Mediating Modernity – Henry Black and Narrated Hybridity in Meiji Japan
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Abstract of PhD thesis Mediating Modernity – Henry Black and narrated hybridity in Meiji Japan By Ian McArthur Henry Black was born in Adelaide in 1858, but arrived in Japan in 1864 after his father became editor of the Japan Herald. In the late 1870s, Henry Black addressed meetings of members of the Freedom and People’s Rights Movement. His talks were inspired by nineteenth-century theories of natural rights. That experience led to his becoming a professional storyteller (rakugoka) affiliated with the San’yû school of storytelling (San’yûha). Black’s storytelling (rakugo) in the 1880s and 1890s was an attempt by the San’yûha to modernise rakugo. By adapting European sensation fiction, Black blended European and Japanese elements to create hybridised landscapes and characters as blueprints for audiences negotiating changes synonymous with modernity during the Meiji period. The narrations also portrayed the negative impacts of change wrought through emulation of nineteenth-century Britain’s Industrial Revolution. His 1894 adaptation of Oliver Twist or his 1885 adaptation of Mary Braddon’s Flower and Weed, for example, were early warnings about the evils of child labour and the exploitation of women in unregulated textile factories. Black’s kabuki performances parallel politically and artistically inspired attempts to reform kabuki by elevating its status as an art suitable for imperial and foreign patronage. The printing of his narrations in stenographic books (sokkibon) ensured that his ideas reached a wide audience. Because he was not an officially hired foreigner (yatoi), and his narrations have not entered the rakugo canon, Black has largely been forgotten. A study of his role as a mediator of modernity during the 1880s and 1890s shows that he was an agent in the transfer to a mass audience of European ideas associated with modernity, frequently ahead of intellectuals and mainstream literature. An examination of Black’s career helps broaden our knowledge of the role of foreigners and rakugo in shaping modern Japan. Mediating Modernity Henry Black and narrated hybridity in Meiji Japan A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Arts in fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy by Ian Douglas McArthur School of European, Asian, and Middle Eastern Languages and Studies Faculty of Arts University of Sydney January 2002 Mediating Modernity Henry Black and narrated hybridity in Meiji Japan i. Table of Contents ii. Acknowledgements iii. Note 1. Chapter One……Introduction 29. Chapter Two……The Early Years – Henry Black and the foreign community (1863-1878). 78. Chapter Three…..The Activist Years – taking the modernity debate to a wider audience. 123. Chapter Four…...The Creative Years – Black and the reform debate 169. Chapter Five..…..Hybridity – blueprint for a new generation 214. Chapter Six……..A New Society – blueprint for social management 245. Chapter Seven…..The Later Years 268. Chapter Eight……Conclusion 281. Appendix………...Synopses of selected narrated stories by Henry Black 308. Bibliography (Japanese Language) 317. Bibliography (English and French language) Acknowledgements This thesis owes its origins to three people. The first is Associate Professor Nanette Gottlieb of the University of Queensland. In 1983, while in Tokyo as a correspondent for the Melbourne-based Herald and Weekly Times newspaper, I saw an advertisement for Monumenta Nipponica containing Dr. Gottlieb’s paper on the Meiji period script reform movement. Wishing to read a paper by a scholar I had known while also at Queensland University in the late 1960s, I bought the journal. Leafing through it, I was startled to find, in an article by the Japanese scholars Professor Sasaki Miyoko and Dr. Morioka Heinz, a photograph of Henry Black dressed for a role in a kabuki play. Black’s Australian origins, Scottish ancestry, and the fact that his father had been a journalist, were enough points in common with myself to stimulate my interest. I met the authors and wrote a story for the newspapers. That first contact with Black resulted in a fascination with his contribution to Japanese culture and has culminated in this thesis. I would like to thank my supervisor, Associate Professor Elise Tipton at the University of Sydney School of European, Asian and Middle Eastern Languages and Studies, for her support and ability to recommend the right resource to read at the right time in the development of my thesis. Also at Sydney University, I would like to thank Associate Professor John Clark of the Department of Art History and Theory for his assistance during Dr. Tipton’s absence on leave. My thanks go also to Associate Professor Sakuko Matsui and Dr. Yasuko Claremont for their assistance in my reading and translation of Black’s stenographic books (sokkibon). Professor Neville Meaney at the Department of History also gave helpful suggestions on chapter structure at a crucial juncture. I am grateful to the University of Sydney for granting me a university scholarship during my work on the thesis. In Japan, I must thank Mr. Asaoka Kunio for advice and scholarly insistence on accuracy throughout this project. Mr. Asaoka’s interest in Henry Black and his father John Black, has led to new findings about the Blacks which he has generously shared with me. Professor Sasaki Miyoko and Dr. Morioka Heinz have given support and advice since my initial contact with them in 1983. I would like to acknowledge the pioneering work they have done on Black over the years, without which this thesis would not have been possible. Among others in Japan, I am particularly indebted to Professor Nobuhiro Shinji and Mr. Yoshizawa Hideaki for their advice on the relationship between rakugo and sokkibon. I must also thank San’yûtei Enraku whose willingness to set aside time in his busy schedule to meet with me on a number of occasions enabled me to gain insights into the real world of rakugo and to imagine what it must have been like for Black. I would also like to thank Ms. Inokoshi Noriko, who was librarian at the National Theater during my research trips to Tokyo. Her knowledge of the library’s holdings and ability to trace resources in the limited time available proved invaluable. I should also mention Associate Professor J. Scott Miller at Brigham Young University, whose advice, also on the sokkibon, came at a crucial stage in the development of my thesis. I also thank my parents-in-law, Kiyofumi and Kazuko Minami, who made their home available during my research trips to Japan. My wife, Mari Minami, and our daughter, Hillary, have also been a support. I thank them for their patience at times when it seemed that the thesis might never be completed. Ian D. McArthur -- 8 January 2002 Note I have followed the standard convention with Japanese personal names of using the surname first. With the names of non-Japanese nationals of Japanese ancestry, I have placed the surname last. Persons with stage names are referred to by the stage name. I have used macrons for long vowels in Japanese words, except in the case of well-known place names. Unless otherwise indicated, translations of original Japanese are mine. Chapter One Introduction Much has been written about the tremendous changes experienced by the citizens of Japan as a result of the influx of new ideas during the Meiji period (1868-1912). Many studies of the transfer of ideas into Japan at this time have focused on the actions of the main political and intellectual protagonists. But despite the accumulation of data by social historians concerning the nature and rapidity of the changes which occurred as a result of the introduction of these new ideas, little is known about the mechanisms by which such ideas were transferred to the general populace. During the Meiji period, one of the main sources of popular entertainment, as well as information about the changes and commentary on their impact for the general populace, were theatres featuring professional storytellers. Few, if any, studies have delved in any detail into the role of the storyteller in bringing these new ideas to the attention of the nation. This represents a serious gap in our knowledge of the processes by which change was effected in the Meiji period. In 1891, one of these popular storytellers, a man with Scottish ancestry and the stage name of Kairakutei Burakku, told Tokyo theatre audiences in fluent Japanese that compared to when he had arrived in their country at least 24 years before, ‘things had so completely changed that you wouldn’t think it was the same place.’1 The remark was part of the preamble to the storyteller’s serialized tale Eikoku Rondon – gekijô miyage (Story from a London Theatre), an adaptation of the short story Her Last Appearance by the 1 Eikokujin Burakku (1891), Eikoku Rondon gekijô miyage, Nomura Ginzaburô, Tokyo, p. 1. 1 British sensation fiction writer Mary Braddon. That this storyteller, whose birth certificate shows he was born Henry James Black in the British colony of South Australia on 22 December 1858,2 should have been so popular at this moment in Japan’s history is remarkable. But there is evidence to show that although many of his contemporaries also considered his career remarkable, Black’s presence on the Tokyo stage was not altogether implausible. Henry Black lived in Japan at a time when a unique confluence of circumstances made it possible for the first time in the country’s history for a foreign- born practitioner of the Japanese oral art of storytelling, known today by its generic term rakugo, to transfer new ideas to unprecedented numbers of people via stage and modern print media. By examining the role of Henry Black as an agent for the introduction of notions of modernity through the medium of rakugo, defined as ‘a short humorous story ending in a punch line,’3 this study aims to augment our knowledge of how concepts of modernity entered Japan during the Meiji period.