EARLY MODERN JAPAN FALL, 2002 Early Modern Literature tional history. This is not to say that the recent scholarship is out of touch with contemporary © Haruo Shirane (HS), Columbia University scholarship. On the contrary, the best scholarship and Lawrence E. Marceau (LEM), Univer- and criticism in early modern literary studies is sity of Delaware closely tied to recent trends in Japanese scholar- ship and contemporary Western literary and cul- General Comments tural theory and is best understood in a context Generally speaking, the history of Japanese that transcends Western historiography, which is literary studies in English can be divided into two still too thinly dispersed to provide a critical stages. The first stage is usually that of transla- frame. tion; the second is that of scholarship. In some A number of Western literary studies in the cases, translation is preceded by literary histories 1950s-1980s consisted of a translation or transla- or more general studies that take up texts that tions preceded by an extended introduction. Typi- have not been translated. Such is the case of Wil- cal examples include Howard Hibbett’s The liam Aston, A History of Japanese Literature Floating World in Japanese Fiction3, which in- (1899), the earliest history of Japanese literature, clude translations of ukiyo-zoshi by Saikaku and and Donald Keene’s World Within Walls.1 These Ejima Kiseki in the latter half of the book. In literary histories have served the function of the 1990s, this format has given way to mono- arousing the interest of readers and potential graphs that are almost entirely concentrated on translators in yet untranslated works. Generally criticism and scholarship. Nevertheless, the need speaking, however, it is the appearance of a trans- for much more translation remains, for without lation that sets the stage for scholarship and criti- translations, the criticism in English has limited cism, particularly in the case of major literary meaning. It is analogous to writing art history texts such as The Tale of Genji, The Tale of the without access to the art. Unlike the readers of Heike, or Noh drama. The translation of The Tale histories, the reader of literary studies needs to of Genji by Edward Seidensticker, for example, see the literary texts to be able to fully appreciate provided the foundation for a series of ground- the analysis. One reason that I edited Early Mod- breaking studies on Heian literature (Norma Field, ern Japanese Literature, Anthology: 1600-19004 Richard Okada, Haruo Shirane).2 (Columbia University Press, 2002) is that the life Early modern literary studies have not yet of the field depends very much on the ability of reached the stage found, for example, in Heian the reader to have some sense of the texts in literary studies, where almost all the texts are question. That said, it should be noted that early already available and where scholarship spawns modern texts are notoriously difficult to translate, scholarship. Instead, we find a situation where and frequently do not stand up in translation or translation spawns scholarship or vice versa. make sense in isolation. As a consequence, there Thus, it is almost impossible to speak of histori- remains a need for monographs to appear along- cal development or trends in scholarship of the side translations. kind found, for example, in political or institu- The period that has drawn the most interest has been the Genroku period. In the 1950s-60s Don- ald Keene, Ivan Morris, Howard Hibbett, and 1 Aston, W. G., A History of Japanese Literature. other Western scholars translated what are gener- Rutland, Vt. & Tokyo: Tuttle, 1972 (rept.; 1st pub. 1899); ally considered to be the “big three” of the Gen- and Keene, Donald, World Within Walls: Japanese roku period: Matsuo Basho, Ihara Saikaku, and Literature of the Pre-Modern Era 1600-1868. New York: Chikamatsu Monzaemon, who have come to rep- Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1976. 2 Norma Field, The Splendor of Longing in the Tale of Genji (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987); Richard Okada, Figures of Resistance: Language, Poetry, 3 Hibbett, Howard S. The Floating World in Japanese and Narrating in The Tale of Genji and Other Mid-Heian Fiction. New York: Oxford University Press, 1959. Texts (Durham: Duke University Press, 1991); Haruo 4 Shirane, Haruo, ed. Early Modern Japanese Shirane, The Bridge of Dreams: A Poetics of The Tale of Literature: An Anthology 1600-1900. New York: Genji (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1987). Columbia University Press, 2002. 22 EARLY MODERN JAPAN FALL, 2002 resent the major genres of poetry, prose fiction, Japanese specialist.9 and drama respectively.5 The emphasis on Gen- By contrast, other important genres-- roku literature and drama has been so great that I particularly waka, kyoka (comic waka), senryu would venture to guess that it surpasses in vol- (comic haiku), kanshi, and kyoshi (comic Chinese ume all the work done on texts in the rest of the poetry), all of which flourished in the early mod- early modern period. Not only have many of ern period—remain largely neglected. These gen- the texts of the “big three” been translated, major res flourished in the eighteenth century, after the monographs have been written on Basho (Makoto Genroku period. The peak of kyoka, senryu, and Ueda, Haruo Shirane),6 Saikaku (Ivan Morris),7 kyoshi was in the mid- to late-eighteenth century. and Chikamatsu (Drew Gerstle).8 These texts need both to be translated and studied. Related to this interest in Genroku literature is One recent and welcome exception here is a sen- the general interest by both scholars and non- ryu anthology edited and translated by Makoto specialists in haiku, with enormous attention be- Ueda.10 ing paid to a related “big three”: Matsuo Basho, Another area that has drawn much interest in Yosa Buson, and Kobayashi Issa, from the late the West is kabuki, which begins in Genroku and seventeenth, late eighteenth, and early nineteenth spans the entire early modern period, and bun- century respectively. This interest in haiku has raku, puppet theater. In contrast to kabuki, which been driven by the English haiku movement, and came to the foreground in the Genroku period as a consequence much of the material, both and continued to flourish well into the mid- translations and scholarship, has been published nineteenth century, joruri (chanting to the ac- by non-specialists, English haiku poets, whose companiment of the samisen and puppets) came work is not always very reliable. Nevertheless, it to a peak in the mid-eighteenth century and then remains a lively area of interest, with direct links declined. Furthermore, kabuki continues to be an to the English-language world. Robert Hass, for active genre. The nature of drama studies differs example, who was the Poet Laureate of the U.S., considerably from that of poetry and prose fiction wrote and edited a book on Basho, Buson, and in that most of the scholars are specialists in thea- Issa for public consumption though he was not a ter, with an interest in kabuki or joruri as it exists today, as performance. In many cases, the focus has been on the present, on the “living tradition,” rather than on reconstructions of the past. Never- theless, the relationship between kabuki and popular culture and literature is such that this 5 Donald Keene, tr. Major Plays of Chikamatsu (Co- lumbia University Press, 1961), on Chikamatsu; Ivan field should become a major focus of socio- Morris, tr. The Life of an Amorous Woman (NY: New historical studies. Directions, 1963) and Howard Hibbett, The Floating Kokugaku (also wagaku, nativist studies), World in Japanese Fiction (New York: Oxford University which provided commentary on classical Japa- Press, 1959) on Saikaku; and Donald Keene, tr., “The nese texts and espoused a nativist philosophy, and Narrow Road of Oku,” in his Anthology of Japanese Lit- Motoori Norinaga (1730-1801), the most notable erature: From the Earliest Era to the Mid-Nineteenth Century (New York: Grove Press, 1955), on Basho. kokugaku leader, have been the object of consid- 6 Makoto Ueda, Matsuo Basho: The Master Haiku erable study, but this field has been dominated by Poet (Tokyo: Kodansha, 1982); Ueda, Makoto. Basho and intellectual or political historians, who view ko- his Interpreters: Selected Hokku with Commentary (Stan- kugaku teleologically, in terms of the rise of ford: Stanford U. Press, 1992). Haruo Shirane, Traces of modern nationalism, or strictly in relationship to Dreams: Landscape, Cultural Memory, and the Poetry of Basho (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1997). 7 Ivan Morris, The Life of an Amorous Woman (NY: New Directions, 1963) 9 Robert Hass, The Essential Haiku : Versions of 8 Donald Keene, Bunraku, The Art of the Japanese Basho, Buson, and Issa (Hopewell, N. J., Ecco Press, Puppet Theatre (Tokyo & New York: Kodansha Interna- 1994). tional, 1965); Andrew Gerstle, Circles of Fantasy: Con- 10 Ueda, Makoto. Light Verse From the Floating vention in the Plays of Chikamatsu (Cambridge, Mass.: World : An Anthology of Premodern Japanese Senryu. Council on East Asian Studies, Harvard University, 1986). New York: Columbia University Press, 1999. 23 EARLY MODERN JAPAN FALL, 2002 Neo-Confucianism or the ancient studies school, body of literature include dangibon (comic ser- that is to say, in terms of political, religious, or mons), which followed the ukiyo-zoshi, and pre- philosophical issues.11 By contrast, there are ceded the yomihon in the mid-eighteenth century, almost no studies of the early modern waka, sharebon (fiction of the pleasure quarters) in the which lies at the heart of this movement (Kamo late-eighteenth century, and gokan ("combined" no Mabuchi, one of the founders of kokugaku, picture books), in the early-nineteenth century. was first and foremost a major waka poet), or of No major works from these genres have been the philology and literary commentaries, which translated, and little has been written in English.