Here's some more by Ogata: there are several different versions of the text of Nozarashi kikô, all with slightly different titles.
It's not known when exactly it was compiled. It probably wasn't that long after Bashô returned from the journey, perhaps the winter of Jôkyô 貞享 3 (I think that's about 1687). From the fact that there are several versions of the text, it would appear that Bashô wrote them out as gifts for the friends that gave him a place to stay. Thus the contents are not so much addressed to a broad public audience; it's really just for his small group of disciples and patrons.
Why go on the trip at all? "Nozarashi = exposed bones in a field" was no joke - travelers often met with grave misfortune, so it wasn't really something you did casually. Ogata's theory is that during the Tenna 天和 (1681-1683) period, Bashô was working on devising his waka-like style: fûga 風雅, or poetic elegance. The journey was one way to put the theory into practice. Of course, his house had just burned down, and his mother had passed away, so there were other reasons as well. These things may account for the very sad tone of the work, especially the beginning.
I have to read more about fûga; I only really have encountered it in Buson's interpretation, but basically as I understand it it's about transcending the vulgarity of everyday life, and travel certainly could contribute to that.
Also, Bashô had a pretty good network of disciples in various places that he could count on for support, and there were food shortages and other quality-of-life issues in the major cities at the time, so the timing was right for building relations with people in the provinces. In other words, while he might have portrayed himself as being motivated by lofty ideals, he also has a financial incentive for making the journey.
By writing and circulating his travel journals, Bashô made travel itself closely associated with haikai. I wonder if it wouldn't have happened anyway, given the fact that so many of the most famous haikai poets ended up having to move from place to place to support themselves.
Friday, September 30, 2011
Saturday, September 24, 2011
Ogata Tsutomu on Bashô's Nozarashi kikô, 1
Today I'm reading Ogata Tsutomu's 尾形仂 Nozarashi kikô hyôshaku [Bashô's Bleached bones in a field travel journal], critical edition 野ざらし紀行評釈 Kadokawa sôsho 角川叢書 1998. Spare and elegant, writing by the erudite Ogata is incredibly rewarding to read.
Nozarashi kikô, Ogata tells us, is like all of Bashô's other travel journals in that Bashô wrote it probably without a serious intention to publish it during his lifetime. (The other four are Kashima môde [Kashima pilgrimage], Oi no kobumi [Rucksack notebook], Sarashina kikô [Sarashina travel journal] and Oku no hosomichi [Narrow road to the interior]). The last of these, in fact, is the only one to which Bashô himself actually gave a title. We might well wonder what we are to think of it then, especially given the fact that the last draft of the piece is illustrated with Bashô's own paintings.
Bashô undertook the journey that was to be the basis for this travel journal in 1684, when he was 41 years old. His residence in Fukagawa had burned down with the rest of the neighborhood the year before; his mother had died that year also. This was around the same time that he was getting over the influence of the Danrin school (regarded as vulgar by later commentators) and developing the kanshibunchô 漢詩文調 (Chinese literature-influenced) style that would characterize his collection Minashiguri (Empty chestnuts.) While on this journey he worked on the anthology Fuyu no hi (Winter days); in the process of putting together Nozarashi kikô, he seems to have been developing his waka-like sensibility and the "mad" style that would characterize the verse of his last years. Especially outstanding in this sense are
道のべの木槿は馬に食はれけり
michinobe no mukuge wa uma ni kuwarekeri
mallow by the roadside
eaten by
my horse
山路来て何やらゆかしすみれ草
yamaji kite naniyara yukashi sumirekusa
traveling on a mountain trail:
oh, how pretty!
violets
辛崎の松は花より朧にて
Karasaki no matsu wa hana yori oboro nite
Karasaki pines
subtler in the haze than
cherry blossoms
As these examples show, this text offers a lot of insight into the way that Bashô combined the sensibilities of both Chinese and Japanese poetic models.
Nozarashi k. seems to be divided into two parts--the beginning, through to his visit to Ôgaki. This first part has a pretty even balance between prose and verse, and it has a lot of phrasing borrowed from Chinese and unconventional syllable patterns in the verse. The second half is largely hokku, hokku which are quite laid-back, in the manner of the "mad" style (風狂).
Unlike Sora's diary of the Narrow road to the interior journey, there's no parallel text that gives us an alternate account of the events of Nozarashi kikô. but it's pretty safe to assume that it's been heavily fictionalized. Ogata says that the dramatic break from the Ôgaki section onward is emblematic of Bashô's break from his earlier poetic style and moving into a new, more personal/original one. So perhaps we can see it as an exploration of this pioneering new style.
The questions of why Nozarashi kikô, which was not intended to be published would be the right place to do this, and also why did Bashô's final draft be so carefully illustrated, Ogata tells us, will be addressed as he takes us through his commentary on the text itself.
That's the nice thing about Ogata -- he's not afraid to take on pictures when he comments on texts. So, perhaps in my next post I can end some of the suspense? I don't know -- I'm looking forward to reading more.
Nozarashi kikô, Ogata tells us, is like all of Bashô's other travel journals in that Bashô wrote it probably without a serious intention to publish it during his lifetime. (The other four are Kashima môde [Kashima pilgrimage], Oi no kobumi [Rucksack notebook], Sarashina kikô [Sarashina travel journal] and Oku no hosomichi [Narrow road to the interior]). The last of these, in fact, is the only one to which Bashô himself actually gave a title. We might well wonder what we are to think of it then, especially given the fact that the last draft of the piece is illustrated with Bashô's own paintings.
Bashô undertook the journey that was to be the basis for this travel journal in 1684, when he was 41 years old. His residence in Fukagawa had burned down with the rest of the neighborhood the year before; his mother had died that year also. This was around the same time that he was getting over the influence of the Danrin school (regarded as vulgar by later commentators) and developing the kanshibunchô 漢詩文調 (Chinese literature-influenced) style that would characterize his collection Minashiguri (Empty chestnuts.) While on this journey he worked on the anthology Fuyu no hi (Winter days); in the process of putting together Nozarashi kikô, he seems to have been developing his waka-like sensibility and the "mad" style that would characterize the verse of his last years. Especially outstanding in this sense are
道のべの木槿は馬に食はれけり
michinobe no mukuge wa uma ni kuwarekeri
mallow by the roadside
eaten by
my horse
山路来て何やらゆかしすみれ草
yamaji kite naniyara yukashi sumirekusa
traveling on a mountain trail:
oh, how pretty!
violets
辛崎の松は花より朧にて
Karasaki no matsu wa hana yori oboro nite
Karasaki pines
subtler in the haze than
cherry blossoms
As these examples show, this text offers a lot of insight into the way that Bashô combined the sensibilities of both Chinese and Japanese poetic models.
Nozarashi k. seems to be divided into two parts--the beginning, through to his visit to Ôgaki. This first part has a pretty even balance between prose and verse, and it has a lot of phrasing borrowed from Chinese and unconventional syllable patterns in the verse. The second half is largely hokku, hokku which are quite laid-back, in the manner of the "mad" style (風狂).
Unlike Sora's diary of the Narrow road to the interior journey, there's no parallel text that gives us an alternate account of the events of Nozarashi kikô. but it's pretty safe to assume that it's been heavily fictionalized. Ogata says that the dramatic break from the Ôgaki section onward is emblematic of Bashô's break from his earlier poetic style and moving into a new, more personal/original one. So perhaps we can see it as an exploration of this pioneering new style.
The questions of why Nozarashi kikô, which was not intended to be published would be the right place to do this, and also why did Bashô's final draft be so carefully illustrated, Ogata tells us, will be addressed as he takes us through his commentary on the text itself.
That's the nice thing about Ogata -- he's not afraid to take on pictures when he comments on texts. So, perhaps in my next post I can end some of the suspense? I don't know -- I'm looking forward to reading more.
Monday, September 19, 2011
Travel in the Edo Period
Today I'm reading Edo e no shinshiten 江戸への新視点 Shûji Takashina, Yuko Tanaka 高階秀爾 田中優子 (2006); the article "Travel" 旅 by Kanamori Atsuko 金森敦子. Kanamori Atsuko has written one of the major books about Shokyûni, so she's someone I should follow.
The article starts out talking about the "closed country" policy of the Edo period, then brings up Kaempfer. While Kaempfer, being a foreigner, obviously had less time on the ground than did residents of Japan at the time, it's interesting and valuable to read his work because he writes about things that the average person wouldn't think of noticing, since he has an outsider's perspective. For instance, he points out how clean the Tôkaidô highway was. This would be unexpected, considering how much rubbish travelers would presumably generate, since they were riding horses or throwing out used straw sandals and even the trees along the roadside might be expected to litter the place with pine needles and so forth. However, it was clean to a surprising degree, Kaempfer says.
This can be accounted for because trash was treasure, from the perspective of people who lived along the highway. Horse manure was collected for fertilizer; pine straw and similar things could be used for fuel. (Unwittingly, perhaps, Kanamori gives us a nice sustainability angle here.) He also says he's amazed at the sheer number of people on the road. There are far, far more than what you'd expect to see in Europe. More people in Japan traveled.
Kanamori says that one of the best examples of travelers during this time were daimyô (lords) and their retinues, who had to make the trip between their home provinces and Edo on a regular basis, i.e., every other year. Since there were about a total of 260-70 daimyô, that meant a pretty large number were on the road. Big travel months were the Fourth Month for the daimyô, and for ordinary people, the First through the Third, the agricultural off-season. Aside from that, retainers would travel on various duties, as would merchants, and their were always a lot of pilgrims visiting various temples and shrines. Kaempfer says of Ise Shrine, while pilgrimage could happen any time, spring was a big season for it, and people would go together in huge groups and the roads would be full of them.
Some more interesting points about Ise pilgrimage: Ise and its environs were crowded with places to stay, from fancy luxury inns for the wealthy and cheap flophouses for the poor. There were also lots of entertaining things to do there besides the pilgrimage. Kanemori calls it a "wonderland." Thus you could well decide to go, whether you were a strict believer or not.
Also, while travel was expensive then as it is now, even if you ran out of money it wasn't that difficult to raise funds along the way, since people felt it was lucky to give money to pilgrims.
Even more interesting is the section on young people traveling. Apparently it was not uncommon for teenagers to run off and join a group traveling to Ise, or even children under the age of 10. You could tell that they'd run away because a lot of them were dressed in summer clothes even in the winter. Parents were not supposed to know, though in some cases they did but didn't stop them, because they assumed that facing the privations of travel was a good way to get their kids to grow up a bit.
Some other interesting points: While it was possible to use official services to send word home, people often gave letters to travelers going back in the direction of home. Also, a lot of people didn't actually carry their luggage, but used luggage forwarding services that would carry it between post towns (just like you can between Magome and Tsumago today). Thus when you see woodblock prints with travelers, the fact that they aren't dragging around their bags isn't artistic license.
Is she getting all this from Kaempfer, I wonder? I need to take a look at Kaempfer.
The article starts out talking about the "closed country" policy of the Edo period, then brings up Kaempfer. While Kaempfer, being a foreigner, obviously had less time on the ground than did residents of Japan at the time, it's interesting and valuable to read his work because he writes about things that the average person wouldn't think of noticing, since he has an outsider's perspective. For instance, he points out how clean the Tôkaidô highway was. This would be unexpected, considering how much rubbish travelers would presumably generate, since they were riding horses or throwing out used straw sandals and even the trees along the roadside might be expected to litter the place with pine needles and so forth. However, it was clean to a surprising degree, Kaempfer says.
This can be accounted for because trash was treasure, from the perspective of people who lived along the highway. Horse manure was collected for fertilizer; pine straw and similar things could be used for fuel. (Unwittingly, perhaps, Kanamori gives us a nice sustainability angle here.) He also says he's amazed at the sheer number of people on the road. There are far, far more than what you'd expect to see in Europe. More people in Japan traveled.
Kanamori says that one of the best examples of travelers during this time were daimyô (lords) and their retinues, who had to make the trip between their home provinces and Edo on a regular basis, i.e., every other year. Since there were about a total of 260-70 daimyô, that meant a pretty large number were on the road. Big travel months were the Fourth Month for the daimyô, and for ordinary people, the First through the Third, the agricultural off-season. Aside from that, retainers would travel on various duties, as would merchants, and their were always a lot of pilgrims visiting various temples and shrines. Kaempfer says of Ise Shrine, while pilgrimage could happen any time, spring was a big season for it, and people would go together in huge groups and the roads would be full of them.
Some more interesting points about Ise pilgrimage: Ise and its environs were crowded with places to stay, from fancy luxury inns for the wealthy and cheap flophouses for the poor. There were also lots of entertaining things to do there besides the pilgrimage. Kanemori calls it a "wonderland." Thus you could well decide to go, whether you were a strict believer or not.
Also, while travel was expensive then as it is now, even if you ran out of money it wasn't that difficult to raise funds along the way, since people felt it was lucky to give money to pilgrims.
Even more interesting is the section on young people traveling. Apparently it was not uncommon for teenagers to run off and join a group traveling to Ise, or even children under the age of 10. You could tell that they'd run away because a lot of them were dressed in summer clothes even in the winter. Parents were not supposed to know, though in some cases they did but didn't stop them, because they assumed that facing the privations of travel was a good way to get their kids to grow up a bit.
Some other interesting points: While it was possible to use official services to send word home, people often gave letters to travelers going back in the direction of home. Also, a lot of people didn't actually carry their luggage, but used luggage forwarding services that would carry it between post towns (just like you can between Magome and Tsumago today). Thus when you see woodblock prints with travelers, the fact that they aren't dragging around their bags isn't artistic license.
Is she getting all this from Kaempfer, I wonder? I need to take a look at Kaempfer.
Sunday, September 18, 2011
David Slater: Youth Movements in Tokyo Since 3.11
Originally published on H-Japan (H-JAPAN@H-NET.MSU.EDU)
3.11 POLITICS IN DISASTER JAPAN: FEAR AND ANGER, POSSIBILITY AND HOPE
http://www.culanth.org/?q=node/409
These two pieces in particular are relevant to youth politics and demos
THE POLITICIZATION OF PRECARITY—ANTI-NUKE PROTESTS IN JAPAN SINCE THE
GREAT TOHOKU EARTHQUAKE
Love Kindstrand, Graduate Program in Japanese Studies, Sophia University
http://www.culanth.org/?q=node/421
FROM SHAKING ISLANDS, A NATION DIVIDED
Yoshitaka Mōri, Tokyo University of the Arts
http://www.culanth.org/?q=node/412
David Slater
Sophia U.
3.11 POLITICS IN DISASTER JAPAN: FEAR AND ANGER, POSSIBILITY AND HOPE
http://www.culanth.org/?q=node/409
These two pieces in particular are relevant to youth politics and demos
THE POLITICIZATION OF PRECARITY—ANTI-NUKE PROTESTS IN JAPAN SINCE THE
GREAT TOHOKU EARTHQUAKE
Love Kindstrand, Graduate Program in Japanese Studies, Sophia University
http://www.culanth.org/?q=node/421
FROM SHAKING ISLANDS, A NATION DIVIDED
Yoshitaka Mōri, Tokyo University of the Arts
http://www.culanth.org/?q=node/412
David Slater
Sophia U.
Wednesday, September 14, 2011
Buson and Bashô
I'm reading Eri Yasuhara's "Buson's Bashô: The Embrace of Influence," in Eleanor Kerkham's Matsuo Bashô's Poetic Spaces. Yasuhara asks the question, to what extent did Bashô "influence" Buson? Essentially, what is the nature of Buson's reception of Bashô? She notes that while thinking about "influence" has not been fashionable in US/European literary studies for a long time, it still is of interest in Japan. She says: in Japanese scholarship, Buson is often taken at his word in calling for a return to Bashô's ideals, that the period after Bashô is usually viewed as a decadent one, and then she cites (in elegantly translated passages) Buson's statements about how he felt he measured up to his predecessor. Next, she says, "When we return to some of Buson's activities as a painter-poet, the 'use' of his predecessor takes on the quality of outright appropriation" (248). She then discusses the major haiga works in which Buson creates illustrated versions of Oku no hosomichi and Nozarashi kikô. The text has a very nice analysis of the "Pilgrim's Willow" painting, and concludes with a biography of Buson.
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