Early Modern Japanese Literature: An Anthology, 1600–1900

by Shirane, Haruo, ed.

  Sorai argued that the Way was not inherent in the cosmos, as was implied in the Song Confucian notion of rational principle (ri). Instead, he believed, the Way had been established by human beings, by the ancient sages, who had described their understanding of it in the Confucian classics. This Way was broadly divided into rites (rei) and music (gaku): the observation of rites preserved the social order, while music or poetry inspired the heart. In Sorai’s view, the Song Confucian emphasis on rational principle and moral training ignored and repressed the natural flow of human emotions, thereby demeaning them. The great achievement of the ancient sage-kings was that they had established a Way that responded to human emotions while allowing the land to be governed peacefully. As Sorai argued in Distinguishing the Way, “The Way of the ancient kings was established through human emotions.” To understand the Way of the ancient sage-kings, one must be familiar with, cultivate, and enrich human emotions. The most effective means of doing that was to read ancient Chinese poetry and prose, to use ancient words, and to compose poetry in the ancient style.

  With its emphasis on literature as the expression of human emotion, Sorai’s position had a revolutionary effect on the composition of Chinese poetry and prose, giving legitimacy to those intellectuals who wrote out of a need to express their emotions and desires. One result was that the Sorai school produced such outstanding men of letters as Hattori Nankaku (1683–1759), a major poet of Chinese poetry (kanshi) and a founder of the literatus (bunjin) movement in Japan who was not deeply interested in Confucianism but had a great talent for belles lettres. Chinese poetry and prose composition in Japan was thus transformed from a minor entertainment for Confucian scholars into a legitimate artistic pursuit.

  MASTER SORAI’S TEACHINGS (SORAI SENSEI TŌMONSHO, 1727)

  Master Sorai’s Teachings, a record of Sorai’s teachings edited by his students, is based on an actual exchange of questions and answers between Sorai and his disciples that is thought to have taken place around 1720. In the selection translated here, Sorai argues that poetry was not intended for either moral edification or instruction in governance. Instead, poetry or literature reveals human emotions through elevated, elegant language, thus allowing people of different status to understand one another’s hearts. At the same time, however, poetry is in fact morally beneficial and also helpful in governance. Of particular significance here is Sorai’s stress on courtly elegance and the elevating function of poetic language, a notion that underlay the eighteenth-century bunjin movement.

  On the Study of Poetry and Prose

  That you believe that the study of poetry and prose has no benefit is to be expected, given that you have been subject to the teachings of Song Confucian scholars on the transcription and recitation of words and passages.18

  First, the Book of Songs is one of the Confucian Five Classics. Chinese poetry is just like the Japanese poetry of your own land. It teaches neither moral principles for regulating mind and body nor the Way for governing the state under heaven. These poems are the ones to which people of ancient times responded with joy and sorrow. From among these poems the sages collected and used as instruction for the people those that accord well with human emotions, that employ fine language, and that provide insight into the customs of a state at any given time.

  The study of poetry does not offer you support in moral principles, but since it uses language skillfully and expresses human emotions effectively, from their power your heart will naturally mature, and your moral principles will be confirmed. Moreover, your heart will absorb those manners of the ages and customs of the state that are difficult to discern solely from the perspective of moral principle, so you will automatically understand human emotions. People of high rank become familiar with matters involving lower-class people; men become familiar with women’s temperaments; and the wise come to know the workings of the hearts of the dim-witted. These are the benefits. Furthermore, since poetry uses language skillfully, it has the benefit of revealing one’s heart to others without explicitly stating the matter at hand. Poetry has many other benefits in that it is used to instruct as well as to display one’s discontent. Note that abstract theories are irrelevant here; the only way to understand the manners and customs of the rulers is through poetry. The poetry and prose of later ages all have the Book of Songs as their ancestral source. [Because] the age in which they were composed is closer to ours—and their meanings are thus easier to understand—if you study the Book of Songs knowing this, you will derive many benefits from it.

  Since the sages are Chinese and the Confucian texts are written in the Chinese language, if you do not understand exactly the written characters of that language, you will have difficulty understanding the Way of the sages. In order to understand the written characters, it is necessary to understand the state of mind of the ancient sages when they composed their texts. Consequently, many matters will be incomprehensible unless you yourself compose poetry and prose. People who study only Confucian texts have trouble mastering written characters, and their reasoning becomes imprecise and limited. For this reason it is important that Japanese scholars become proficient in Chinese poetry and Chinese prose composition. Japanese scholars should also become familiar with the poetry of Japan, although the customs found in Japanese classical poetry reflect a kind of femininity that derives from the fact that Japan is a land without sages. I realize that as disciples you are not as badly trained as the scholars that I have just described. As long as you are aware of that quality called courtly elegance [fūga], you will not lose touch with the ruler’s state of mind; instead, you will find many benefits as you sit in authority over others. [vol. 2, sec. 19]

  [Kinsei bungakuron shū, NKBT 94: 169–170, translated by Lawrence Marceau]

  ________________________

  1. The name Tenkun comes from a passage in the ancient Chinese treatise Xunzi and refers to the human mind/heart (shin/kokoro).

  2. The name Taijū, which literally means “fill the body” or “pervade the body,” is used in the Mencius and refers to ki, or material force.

  3. The pinnacle of virtue here is “filial piety.” This phrase is taken from the Classic of Filial Piety, sec. 1.

  4. Also from the Classic of Filial Piety, sec. 1.

  5. The Three Realms are Heaven, Earth, and Humanity.

  6. Qin dynasty (221–207 B.C.E.), when the Confucian texts were burned.

  7. When Tōju was writing in 1641, the Ming dynasty (1338–1644) still governed China.

  8. Shun was believed to have been a sage ruler of the Xia dynasty.

  9. First ruler of the Zhou dynasty. In the Book of Songs, no. 235 (King Wen), King Wen is declared to have governed the realm in direct communion with a supreme deity referred to as the “Heavenly Emperor.”

  10. The story of Tongying is found in the Yuan-dynasty (1206–1368) work Twenty-four Exemplars of Filial Piety, was translated into Japanese as Nijūshi-kō, a Muromachi-period otogi-zōshi; and was well known in Toju’s time.

  11. Wuer is a paragon of filial piety featured in a Ming-dynasty collection.

  12. Bian He repeatedly tried to present a jade matrix to the emperor, but the jade was not recognized for its true value, and Bian He was punished by having both his feet amputated. He was finally recognized and rewarded for his loyalty. The anecdote is found in the Legalist philosophical text Han Feizi.

  13. Nakamura Yukihiko, Kinsei bungei shichōkō (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1975), chap. 1.

  14. Tameakira was probably influenced here by the gūgen (allegorical) view of fiction, which assumes that the author’s thought is not directly expressed but instead is embedded or couched in fictional form.

  15. Bo Juyi (772–846) was a Tang-dynasty poet who was popular in Japan, but his poetry was criticized in the Edo period for being low, common, and everyday (zoku).

  16. This phrase comes from the Great Preface to the Book of Songs.

  17. The Five Classics are the Book of Songs, the Book of Documents, the Classic of Rites
(Yili, later Liji), the Classic of Changes, and the Spring and Autumn Annals.

  18. Song Confucian scholarship taught that the Way serves as the root, and literature serves as the branches; in other words, literature is nothing more than a vehicle for transmitting the Way.

  Chapter 8

  CONFUCIANISM IN ACTION: AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A BAKUFU OFFICIAL

  THE KYŌHŌ ERA (1716–1736)

  The rapid development of both production and commerce in the late seventeenth century commodified society as a whole, in the large cities as well as the farming villages. The result was that farmers, who were supposed to be self-supporting, and samurai, who were dependent on the tribute collected from the farmers, became financially pressed, which in turn jeopardized the bakufu-domain system as a whole. Although the samurai’s expenditures rose with the increase of commerce and the exchange of goods, the amount that they could squeeze from the farmers was limited. Accordingly, the bakufu and the domains (han) sought new forms of income, such as taxes on breweries, pawnshops, and other businesses run by wealthy farmers or urban commoners. But even this proved insufficient, and various han ordered large merchants to lend them money or sometimes even to sell them the rights to han industries (such as papermaking in Yamaguchi and Fukui, wax in Aizu, and salt in Kanazawa). Along with the han samurai, the Tokugawa direct retainers (hatamoto) and housemen (gokenin) were particularly hard hit, since their salaries had been either deferred or reduced while their expenses kept on rising. These samurai were thus forced to borrow from wealthy commoner merchants or to work on the side to support themselves. As the situation worsened in the late eighteenth century, it was not unusual for a samurai to become the adopted son of a wealthy urban commoner family. Rich urban merchants, by contrast, took advantage of the money-based economy to lend money to impoverished samurai, to develop new farmland, or to invest in new breweries or manual industries in farming villages. The samurai elite thus found themselves at the economic mercy of those below them on the social ladder.

  Faced with the growing fiscal crisis in the bakufu-domain system, the eighth shōgun, Tokugawa Yoshimune (r. 1716–1745), initiated a series of measures—referred to today as the Kyōhō Reforms—in an attempt to restore its health. The main purpose of the reforms was to stabilize the fiscal sources necessary to pay the salaries of high-ranking samurai, particularly the hatamoto and gokenin. Yoshimune issued an austerity directive requiring expenses to be reduced, ordered the daimyō to pay a fee to the bakufu in return for a shorter time in Edo in the alternate attendance system, and took various other measures, such as increasing income through the cultivation of special crops like ginseng and sweet potato. While Yoshimune’s reforms were more effective than the subsequent Kansei and Tenpō Reforms and did bring some fiscal relief to the bakufu, the strategy of increasing the tribute caused hardship for the farmers, gradually leading to more agrarian riots (hyakushō ikki). The rise in rice production resulting from the development of new fields also had the unintended effect of lowering the price of rice, which in turn further hurt both the samurai and the farmers.

  If the Genroku era (1688–1704) was a period of relative freedom and economic expansion, the Kyōhō era was marked by restriction and frugality. The shōguns who had ruled during the Genroku era—the fifth shōgun Tokugawa Tsunayoshi (r. 1680–1709); the sixth, Ienobu (r. 1709–1712); and the seventh, Ietsugu (r. 1713–1716)—had pushed for a policy of educated government. The eighth shōgun, Yoshimune, while not discouraging arts and letters, strove for a revival of military spirit. His extreme austerity measures, which were carried out to reverse the deficit spending that had begun with the third shōgun, Iemitsu (r. 1623–1651), created a more spartan atmosphere. In 1721, for example, Yoshimune issued an order regulating all new publications, which was followed the next year by a general restriction on all publications. The 1722 edict, which exempted “books on Confucianism, Buddhism, Shintō, medicine, and waka,” banned pornographic books and those dealing with “sensuality” (kōshoku) or “matters not appropriate for society” and had a profound impact on the nature of literature, which moved in the direction of practical books.

  At the same time, the interest in practical studies and foreign books grew. Chinese studies, which had focused on Confucian works, began to shift toward Chinese vernacular novels, which had been imported by Zen priests and traders through the port at Nagasaki during the Ming (1368–1644) and early Qing (1644–1911) periods. From literature and classical studies, which had been dominant in the Genroku era, Chinese studies spread into a number of subfields such as economics, medicine, and historical studies, as exemplified by the historiographical and anthropological studies by Arai Hakuseki (1657–1725). If writers in the Genroku era leaned toward sensation, those in the Kyōhō era—no doubt partly because of external pressures—moved toward rationality and intellect. Even in literature, the main accomplishments were in criticism and literary research.

  The Kyōhō era was also a time of cultural expansion from Kyoto—which had been the focal point during the Genroku era—outward into the other two major cities, Osaka and Edo, and into the surrounding provinces. This expansion, both numerically and socially in terms of class, continued a trend that had begun in the Kan’ei era (1624–1644). During the eighteenth century, literature, art, and scholarship made their way into the provinces, with haikai becoming especially popular. After the death of Bashō, one of haikai’s preeminent practitioners, his disciples split into two large groups, those who settled in the major cities (such as Kikaku in Edo) and those who went to the provinces and attracted large followings, particularly in Mino and Ise Provinces.

  ARAI HAKUSEKI

  Arai Hakuseki (1657–1725) was born in Edo, the son of a favored house retainer of Tsuchiya Toshinao, a daimyō in Kazusa (Chiba). Hakuseki was also favored by Toshinao, but when he was twenty-one, he was dismissed after a dispute. From 1682 to 1686 he served the high bakufu senior councillor (tairō) Hotta Masatoshi, after which he joined Kinoshita Jun’an’s (1621–1698) Confucian academy and became friends with such influential men of letters as the linguist-diplomat Amenomori Hōshū (1668–1755), the poet-painter Gion Nankai (1666–1751), and the scholar Muro Kyūsō (1658–1734). Jun’an’s recommendation led in 1693 to an appointment as a lecturer and adviser to the future shōgun Ienobu (1662–1712), to whom he taught history and the Confucian classics. After Ienobu (r. 1709–1712) became the sixth Tokugawa shōgun in 1709, Hakuseki was promoted to hatamoto (Tokugawa direct retainer), with a five-hundred-koku estate, and participated directly in the bakufu administration, helping dismantle the idiosyncratic policies of Ienobu’s predecessor Tokugawa Tsunayoshi (r. 1680–1709).

  Hakuseki was an innovative historian who wrote such noted works as Genealogies of Domain Lords (Hankanfu, 1702) and Lessons from History (Tokushi yoron, 1712), a history of Japan from a samurai perspective. His own autobiography, Record of Breaking and Burning Brushwood (Oritaku shiba no ki), can be read as a kind of contemporary history. Hakuseki also made significant contributions in geography, language study, poetry, anthropology, archaeology, military studies, and botany. His Eastern Elegance (Tōga), a dictionary of the Japanese language, provided the foundation for language studies by nativist scholars such as Mabuchi and Norinaga; and his books on the Ainu and Hokkaidō, Record of the Ezo (Ezo-shi), and on Okinawa, Record of the Southern Islands (Nantō-shi), became landmarks in anthropological folk studies. Record of Things Heard About the Western Seas (Seiyō kibun, 1715), an account based on interviews with the Italian Jesuit Giovanni Battista Sidotti, recognized Western technical superiority while maintaining Japanese spiritual superiority and greatly increased the bakufu’s awareness of eighteenth-century European geography, international relations, and religion. His Observations on Foreign Languages and Customs (Sairan igen, 1725) similarly gathered information for the seventh shōgun, Ietsugu, about Africa, North America, Europe, and Asia.

  RECORD OF BREAKING AND BURNING BRUSHWOOD (ORITAKU SHIBA NO KI, 1717?)

&n
bsp; After Tokugawa Yoshimune became the eighth shōgun in 1716, Hakuseki fell out of political favor and began to write his remarkable three-volume autobiography. The first volume begins with Hakuseki’s grandparents and parents and then describes his own upbringing and early career before Ienobu’s appointment as shōgun. The second and third volumes deal mainly with the family of the shōgun and bakufu matters. Hakuseki was motivated by at least two desires: to leave his descendants a record of his own life and accomplishments and to clarify the legacy and achievements of the two shōguns, Ienobu and Ietsugu, under whom he had served. In contrast to the works of Itō Jinsai and Ogyū Sorai, who were Confucian philosophers, Hakuseki’s writings reveal the thinking of a prominent statesman-scholar, a Confucian in action. The first selection translated here, from volume 1, reveals some of Hakuseki’s thoughts on his early education as the son of a samurai. The second selection, which describes Hakuseki’s work as a Confucian adviser, deals with a woman caught between two Confucian legal principles: a woman’s loyalty and her subordination to both her husband and her father. Hakuseki, who submits his opinion to the shōgun, handles the conflicting Confucian precedents in a manner that provides a compassionate outcome for the unfortunate woman while revealing the scholarly limitations of the arguments offered by the rival adviser Hayashi Hōkō, from the powerful Hayashi house of hereditary Confucian scholars.