Rural Poets' Publishing Projects in a Tokugawa-period Province

Abstract

From the beginning of the eighteenth century, rural enthusiasts in the arts took part in production of printed materials, often with help from urban professionals and the publishing industry. Their works in print constitute concrete evidence of the diffusion of the arts from urban centres to the provinces during the Tokugawa period. Taking Echigo province as a case study, this essay explores provincial amateurs’ publishing projects, particularly in haikai and Chinese poetry. Materials in this province show a steady development of cultural mechanisms that promoted provincial people's participation in book publishing and printmaking as an objective of their literary activities. This study provides evidence of interplay between the growing print culture and people's desire to publish their works in the context of the development of mass culture in Tokugawa society.

Notes

¹For discussions about the significance of book publishing in the Tokugawa period in relation to the development of mass culture, see for example (in English), Rubinger, Popular Literacy, 83–91, 95–126; Kornicki, The Book in Japan, 140–141; Jansen, The Making of Modern Japan, 159–166; and in Japanese, Konta, Edo no hon'yasan, 5–9, 35–80, among many others.

²For the locations of Japanese provinces in pre-Meiji times, refer to an appropriate map or internet site, for example, http://http://mapsof.net/map/ancient-japan-provinces-map-japanese (accessed 1 September 2012).

³For the process of publishing of Hokuetsu seppu, see Moriyama, Crossing Boundaries, chapter 6; Walthall, ‘Introduction: The Life and Times of Suzuki Bokushi’, xli–l.

⁴Cultural diffusion in the Tokugawa period and the rural elite's contribution to it have been widely discussed. See for example (in English), Nishiyama, Edo Culture, 95–112; Rubinger, Popular Literacy, 80–112; and, in Japanese, Tsukamoto, Chihō bunjin; Sugi, Kinsei no chiiki to zaison bunka; Takahashi, Chihō bunjin no sekai.

⁵My survey excludes poets born in Echigo but who primarily performed their activities outside the province, typically in Edo or Kyoto.

⁶See, for example, Keene, World Within Walls, 11–19; Rubinger, Popular Literacy, 104–107; Ikegami, Bonds of Civility, 171–197.

⁷Kira, ‘Haikai shoshi no tanjō’, 95.

⁸Niigataken, Niigatakenshi, shiryōhen, vol. 11, 577. See also Saitō, Echigo no hanbon, section 25 (n.p.)

⁹Niigataken, Niigatakenshi, shiryōhen, vol. 11, 577–578.

¹⁰Kira, ‘Haikai shoshi no tanjō’, 104–106, 108–109.

¹¹Ibid., 108–109.

¹²See Ōuchi, Sakurai and Kira, Genroku haikaishū, 530–562.

¹³See, for example, Keene, World Within Walls, 358–362; Fujita, ‘Haikai no kakushin’, 261–286.

¹⁴Sudō, ‘Tsumari no Shōfū haikai senkusha, Nezu Tōro’, 12–22.

¹⁵Niigataken, Niigatakenshi, shiryōhen, vol. 11, 730–774. The original print of Kachōfūgetsushū can be viewed at Waseda University Library online database http://http://www.wul.waseda.ac.jp/kotenseki/html/he05/he05_01145/index.html (accessed 1 September 2012).

¹⁶There were three coinages in the Tokugawa period: kin (gold), gin (silver) and zeni (copper/brass/iron). Exchange rates among them fluctuated from time to time but, generally speaking, around the period 1800–1830 one ryō in gold coins was worth 60 monme in silver coins, or about 6,000 mon in zeni coins. To help understand the value of money in this essay, I hereafter translate original figures into the unit of mon in zeni. The value of one mon in this period could be understood as 20 yen in Japan or 20 cents in Australia or the US at today's value, judging from examples such as: a bowl of plain noodles costing 16 mon; a bowl of noodles with tempura, 32 mon; eel and rice (good dinner), 100–200 mon. See Kitagawa, Kinsei fūzokushi, vol. 1, 204.

¹⁷Munemasa, Kinsei Kyōto shuppan bunka, 346.

¹⁸Calculated based on Suzuki Bokushi's record of the price of rice at the local market of Shiozawa, next to Muikamachi: one hyō (0.44 koku) at one bu gold and 500 mon in 1800. Bokushi also mentioned Ryoro's property ‘of several hundred koku’ in 1839. Miya, Inoue and Takahashi, Suzuki Bokushi zenshū, vol. 1, 893, and vol. 2, 105.

¹⁹See Munemasa, Kinsei Kyōto shuppan bunka, 346.

²⁰Konta, Nakano, Munemasa and Ogata, ‘Kinsei no shuppan’, 14–15.

²¹See Munemasa, Kinsei Kyōto shuppan bunka, 347.

²²See, for example, Suzuki, Kinsei haikaishi, 352–353, 359–360, 428–429.

²³A number of studies have discussed this contest of haikai writing in the context of the development of literary networks among provincials. See, for example, Ikegami, Bonds of Civility, 208–209, and Moriyama, Crossing Boundaries, chapter 4.

²⁴Shiozawamachi, Shiozawachōshi, tsūshihen, vol. 2, 174–175.

²⁵Niigataken kyōdo sōsho henshū iinkai, Niigataken kyōdo sōsho, vol. 7, 99, 185–197. The original can be viewed at Waseda University Library online database http://http://archive.wul.waseda.ac.jp/kosho/he05/he05_01918/he05_01918.html (accessed 1 September 2012).

²⁶In the quotation for Yamazatoshū (25 blocks), cost of block making was 400 mon per block and paper cost was four mon per sheet. In addition, there was 700 mon charged for fair copying of ms. So, the production of 300 copies of Jippyō hokkushū, which had 20 blocks, would have been calculated as follows: (20 x 400) + (300 x 20 x 4) + 600 = 32,600 mon. See Miya, Inoue and Takahashi, Suzuki Bokushi zenshū, vol. 2, 106.

²⁷Ibid., 34, 36.

²⁸See Moriyama, Crossing Boundaries, chapter 6.

²⁹See Niigatashishi hensan kinseishibukai, Niigatashishi, shiryōhen, vol. 3, 660–663.

³⁰A good online database about haikai surimono is at Waseda University Library http://db2.littera.waseda.ac.jp/wever/surimono_e/goLogin.do (accessed 1 September 2012).

³¹Yaba, Shokan ni yoru kinseikōki haikai, 52.

³²Ibid., 53.

³³Ibid., 49.

³⁴My count from works collected in Gotō, Haikai surimono, 166–189; Yaba, Zoku haijin no tegami, 379–84.

³⁵See ‘Kaisetsu’ and ‘Hokuetsu sangashū’ in Niigataken, Niigatakenshi, shiryōhen, vol. 11, 34–36, 311–348.

³⁶The rural elite's activities in Chinese poetry are well depicted in Sugi, Kinsei no zaison bunka, 162–181.

³⁷‘Taikaidō bunshū’ in Waseda University online database at http://http://www.wul.waseda.ac.jp/kotenseki/html/i04/i04_01919_0782/index.html (accessed 1 September 2012). See also Saitō, Echigo no hanbon, section 38 (n. p.).

³⁸Saitō, Echigo no hanbon, section 38. Also Niigataken, Niigatakenshi tsūshihen, vol. 5, 167–169.

³⁹See Munemasa, Kinsei Kyōto shuppan, 135–140.

⁴⁰Shishi hensan iinkai, Kashiwazakishishi, vol. 2, 599.

⁴¹Ibid., 590–591.