Learning with Waka Poetry: Transmission and Production of Social Knowledge and Cultural Memory in Premodern Japan Ariel G. Stilerman Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 2015 © 2015 Ariel G. Stilerman All rights reserved ABSTRACT Learning with Waka Poetry: Transmission and Production of Knowledge and Cultural Memory in Premodern Japan Ariel G. Stilerman This dissertation argues that throughout premodern Japan, classical Japanese poetry (waka) served as a vehicle for the transmission of social knowledge, cultural memory, and specialized information. Waka was originally indispensable to private and public social interactions among aristocrats, but it came to play a diversity of functions for warriors, monks, farmers, merchants, and other social groups at each and every level of premodern society and over many centuries, particularly from the late Heian period (785- 1185) through the Edo period (1600-1868). To trace the changes in the social functions of waka, this dissertation explores several moments in the history of waka: the development of a pedagogy for waka in the poetic treatises of the Heian period; the reception of these works in anecdotal collections of the Kamakura period (1192-1333), particularly those geared towards warriors; the use of humorous waka (kyôka), in particular those with satiric and parodic intent, in Muromachi-period (1333-1467) narratives for commoners; and the use of waka as pedagogical instruments for the codification, preservation, transmission, and memorization of knowledge about disciplines as diverse as hawking, kickball, and the tea ceremony. In the epilogue, I trace the efforts of Meiji-period (1868-1911) intellectuals who sought to disconnect waka from any social or pedagogical function, in order to reconceptualize it under the modern European notions of “Literature” and “the Arts.” I conclude that the social functions of poetry in the premodern period should not be understood as extra-literary uses of poems that were otherwise composed as purely literary works in the modern sense. The roles that waka played in pedagogy, in particular in the transmission of cultural memory and social knowledge across diverse social spaces, were an inherent feature of the practice of waka in premodern Japan. TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction ....................................................................................................................... 1 Chapter 1 – Cultural Transmission in Poetry Treatises (Karon) of the Insei Period 24 Introduction ....................................................................................................................... 24 The Creation of a Pedagogy for Waka in the Heian Period .............................................. 34 Toshiyori Zuinô ................................................................................................................. 42 Fukurozôshi ....................................................................................................................... 56 Mikohidari Treatises ......................................................................................................... 66 The Treatise as a Genre – Karon & Kagaku ..................................................................... 71 Mumyôshô ......................................................................................................................... 75 Conclusion ......................................................................................................................... 81 Chapter 2 – A Courtly Education in Anecdotal Collections (setsuwa-shû) of the Kamakura Period ............................................................................................................ 84 Introduction ....................................................................................................................... 84 Jikkinshô ............................................................................................................................ 86 Kokonchomonjû ............................................................................................................... 102 Conclusion ....................................................................................................................... 123 Chapter 3 – Waka Pedagogy and The Benefits of Waka (katoku) in the Heian and Kamakura periods ......................................................................................................... 125 Introduction ..................................................................................................................... 125 Esoteric Katoku and the Waka-Darani Equivalence in the Late Kamakura Period ........ 127 Katoku before Ichien ....................................................................................................... 139 i Conclusion ....................................................................................................................... 166 Chapter 4 – The Kyôka-esque: Parody, Satire, and Plebeian Education in Muromachi Tales (Otogizôshi) ..................................................................................... 168 Introduction ..................................................................................................................... 168 Pedagogy, Satire, and Parody in Menoto no sôshi .......................................................... 177 Narratives of Cultural Transformation and Social Mobility in Monokusa Tarô ............. 194 Conclusion ....................................................................................................................... 204 Chapter 5 – Learning with Waka Poems (Kyôkunka) in the Muromachi and Edo periods ............................................................................................................................ 206 Introduction ..................................................................................................................... 206 The Uses of Waka in the Pedagogy of Hawking and Kickball ....................................... 207 The Uses of Waka in Moral Pedagogy and Technical Training ..................................... 218 Waka and the Practice of Tea .......................................................................................... 222 Conclusion ....................................................................................................................... 241 Epilogue – Masaoka Shiki and the Reform of Poetry in Modern Japan ........................ 243 Bibliography .................................................................................................................. 255 Appendix ........................................................................................................................ 273 The textual history of Chanoyu hyakushu ....................................................................... 273 ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The project would have been impossible without the generous support of the Japan Foundation and the Shincho Foundation for the Promotion of Literature. At Columbia I enjoyed the instruction, advice, and moral support of my adviser Haruo Shirane and of David Lurie, Tomi Suzuki, Michael Como, Paul Anderer, Donald Keene, Jesus Velasco, and Alberto Medina, as well as of many visiting scholars, among them Okuda Isao, Tokuda Kazuo, Li Mo, and Kusaka Tsutomu. I was lucky to join a wonderful cohort: Christina Yi, Charles Wooley, Daniel Poch, David Atherton, Hitomi Yoshio, Jenny Guest, Nan Hartman, Nate Shockey, Pau Pitarch, Rob Tuck, Saeko Shibayama, Shiho Takai, and Tom Gaubatz. I am also grateful to Torquil Duthie, a Columbia alumnus now at UCLA, who has been a generous and friendly mentor. I need to mention the amazing staff of our departmental office, both present and past: Tamara Kachanov, Joshua Gottesman, Anri Vartanov, Rosibeli Gomez, Petya DeVallance, and Jeffrey Cousino. During my time of research at Waseda I relied on the support, guidance, and never- ending patience of my two advisers Jinno Hidenori and Kanechiku Nobuyuki, and was able to profit from the scholarship of Tabuchi Kumiko and Takamatsu Hisao. I am thankful to Komine Kazuaki for letting me take his Saturday evening seminar at Rikkyô University and to Toeda Hirokazu for helping make my experience at Waseda smooth and productive. Naitô Mariko at Meiji University was a constant source of iii encouragement during my time in Tokyo. Among the many graduate students I came to work with, I will mention in particular the kindness that Umeda Kei and Kaneko Hidekazu showed me. Throughout my graduate student years I was set upon by severe back pain. To the relentless support of friends and colleagues, who for years carried my bags and moved my whole apartment more than once, I would like to add the relief brought to me by Dr. Harvinder Sandhu and his stupendous team at the HSS in New York. I am very thankful to Conrad Schirokauer and Greg Pflugfelder, under whom I was lucky to serve as TA, as well as to my students, and in particular those who took my class on the Japanese tea ceremony during the spring of 2015, for they were infinitely patient with me as I trudged through the home stretch of this dissertation project. I am also grateful to Mark Phillipson of Columbia’s Teaching Center for helping me bring my research and my teaching together in innovative and engaging ways. I started the research that informs this dissertation before coming to Columbia,