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Gender, National Identity, and the Japanese Canon

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Gender, National Identity, and the Japanese Canon Haruo Shirane, Tomi Suzuki, eds.. Inventing the Classics: Modernity, National Identity, and Japanese Literature. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2000. xi + 333 pp. $60.00, cloth, ISBN 978-0-8047-4105-7. Reviewed by Timothy J. Van Compernolle Published on H-Japan (May, 2001) Gender, National Identity, and the Japanese The effects of these debates have been especially Canon perceptible during the last fve years or so, but The word "canon" originally referred to the our skeptical and disenchanted view of the secu‐ scriptures and holy works of the Western reli‐ lar scriptures of Japan's national literature gious tradition. But no doubt the word is most achieves a culmination of sorts, it seems to me, in widely understood today as being implicated in Inventing the Classics. There is none of the shrill the cultural battles, still raging in many of the aca‐ rhetoric and defensiveness that characterized dis‐ demic institutions of North America, over the her‐ cussions even several years ago. Instead, there is a itage of Great Books taught in our universities. comfortable consensus in the essays (which, inci‐ Proponents of feminism and multiculturalism dentally, are written by Japanese and North have rightly decried the Western canon as the Americans) about the constructedness of litera‐ refuge of conservatism and elitism--the home of ture and the literary canon; there is agreement those now beleaguered Dead White Males--which among the authors that "literature," as a set of needs to be pried open to make room for women masterpieces of unalterable, inherent value inde‐ and minorities. Supporters of the canon--whose pendent of the surrounding socio-historical con‐ voices are not now quite as loud as they were in text, does not exist. the late 1980s and early 1990s--have often taken I should state straightaway that this is a rich the extreme position that this act would represent and informative book, and while it is a conference the end of civilization as we know it. These de‐ volume (its roots lie in a symposium on "Canon bates were bound to have an effect on the feld of Formation: Gender, Nationalism, and Japanese Japanese literary studies as it is practiced in North Literature" held at Columbia University in March America, especially when coupled with similar 1997), most of the essays included for publication debates, now in full swing in Japan, over the work exceptionally well together to build up a co‐ meaning and boundaries of "Japanese literature." herent picture of the issues involved in canon for‐ H-Net Reviews mation in Japan. The word "canon" is used in a po‐ the jobs of a reviewer is to summarize the con‐ litically inflected sense in the volume to name tents of the book, which in this case, means sum‐ "those texts that are recognized by established or marizing the essays that constitute it. I will here powerful institutions" (p. 2). The underlying ob‐ only address the major issues that arise in each jective behind each of the essays is to historicize essay, without pretending to exhaust the richness the way certain texts are privileged as a Japanese of the collection. "tradition," particularly as this act of elevation re‐ Konoshi Takamitsu's essay, "Constructing Im‐ lates to gender and national identity in modern perial Mythology," traces the shifting fortunes of times (p. 1). This is not to say, of course, that the the Kojiki (Record of Ancient Matters, 712) and canon is stable or uncontentious. Shirane's con‐ the Nihon shoki (Chronicles of Japan, 720) across cluding essay, "Curriculum and Competing time from the eighth century to the present day, Canons," does a good job of illustrating the vicissi‐ demonstrating that, while the latter was privi‐ tudes of reception of certain works throughout Ja‐ leged over the former through most of Japanese panese history. He argues persuasively that there history, they both functioned to legitimate imperi‐ have always been multiple canons--Chinese, Con‐ al authority, albeit in different ways at different fucian, Buddhist, native, and such--which were times. In the modern age, though, the Kojiki privileged by different groups at different times surges ahead of its counterpart in esteem and as‐ and which were rarely mutually exclusive. Any‐ sumes its current status as a national classic with one who has doubts about the constructedness of the advent of modern myth studies in Japan. The the canon--that certain works are given value at text is then connected to national character and a certain times by certain people with certain aims national folk essence and is used to help legiti‐ in mind--will fnd Shirane's reflections illuminat‐ mate anew the emperor system in its modern ing as he traces the fate of works and genres over guise. time. The essay by Shinada Yoshikazu on another The book is divided into four parts: "Nation eighth century text, the Manyoshu (The Collection Building and National Literature," "Gender, of Ten Thousand Leaves), investigates how a poet‐ Genre, and Cultural Identity," "History to Litera‐ ry anthology that was read by only a handful of ture, Performance to Text," and "Language, Au‐ literate human beings at any given time before thority, and the Curriculum." However, the essays the late nineteenth century became a national po‐ in the frst part on nation building and those in etry anthology that could help project an image of the third part on historical narratives and drama a unified national culture reaching back into the complement each other very much. They could misty past. Shinada examines two currents in the just as easily have been placed together in a single reception of the anthology. The frst, in the mid- to section centering on the appropriation of new late Meiji period, represented the text as exem‐ conceptions of literature in the process of nation plary of a national unity stretching from the em‐ building. The three essays on gender and genre, peror to the common people. The second current, while interesting and informative, feel less inte‐ dating from the late Meiji to the Taisho period, re‐ grated into the rest of the volume. More time versed this "bottom-down" view of the anthology could have been spent in the editing process or in and, appropriating the German concept of folk the introduction linking gender to the problemat‐ songs, instead portrayed the text as a repository ic of nation building. It is unfortunate that this of minyo (folk songs) that could represent an en‐ was not done, because those three essays are very during national spirit with roots in an age before good and very suggestive of the way gender is im‐ the corrupting influence of foreign ideas. plicated in the reception of certain works. One of 2 H-Net Reviews Joshua Mostow's essay, "Modern Construc‐ Shonagon's work as being a lesser text and as a tions of Tales of Ise," deals with the changing mere prelude to the more lauded Tsurezuregusa. views of gender and genre in relation to the fa‐ David Bialock's essay on the Heike mono‐ mous mid-Heian text. He demonstrates that the gatari (The Tale of the Heike, ca. fourteenth c.) Ise attracted very little attention in the Meiji peri‐ shows how the medieval martial tale was translat‐ od since the Heian period was seen as effeminate ed into the imported concept of a national epic and licentious. Elegance and love became associ‐ representing the spirit of the people. When the ated with the tale in the Taisho period. In the pre‐ modern disciplinary felds arrived in Japan, the war Showa years the tale was associated with Heike was transformed from a primarily histori‐ "courtliness" (miyabi), which could easily link it to cal work into a work of imaginative literature, the emperor. This is a reception history that still and attention shifted to the text's literary quali‐ affects contemporary interpretations of the Ise as ties, especially the theme of impermanence. This Mostow demonstrates through the examination of transformation helped smooth over some un‐ some postwar readings of the text. pleasant ideological implications having to do Tomi Suzuki's essay, "Gender and Genre," with the imperial throne, implications that would demonstrates the role played by Heian women's have been difficult to assimilate in the modern poetic diaries and memoirs in the creation of the imperial age if the work were treated as history. institution of modern Japanese literature. Let me William Lee's essay, "Chikamatsu and Dra‐ single out two examples that she discusses in this matic Literature in the Meiji Period," investigates rich essay. Under the ideology of phonocentrism the Chikamatsu boom in the 1890s and the role in the 1880s and 1890s, which went hand in hand played by Tsubouchi Shoyo and scholars at the with the creation of a new literary language based University of Tokyo in bringing the Genroku play‐ on colloquial speech, Heian women's diaries were wright to the attention of Meiji intellectuals and valued as examples of prose in the native vernac‐ literary critics. Under the influence of Western ular and thus elevated to the stature of national categories of fction, poetry, and drama, these literature. With the emerging hegemony of the men were able to conceive of the native theatrical shishosetsu (I-novel) in the 1920s, Heian women's tradition as a kind of literature and then sought diaries were seen as early precursors of the un‐ for a preeminent playwright in the Japanese her‐ mediated expression of the self. itage. They settled on Chikamatsu Monzaemon Linda Chance's essay, titled "Zuihitsu and (1653-1724). But, as Lee demonstrates, only Chika‐ Gender: Tsurezuregusa and the Pillow Book," ex‐ matsu's sewamono, or domestic plays, were ap‐ amines the intertwined reception of Yoshida propriated as "literature," while his historical Kenko's Tsurezuregusa (Essays in Idleness, early pieces and kabuki plays were largely ignored.
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