Twelve Centuries of Japanese Literature [Part 2]

The three genres of novels, theater, and poetry emerged during this period, with three prominent representatives being Ihara Saikaku, Chikamatsu Monzaemon, and Matsuo Bashō.

Urban and folk literature

The literary renaissance began in the 17th century, at the beginning of the period when the Tokugawa shogunate established its Lordship in Edo (now Tokyo). Early merchant-civilian literature developed along the 17th-century pattern until the mid-18th century.

During two and a half centuries of isolation, without any relations with the outside world, that literature lacked new ferment and gradually lost its vitality, especially when entering the 19th century.

The central characters of literature are no longer the princes, princes, ladies, and ladies of the Heian Dynasty royal court; nor are they the warriors who fought in the battlefields of the early Middle Ages; but rather the wealthy merchants, small traders, craftsmen, prostitutes, etc. of the urban classes.

The three genres of novels, theater, and poetry emerged during this period, with three prominent representatives being Ihara Saikaku, Chikamatsu Monzaemon, and Matsuo Bashō.

Poet Ihara Saikaku (1642-1693).

Ihara Saikaku (1642-1693) was a poet and novelist, one of the most outstanding figures of Japanese literature during the Edo period. He was a wealthy merchant in Osaka, and retired to writing at the age of forty. Traveling a lot and making subtle observations, he wrote in a realistic, humorous, and precise style, like the Haiku poetry he was very good at.

He wrote Ukiyo-zōshi (Ukiyo-zoshi – Floating world) for 12 years. He only mentioned contemporary issues: passionate love stories or erotic stories, war, stories of the business world , creating “life comedy” in the city and the countryside. He told funny stories.

There is a story about a beautiful wife of a small master who sets a trap for a servant who loves her husband's servant; she ends up falling asleep in his arms. Afterwards, she has to go into exile with him; both are caught and punished. Another story tells of people in a remote village worshiping an umbrella that comes from somewhere; the umbrella god demands to be sacrificed to a woman; a young widow volunteers; when she waits for a long time and the god does not come, she gets angry and tears the umbrella to pieces...

Ihara Saikaku composed about 12 volumes of poetry and works of poetry criticism by the end of his life, including a collection of poems (about 23,500 poems) that he composed in just one day. After the death of his wife (1675), he composed a Haikai (a long poem in the Japanese waka - Hoa ca poetry genre) of thousands of lines in twelve hours (Haikai Dokugin Ichinichi - Haikai One Day of Singleness, Thousand Poems), at the same time, he decided to become a lay monk and began traveling around Japan.

He wrote many famous novels such as: The Life of a Passionate Man (Koshuku Ichidai otoko, 1682), Five Women Who Love Love (Koshoku Gonin Onna, 1686)...

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Chikamatsu Monzaemon (1653-1725) was a puppet and live-action playwright who is considered “Japan’s greatest playwright” and the Shakespeare of Japan. Born into a samurai family, he was well versed in Chinese studies and spent some time as a Buddhist monk.

His plays far surpassed contemporary literature, although because of paying too much attention to the characteristics of puppet theater, their literary value was sometimes reduced. To this day, his plays still have some modern features; they present human fate through characters of the lower class, who are mistreated by fate - both realistic and lyrical.

He neither praised nor condemned the heads of families who were addicted to women, nor the prostitutes, but pitied them. The virtue that was exalted was Giri (in Chinese, meaning Righteousness); the word Righteousness here refers to a duty, a spiritual debt that must be paid. Chikamatsu's famous plays include The Double Suicide of Sonezaki (Sonezaki Shinju, 1703), Suicide for Love in Amijima (Shinju Ten no Amijima, 1721) and The Messenger of Hell (Meido no Hikyaku, 1711)...

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Matsuo Bashō (1644-1694), also known as Ba Tieu Zen Master, was a poet and a famous painter. Born into a peasant family, he found pleasure in literature when he was young. He was very knowledgeable about Chinese poetry. After working as an official for a while, he practiced Zen. He founded Tao Dan Sofu (Tieu Phong - a metaphor for the life of an artist like Ba Tieu leaves torn apart in the wind on stormy nights), advocating expressing true feelings, not being constrained by rules and forms.

He traveled to many places and then returned to a simple house near Yedo by the river. In front of the house was a banana grove, hence the name Bashō-am. His house burned down, and he traveled to beautiful places again, wrote poems and painted ink, honing his mind and the art of poetry.

He had great merit in reforming the Haiku poetry form, which was just a common humorous poetry form, with strict rules and heavy wordplay. Each Haiku poem only had three lines of 5 + 7 + 5 syllables.

He expanded the theme of Haiku, incorporating into his poems colloquialisms and philosophical content, liberal lyricism, and many subtle emotions. His last Haiku poem tells of a night when the poet and his companions slept in an inn with two prostitutes. The two girls asked to join the group, but the monk did not dare accept them because they had many other places to go.

He loved them and wrote poems about this. His main works include: Diary of Exposing Yourself in the Field (Nozarashi Kikō, 1685), Spring Day (Haru ni Hi, 1686), Kashima Travel Diary (Kashima Kikō, 1687), The Path to Oku (Oku no Hoshomichi, 1689), Saga Diary (Saga Nikki, 1691)...

To enjoy each Haiku poem, it is necessary to understand the context in which the poem was created and the historical background that underlies the poem.

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