Head Engaged Diagrams

On the seventeenth century and the spirit of Saikaku A tale of an era


The phrase "everyone is the son of his time", as abused, always retains its validity, especially when referring to people as unique as the writer Ihara Saikaku. Rich merchant from Osaka, a frequent visitor of the pleasure quarters of the city, a skilled writer of verse, first, and popular novelist, then (do not stop the practice of poetry), Saikaku is a prime example of perfect correspondence between the emerging class of research its own specific cultural environment and man of culture, precisely because of that class is a part, is able to respond very well to this need.

The world of the imperial court and nobility, is far more confined in the novels and stories of the past, city and everyday life, the heroic of the powerful lords, children and grandchildren of the endless wars between feudal, is now finished; the proud daimyo are now subservient to the power of the Tokugawa, who try by all means to weaken the power and monitor their movements. So even the brave samurai, now devoid of land and turned into employees on the payroll of their masters, no wars to fight, just watch a representation of their master.

The emergence of a new class

the traditional division of society into classes, the merchants have always occupied the lowest role: they had no land that produces rice, did not produce artifacts, not fighting ... in front of a samurai no category could be more despicable, and this attitude was haughty and aloof characterized the behavior of these men of war against those who wielded no sword, but the money. However, the new historical situation, the result of the unification of the country under the Tokugawa, had created a very special, very different from that of tradition, characterized three fundamental aspects: first, the conditions of peace, that would guarantee farmers, fishermen, artisans and merchants the ability to attend to their duties unhindered, then, after requiring that the daimyo to reside in the capital for long periods each year, and still leave their families as hostages when they returned to their lands, the formation of many small town courts, composed by thousands of servants, soldiers, family members, resulting in enormous demand for manufactured goods and services and, finally, the rather spartan existence of many samurai, paid to smile, no other income, increasing their debt in against those who, having been a long time looking, began to raise their heads: the merchants, and with them the artisans.

The new situation, focusing sull'inurbamento of thousands of people demanded more and more goods and services, with a tendency to buy ever more sophisticated and costly, took the class of artisans and merchants in large cities ( chōnin) to enrich and transform more and more wealth obtained from using the trade and money - in the past rather than something out of the feeling of nobility and military - in a real ideal to be pursued.

A typical feature of the new classes (or social groups oppressed in the past, and they find more freedom at the end) is the desire to carve out a social and cultural world, reflecting the ideals, aspirations, lifestyle , allows to saturate the valences of self-esteem and personal growth inherent in every person. What is the highest aspiration for those who has always been considered the lowest rung of society? No doubt the chance to live like the ones at the top of the social ladder ... or as the nobles and feudal lords. But since this was not possible in politics, social, administrative (the laws of the Tokugawa were very clear about it), then here is the dual tendency to seek, by some (few, indeed, than the bulk, because it was very complicated), to "ennobled" (by buying securities from battered samurai, for example, people marry their offspring to higher-lineage), or to recreate an artificial world that somehow reflects the gilded life (or alleged) of the lords or military nobles. This is how new institutions and new forms of culture, more in line with the sensitivity of the new merchant class which belong to several wealthy families who live in the city, and which have as their object the two major interests cultivated by these people: the sensuality in its various forms, and money.

The pleasure quarters

must be framed in this context the so-called pleasure quarters (kuruwa) who wanted to recreate, on a different scale, the relaxing, stimulating and culturally rich pleasures of the world of the gentry. ; Inside the pleasure quarters ceased (at least in part) the differences in social type: the only discriminator was the money, so it was a wealthy merchant, in the eyes of those who lived in this world, far more than estimated a samurai without means. In these environments, the merchants had the illusion of being able to live like lords, you can create small courts, where, especially at the highest levels, women of good cultural education could entertain them with music, dance, poetry, and so on. The climate of these places of pleasure was far more tolerant than the life outside, and perhaps for this reason, they became a meeting place for many intellectuals.

Life and Works of Ihara Saikaku

There is little information about the life of Ihara Saikaku. Probably identifiable with Hirayama Togo, belonged to a wealthy family in chōnin Osaka, born perhaps in 1642, around thirty-five would have lost his wife and, later, his daughter. After entrusting the care of their business in person of confidence, he traveled long distances in Japan, touching on several occasions Edo. You know the date of a major poetic race, won by the writer in 1681, during which he managed to beat opponents with the composition of 4000 verses (ku), published the following year under the title Ōyakazu. Probably changed his name in time Saikaku in which he had begun to be known as a composer of verses. In his later years he wrote several works which are currently divided into three groups: novels about sexual life of men and women (or same sex), the genus kōshokumono ("things related to loving love") , including some of her best known novels such as The Life of a libertine (1682), Five Women love (1686), The great mirror of male (1687); novels on the lives of chōnin (so-called chōninmono) focused on problems related to money, as the stock ever in Japan (1692) or calculations of people of this world (1692). The third group includes diverse works, some of which related to martial arts and samurai. The style of Saikaku, not prone to introspection psychological well described, with veins of irony and, at times, comedy, a sensual world, facing all the facts, not very sensitive to the moral, whether Buddhist or Confucian. Just as in the paintings of the time, we witness the unfolding of events (seen as "bird's eye") at some point, attention is drawn to a particular a specific situation, which are then described in detail.

the duty of warriors

Published in 1688, the duty of the Warriors is certainly an unusual, because it reveals the clash of two cultures: the traditional warriors, with their code and hard, often cruel, and that of chōnin that, in part appreciating values antithetical to those of the warrior, perhaps still suffering from this world so different, which fascinates them, but that leaves them at the same time, astonished. Then they are better than disavowing the actual value, the original meaning and emphasizing quality very little martial, more close to those of the same world of chōnin, as if the apparent heroic conduct celassero is very different desires and passions. It is not clear why, almost suddenly, Saikaku would begin to write about this subject (which should not, however, be his unknown, if only because, as suggested by some, traded in swords and weapons) and some have argued that he had done to respond to the warning launched by the government in 1686 against the writer of erotic things, but it is more likely that the reason was to broaden the topics addressed in order to deepen the customs and traditions of different types, and demonstrate know how to write on the other, thus attracting the attention of many bushi in the city as Edo. The work follows a year of publication (1687) of Nanshoku Ōkagami (The great mirror of pederasty), where it is, in the first part, stories of love between warriors, and second, stories of kabuki actors. A second work, published shortly after Nanshoku Ōkagami, is the theme of the terrible vengeance of the samurai, which is described in an aseptic way, even if we become aware of the presence of a strong satirical vein. The Duty of the warriors (Buke laps monogatari) is the last of the three to deal with the world of Bush, and explores the 27 stories, the theme of giri (duty) of the warrior. In this case, the aspects that are analyzed are the duty of obedience towards their master, even if it means going against his own interest and their pride, and duty to oneself (Iji). This is a complex system, which has been treated elsewhere, and which has been extensively analyzed for the modern Japan, the scholar Ruth Benedict.

The Duty of the warriors is undoubtedly an important work, however, sometimes baffling, how should appear, at least in the popular imagination, the world of Bush at the end of the seventeenth century, analyzed by a chōnin of culture, able to detect, beneath the hard rind of duty, passion, pride, ill-repressed, the desire for revenge (even at the expense of obedience to their Lord), even cowardice, of a world that was perceived differently than described in the works that dealt with the Samuri Bushido.
(1)



Notes (1) Published in the magazine Arts of the East