samurai who receive your great favors, and at times send ITEM. You should order a strict them out as secret investigators. If they see to it governmental reform, noting that you will grant that your lordship's intentions are not lost during pardons for all but the most severe offenses of the implementation and are truly communicated to past, but reproclaim the laws and note that the low, then the condition of public morals will henceforth all offenses will be punished most be restored. severely for high and low alike. This will im- prove public morals and when all officials, from ITEM. Ninety five out of a hundred people the general administrators down to the least work already appointed to office are good people, but it selflessly and tirelessly for the governance of the is the common man's desire to pursue profit. country, and high and low become as one, then They become stained with base customs they your finances will become healthy and this will learn over many years. Even though what they become a country governed in peace. learn over many years in all of the public offices goes against reason, they become confused by the ITEM. From ancient times grave governmental feelings of their superiors, or fall victim to a matters were decided in accordance with the will weakness for helping their brothers and relatives. of the gods. That is the purpose of the I-ching. Even though they know their ways to be wrong Now if at this time you wish to do things care- they let their days pass without mending their fully, you should order a consultation of the ways, and public morals naturally go into decline. I-ching to help you make your decisions. If you If you ordered now a great cleansing, then the would do this much to reveal your interest in the common person would become a good person importance of the government of the country, and again. your true heart spread throughout the country, then the common people would become eternally ITEM. If you wish to wash out these stained-in, loyal and obedient. base customs, then first you should order the chief administrators to make inquiries on all of The items that I present above are my deep- the magistrates and the lower officers at unex- est thoughts and are difficult for me to fully ex- pected times. And in keeping with this you should press on paper. If there are some items that you order each magistrate to take great concern in the find questionable, I respectfully submit that I affairs of his office down to the least official. If would like to explain things orally in your pres- you order things so that there is no rift between ence. high and low, and so that nothing is hidden, then Seventh year of Tenmei (1787) year of the lamb, sixth month, twenty sixth day

4The original of this sentence contains two tran- Imakita Sakubei (seal) Takamitsu scription errors which I have corrected in the Magistrate of the Tax Warehouses translation. The original reads ༀᖡ㇎ᱜಽ᣿୥ ᤨࡂ೑࠾⿛ࠅ୥⠪ㅴࡒ⟵ࠍ㊀ߔࠆ⠪㓐↳⪦᳃ ⧰ࡒ↳୥. However the ಽ should be ਇ, and the 㓐 should beㅌ. In both cases the cursive forms can be almost identical. The meaning of the sentence is unclear without these changes, and with the changes it contains the contrast with the previous sentence which was obviously in- tended.

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