The Intentions of the Author
The Tale of Genji portrays human feelings [ninjō] and social conventions without passing judgment on such matters. By presenting the manners and mores of the upper, middle, and lower ranks of the aristocracy in the context of their romantic interests, the novel avoids didactic language. The reader is left to draw moral lessons from the story on his own. While the novel’s greater purpose is to provide instruction for women, it also contains numerous lessons for men. A few illustrative examples follow:
In chapter 1, “The Paulownia Court,” the Kiritsubo emperor has such a passionate nature that he lavishes excessive attention on a low-ranking consort, Lady Kiritsubo, completely disregarding the criticism of others. This self-indulgent behavior is an affront to society and has become a cause for concern not simply among his highest-ranking councillors but among all his subjects as well. Disgraceful conduct of this sort certainly provides later emperors with an instructive example. In addition, the emperor’s fondness for Genji, his son by Lady Kiritsubo, leads him to treat the child as if he were to become nothing less than a crown prince. He even acts as if Genji might take the place of the existing crown prince. Is this not conduct beneath the dignity of an emperor? Reading about the “arrogant and intractable behavior” of Lady Kokiden, the imperial consort and the mother of the crown prince, and her deliberate disregard for the emperor’s bereavement following the death of his favorite consort should prompt more prudent behavior by an empress or a lady-in-waiting of lesser rank. Poor conduct of this sort inevitably leads to a bad reputation.
Chapter 2, “The Broom Tree,” includes the scene in which Genji and his companions spend a rainy night comparing the attributes of various women. The novel’s overarching goal is to provide moral instruction for women. Accordingly, this chapter is intended to appeal to the interests of a female readership.
In chapter 3, “The Shell of the Locust,” the careless manner in which the character Nokiba no Ogi leaves her robes untied while playing a game of go and later remains fast asleep in the bedchamber as Genji approaches her is a clear example of moral laxity. As for Utsusemi, Nokiba no Ogi’s companion, the author intended that because of her indifference to Genji’s romantic advances, she would stand out as a model of chastity. . . .
In the remaining chapters the actions and emotions of the characters continue to be portrayed with all their good and bad features exposed before the eyes of the reader with the kind of verisimilitude one finds in looking at an image reflected in a mirror. The author’s true intention is to offer the world a moral lesson. It is not her intention to deceive readers with fictional tales and falsehoods.
In chapter 25, “Fireflies” (Hotaru), Genji discusses earlier fiction:
These works are not based on the actions of particular people who actually existed. Rather, they are inspired by the feeling that some events and people in this world are infinitely interesting to see and hear. Whether these things are good or bad, they should be passed on to later generations. Unable to keep such things bottled up inside, the authors take various details from things that they know and use them as the starting points for their works.
This commentary on fiction should be seen as nothing other than Murasaki Shikibu’s own understanding and intentions concerning the novel. One should not call her novel a work of fabrications and falsehoods. In the way that it portrays the lives of people as they existed in this world, The Tale of Genji encourages good and punishes evil. Those who fail to appreciate the author’s intention as such—instead calling the novel a guide to indecent behavior—are not even worthy of contempt.
[Kinsei shintō ron, zenki kokugaku, NST 39: 431–433, translated by Patrick Caddeau]
CHINESE STUDIES AND LITERARY PERSPECTIVES
Chinese studies (kangaku) in the seventeenth century tended to focus on the study of Confucianism, particularly that branch influenced by the Song Confucian philosopher Zhu Xi (1130–1200) and his followers. Two major Confucian scholars who opposed this school of Song Confucianism were Itō Jinsai (1627–1705) and Ogyū Sorai (1666–1728), who sought to return directly to the Confucian classics through a systematic philological and historical study of ancient Chinese texts. The views of these two scholar-philosophers on the function and effects of literary texts are critical to understanding the ways in which literature and literary studies were perceived and defended in the early modern period. Their writings also deeply influenced the perspective of the kokugaku (nativist learning) scholars who followed them.
ITŌ JINSAI
Itō Jinsai (1627–1705), the oldest son of a Kyoto merchant, started studying Chinese at a young age and became a devoted student of Zhu Xi, or Song Confucianism. After an illness when he was twenty-eight, he handed over the family business to his younger brother, became a recluse, and studied Buddhism and Daoism. It was at this time that he began to have doubts about Zhu Xi’s philosophy. In 1662, with the help of his son Tōgai, Jinsai established a private school in Kyoto, the Kogidō (Hall of Ancient Meaning), where he is said to have attracted three thousand students from a wide variety of professions and classes. Jinsai’s teachings were constructed around a sustained critique of Song Confucianism. Appropriately, his school stood on the east bank of the Horikawa River, directly across from Ansai’s school, established in 1655 on the west bank, which firmly upheld Song Confucianism and rejected the value of poetry. Of the prominent Confucian scholars in the latter half of the seventeenth century—including Yamazaki Ansai—Jinsai was by far the most influential.
Jinsai believed that the speculative, metaphysical philosophy of Song Confucianism could not serve as a model for everyday practical ethics but, rather, that the way of the sages could be learned through a renewed understanding of the Analects and the Mencius. Jinsai pointed out that The Great Learning and The Doctrine of the Mean, two of the Four Books (along with the Analects and the Mencius) that had been the basis of Song Confucianism, contained theories added by later philosophers and in some ways were actually closer to Buddhism and Daoism. Accordingly, Jinsai argued that the later commentaries should be abandoned and instead recommended a careful rereading of the original Analects and Mencius based on a systematic linguistic reconstruction of the meaning of the texts’ ancient words. (Today, Jinsai’s approach is referred to as the “study of ancient meanings” [kogigaku] because his aim was clarifying the original meanings of the words of the Confucian classics. His approach in turn is considered part of the larger movement of kogaku, or “ancient learning,” which Ogyū Sorai later took up.)
For Jinsai, human character was not inherently good, as the Zhu Xi school of Confucianism claimed. Instead, it held the potential for good, which had to be developed and expanded through everyday practice or action. Jinsai rejected the Song Confucian dualism of rational principle (ri) and material force (ki), contending that it was solely the movement of material force that had led to the creation and life of all things. In Song Confucianism, the Heavenly Way (tendō) was connected to the Human Way (jindō) through rational principle, which informed both. For Jinsai, the Way (michi) was not, as the Song Confucianists believed, a lofty state but was embedded in the low (zoku), the common and everyday. The world as material force was in constant flux, in Jinsai’s view, and the key question was how to conduct oneself in everyday life. In contrast to the Song Confucian notion of “original human character” (sei), which was thought to be good and based on moral virtues, the Jinsai school stressed human emotions (ninjō), which were continually changing and rooted in everyday life. The value and function of poetry were its ability to express both everyday life and these human emotions. For Jinsai, poetry provided an expression of or release for human emotions, desires, and everyday needs. This humanistic conception of literature, which looked at both everyday life and human emotions in a positive light, was also the central assumption underlying the Genroku popular fiction of Ihara Saikaku and the jōruri puppet theater of Chikamatsu Monzaemon. This attitude toward poetry also began to attract s
tudents to the Kogidō who were more interested in composing Chinese poetry than in Confucian studies.
THE MEANING OF WORDS IN THE ANALECTS AND THE MENCIUS (GOMŌ JIGI, 1683)
In The Meaning of Words in the Analects and the Mencius, a major treatise written at the peak of his career, Itō Jinsai outlines his philosophy concerning such key issues as the Heavenly Way, rational principle (ri), and virtue (toku). In the following passage from the section on the Book of Songs, a Confucian classic, he reveals his views on poetry, which opposes the Song Confucian view that its function was to “encourage good and punish evil.” Jinsai argues that the text took on a life of its own after it was composed.
In regard to a method for reading the Book of Songs, it is said that the poems dealing with virtue stimulate the virtue in one’s heart, while those that deal with vice serve to correct one’s tendency toward licentiousness. This is indeed true, but in their application, what matters for poetry is not the author’s intent but, rather, the reader’s reaction. The emotions found in these poems are of a thousand varieties and take myriad forms so they appear never to be exhausted. The lofty read the poems and through them rise higher, while the mean read the poetry and sink lower. Whether the shape is round or square, people will accept what they encounter. Be it great or small, people will follow what they see. [vol. 2, sec. 12]
[Itō Jinsai, Itō Togai, NST 33: 86, translated by Lawrence Marceau]
POSTSCRIPT TO THE COLLECTED WORKS OF BO JUYI (HAKUSHIMONJŪ, 1704)
In the following passage from his postscript to The Collected Works of Bo Juyi, Itō Jinsai quotes criticisms of various Tang-dynasty (618–906) poets, including that of Bo Juyi,15 who is criticized for being “vulgar,” “commonplace,” or “mundane” (zoku). Jinsai then argues that the Book of Songs and, by implication, poetry in general commends the common and the everyday. That is, it is precisely because poetry is grounded in the everyday, vulgar world that it is valuable and effective.
Poetry, after all, values commonplace elements. The reason that the Book of Songs is considered one of the classics is that it deals with the commonplace. The essence of poetry is in the oral expression of inborn emotions. If a poem is based on the mundane world, it will encompass the full range of these emotions. If, however, the poem is overly polished, it will detract from the inborn emotions and destroy the poet’s material force [ki].
[Itō Jinsai, Itō Togai, NST 33: 216, translated by Lawrence Marceau]
QUESTIONS FROM CHILDREN (DŌJIMON, 1693)
Although the Jinsai school generally distinguishes between the function of the Book of Songs as belles lettres and as an ethical text, Jinsai asserts in the passage translated here that poetry can serve a political function for rulers. He warns, however, that those in a position of responsibility should not overindulge in poetry.
Poetry serves as a guide to the emotions and character. Even though the number of people in the world is large and the procession of lives from the past to the present is endless, when you wish to know about those people’s emotions, there is nothing that surpasses the Book of Songs. When you learn from these songs, things are ordered; when you refuse to learn from them, things are chaotic. This is why the former kings preserved them untouched and cherished them without change. . . . For this reason it is imperative to study the Book of Songs. . . . [vol. 3, sec. 5]
Chinese poetry is the chanted expression of emotions and thoughts in the mind.16 Composing Chinese poetry is also truly beneficial, but not doing so is not harmful. Chinese poetry is the most elegant of the polite accomplishments, but becoming overly fond of it is not good. Poetry is fine for recluses in the wooded mountains, who have no pressing business. In their leisure, they can use it to vent their emotions, to sing nostalgically. They can express their feelings of despondence and boredom. But if aristocrats, generals and ministers, scholars, officials, and others in high position and office overindulge even once in poetic composition, they will lose direction, which will lead to their downfall. Beware! [vol. 3, sec. 39]
[Kinsei shisōka bunshū, NKBT 97: 154–155, 183, translated by Lawrence Marceau]
ITŌ TŌGAI
While Itō Jinsai enjoys a reputation as one of Japan’s most creative and influential early modern philosophers, much of his thought would have been lost to posterity were it not for the efforts of his son Tōgai (1670–1736). Personally responsible for publishing the great portion of his father’s writings, Tōgai himself broke new scholarly ground in his research on official ranks in both ancient China and ancient Japan. In contrast to Jinsai, who wrote almost exclusively in Chinese, Tōgai produced many essays and studies in Japanese, in an effort to promote learning among those who did not know Chinese. Under Tōgai, the Kogidō Academy flourished as a great center for ancient learning through the mid-eighteenth century.
ESSENTIALS FOR READING THE BOOK OF SONGS (DOKUSHI YŌRYŌ, CA. 1730)
In the following passage from this commentary on the Book of Songs, Itō Tōgai, Itō Jinsai’s eldest son and intellectual heir, further develops his father’s views on the fundamental nature of poetry. The Jinsai school argued that “poetry reflects popular customs [fūzoku] and human emotions [ninjō],” a function that Tōgai sees as distinct from the political and ethical philosophy found in such Confucian classics as the Book of Documents (Shujing), the Analects, and the Mencius. At the same time, he contends that by confirming human feelings and allowing us to understand the emotions of others, poetry also serves a practical purpose in bringing about social order and harmonious human relations.
If you read the Book of Songs often and carefully, you will become familiar with the human emotions in society, and your mood will become mellow and peaceful. Then when you are interacting with others, if you are addressed in an outrageous manner or are treated badly, you will not respond in kind. Rather, in such a situation, you will be true to your father and your ruler and not be disloyal or unfilial. . . .
When stubborn or unsociable people interact with others, they often criticize them for trivial matters, thereby ruining such relationships. If you are familiar with human emotions, you can interact with large numbers of people and have pleasant relationships with them without argument or wrangling. . . .
The Book of Documents records matters of governance by the sage-emperors and illustrious kings, thereby explaining the Way for regulating the state and pacifying the realm. The Analects and Mencius clarify the distinctions between right and wrong and between proper and corrupt, thereby providing a means for cultivating the self and regulating others. The Book of Documents is the Way of the ruler; the Analects and Mencius are the Way of the teacher.
These kinds of functions do not apply to the Book of Songs. This book merely reflects popular customs and human emotions; it does not provide instruction about right and wrong or good and evil. Those who read the poems should recite and chant them aloud while thinking about human emotions and material appearances. In this way they will create a mellow and peaceful attitude. This is why the Book of Songs has been revered and is included among the classics, sharing the premier position with the Book of Documents so that the two are cited together as Documents-Songs. [Nihon shishi, Gozandō shiwa, SNKBT 65: 13–15, translated by Lawrence Marceau]
OGYŪ SORAI
Ogyū Sorai (1666–1728), perhaps the most influential philosopher of the eighteenth century, was born in Edo. He was the second son of a samurai who served as the personal physician to Tokugawa Tsunayoshi, who became the fifth shōgun (r. 1680–1709). In 1690, Sorai, who had studied the Zhu Xi version of Song Confucianism, established himself as a private teacher of Chinese classics. In 1696 he entered into the service of Yanagisawa Yoshiyasu, the senior councillor (rōjū) to Tsunayoshi. After Tsunayoshi’s death in 1709, Sorai retired from service with Yoshiyasu, turned away from the philosophy of Zhu Xi, and developed his own position and school, writing such influential texts as Regulations for Study (Gakusoku, 1715), Distinguishing the Way (Bendō, 1717), and Master Sorai’s Teachings (Sorai sensei
tōmonsho, 1724).
Sorai saw two fundamental weaknesses in Song Confucianism. First, in the early eighteenth century the bakufu-domain system was already in serious trouble. Thus he doubted that the bakufu’s relying on the ideal of cultivating ethical good as a means of perfecting human character was sufficient. Rather, in Sorai’s view, the political crisis demanded more than moral perfection, and he later argued that the Way (michi) of the ancient Chinese sage-kings had been concerned not just with morality but also with government, with bringing peace to the land. Second, Sorai feared that the heavy emphasis on morality would have the negative effect of repressing human nature, which was based on human emotion (ninjō). These fundamental deficiencies of Song Confucianism, according to Sorai, stemmed from a misreading of the Confucian classics, the Four Books and the Five Classics,17 which in his view contained the original teachings of the ancient Confucian sages. The Song Confucians “did not know the old words.” Sorai instead looked to history, to the ancient past, for deeper, more reliable knowledge, as noted in his famous dictum “The ultimate form of scholarly knowledge is history” (Sorai sensei tōmonsho). To Sorai, the historical text was the ultimate guide to the ever-changing present and could be authenticated through a systematic philological “study of ancient rhetoric” (kobunjigaku).
For Sorai, the study of philology should begin with a thorough study, and use, of the language. In this regard, he was heavily influenced by the Ming period’s Ancient Rhetoric (guwenci, J. kobunji) school, led by Li Panlong (1514–1570) and Wang Shizhen (1526–1590)—a neoclassical movement that regarded the Qin (221–207 B.C.E.) and Han (202 B.C.E.-C.E. 220) periods as the models for prose and the middle Tang period as the model for poetry. Li Panlong is thought to have edited Selections of Tang Poetry (Tangshi xuan, J. Tōshisen), which the Sorai school introduced to Japan, where it became very popular. As a consequence, today Sorai’s school is also called the Ancient Rhetoric (kobunji) school. Sorai’s school differed from the Ming period’s Ancient Rhetoric school in that he regarded the composition of Chinese poetry and prose primarily as a means of accessing the Five Classics, and he used poetry and prose composition in a pseudoarchaic Chinese style as a means of absorbing the heart of the ancients.
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