Week 3 Entry

This week, I continued to research on why Bunraku became the most popular theatre form in Edo period. I focused on the religions and philosophies inside the art form and especially in Chikamatsu’s plays.

At the very beginning, I searched the meaning of the Bunraku as a word. Bunraku, the name used broadly in the Western academia, came from “name of the man who took over the management of an important puppet theatre at a particularly dark history”. (Adachi 1). It is originally a surname in Japanese. However, Bunraku is also known as jingyo joruri, which is as important as the word Bunraku in Japan and China. This name showed its inside philosophy. In Japanese dictionary, ningyo means human body, jo is clean, and ruri is glass,the material. Joruri was first a Buddhism term transformed from Vaidūryanirbhāsā in Sanskrit, means clean land for the buddha Bhaiṣajyaguru, which known as the buddha of the present. 

It looks the Bunraku is close to Buddhism. But the creation of the name is not the time of Chikamatsu, in which Bunraku became popular. It’s worth a while to look at Chikamatsu’s time in the whole Asian history. Chinese culture is influential to Japan for a long time, since Japan was belong to China in the past. In Edo period, the time of China is Ming Dynasty. This time, in Chinese society, new confucianism dominant the ideology. Neo-confucianism is created by Zhu Xi. The main idea of this Neo-confucianism is people should oppress their individual desires and submit to obligations. This idea is welcomed by the Ming government, as a perfect tool to control people. At this time, the government restricted or even prohibited other religions, especially Taoism and Buddhism. The class hierarchy in Edo Japan was similar to the hierarchy in China. The latter was the scholar - bureaucrat group on top, followed by farmers, craftsmen and merchants. I assume it might be possible that Japan Edo government influenced by this Neo-confucianism dominant ideology.

In chikamatsu’s plays, especially in his love suicide plays, not meeting the obligations of the townsmen became the biggest reason to commit a suicide. And their lovers commit suicide together or later without any hesitation. For example, in The Love Suicides at Sonezaki,  the hero Tokubei committed a suicide because he was forced by his boss and tricked by his step-mother and could’t marry his lover Ohatsu. Therefore, Ohatsu encouraged Tokubei to die with her. And then comes the love suicides. Tokubei, as a townsman, a merchant’s employee,  was the the representative of the lower class. He needed to meet the obligation of working for the store and obey his boss and mother’s orders. His own desire was overlooked or even considered as evil. He and his lover committed the suicides for love, moreover, for the rebellion to Feudalism and Neo-confucianism. The audiences of bunraku were townsmen, known as the farmers, artisans and merchants. These rebellion appealed to the audiences.  That is why bunraku is very popular at that time. That was also the reason, Noh, theatre which only relevant to Buddhism, is less popular than Bunraku in Edo period. 

I am still looking for the characteristics of the Bunraku art form. There are two things I found very interesting and might be useful for analysis the use of puppets.

1. Each puppet has more than one head, the performers can change the head to perform different characters, which is very cheap.  Thus, I found the stage is cheaper for the puppets last week. I think cost can be one reason why Bunraku is popular: it is very easy to find a place and troupe to perform.

2. The puppets in China might be first used for mourning situations. As the historians found the historical relic of puppets in the tomb. There are also traditions in China that puppets can remove the bad things such as the ghost and the curses, because the human-like puppets can trick the ghosts and take the bad things for you. The puppets also used as a tool of curse even today in Asian society: make a puppet represent somebody and use a needle to stab it. It might be in the audiences’ mind of that time,  puppets can be religiously related to human body. The puppets could be either good to educate or good to threatened.

Adachi, Barbara C. Backstage at Bunraku: A behind- the -scenes look at Japan’s Traditional Puppets Theatre. New York: Weatherhill, 1985. Print.

Ho, Norman, P. “Legal Philosophy of Zhu Xi (1130-1200) and Neo-Confucianism's Possible Contributions to Modern Chinese Legal Reform”. Tsinghua China Law Review. 3.2 (2011):167-214. Print.

Jamie Jones Week 3 Entry

Stephanie's Week 3 Response

Week 3 response

This week was a tough one, and after missing my meeting with my group and a meeting in class on Tuesday morning I had to catch up with what they were doing and talking about. I looked over the annotated bibliography to see what was posted and the Sculpt assignment and found some interesting information my other group members discovered, such as the Edo fire of 1657, and some of the information I sent to them via email. After meeting as a group again we looked over our materials and tried to narrow down exactly what it was we were looking for. We came across many materials about Chikamatsu’s life and the political atmosphere in Japan at the time, but as many times as the books and articles said that the Edo period was a time of peace, I spent an equal amount of time doubting it. After this insistence across our readings that this was a peaceful era I began to look for signs of dissent or discourse about the lower classes and what they faced. When there is power, there will always be somebody who is on the opposite end of that power—the lower classes, the dissenters, the oppressed—and I began to look for those who opposed that power and what happened to them. As I was reading though one of the books Jamie had, I discovered that the power of the Tokugawa government worked with the heads of the Confucian and Buddhist temples to create strict rules by which everybody should live by. I did find one article about dissent in the Edo period, but the amount of those who dissented seemed to be limited to that of peasants and only a few writers or artists and didn’t appear to include Chikamatsu (not yet, at least).

Surprisingly, the lower social classes seemed to be the ones to hold much of the economic power. We discovered that because of their material wealth, which they could not hold on to due to the strict Confucian social norms. As they had to spend the money they made right away, Bunraku and other arts flourished because of the money that could now freely be spent. According to one of my sources by Brian Powell, “In merchant society commercial survival in the special circumstances of low status and no political power but enormous economic influence depended on strict rules of social, business and personal conduct. Many of these rules were based on relationships of duty and obligation that were clearly understood and accepted as necessary by everyone,” (8). He goes on to describe the conflict people would have between their obligations and feelings and how this led into the development of the domestic play (sewamono) by Chikamatsu, which was a new genre that contained stories that people from the lower social classes could relate to. When we met in the library to discuss our assignment, this was a major part of the discussion and we decided to base our argument off of the fact that domestic plays, thanks the Chikamatsu, were a reason why Bunraku became so popular, and the popularity was due largely to the lower social classes, with their disposable income, who these plays were marketed towards.

Powell, Brian. “Japanese Theatre: Some Preliminaries.” Contemporary Theatre Review 1.2 (1994): 3-11. International Bibliography of Theatre & Dance with Full Text. Web. 15 Nov. 2014.

Sculpt

Main Argument:

Bunraku in early eighteenth century Japan was a uniquely popular type of theatre in that it was the only period in known history when the popularity of puppets eclipsed that of live human actors. The rise in popularity was due to Bunraku being marketed to the lower classes of farmers, merchants, and artisans, who responded to its financial and emotional accessibility. Specifically, Chikamatsu’s Love Suicide plays, part of a new genre of domestic plays, dealt with the lives of ordinary people and idealized the solutions to common problems that they faced.  

Stephanie's Week 2 Journal

Our group split up work this week so each of us could focus on one aspect of the research and we could come together to report our findings. I went to the library website and searched for books about the Edo period and about other forms of art popular during that period in the hope that some similarity or connection could be found between the artistic trends of the time and the art of creating the dolls. Rose took on the art books and I searched through the history section and found several books dedicated to that period of Japanese history. Given that the Edo period lasted more than 200 years, I knew it would be hard to find exactly what I might want to look for in such a large time span, especially things relating to the specific time period or influencing the time period Chikamatsu lived in. I decided that once I did start to look through the books the best plan would be to either find his name or look though the index for references to the arts or specifically Bunraku. 

The Edo Inheritance was one of the books I picked up and began with an intriguing description of the Edo period, namely the fact that the beginning and the end of the peaceful period transitioned seamlessly from one to the next. The author, Tokugawa Tsunenari, notes that the characteristics of many ruling dynasties include the “rise from the chaos that that occurs towards the end of the previous dynasty’s rule. Once having come to power, the ruling dynasty will eventually reach it’s apogee, then start to decline and, in the end, disintegrate in to chaos, from which the next dynasty emerges” (10). It is no surprise then that, as I’ve read in another source, the Edo period is also characterized as a time in which the arts flourished. 

After an admittedly delayed reaction to the realization that a book on the Edo/Tokugawa era was written by a person named Tokugawa, I flipped back to the Preface and discovered that this person was indeed “the eighteenth head of the Tokugawa main lineage and a grandson of Tokugawa Iemasa, seventeenth head of the family, a former diplomat and the last speaker of Japan’s House of Peers,” (viii). Whoa. I read on and discovered that he was an adopted heir to the Tokugawa lineage but I could not find any mention as to the family he came from and whether or not it was another branch of the Tokugawa family he came from or from a distantly related line. Either way, it completely changed the way I read the book. Now I know he may be biased to favor the Tokugawa family and the actions of his ancestors, however, a few of the other readings we had about the Tokugawa era refer to it as a time of great peace and a golden age for the arts, so I know that he’s not alone when others share his sentiments. I also read that this book was written in Japanese and translated by Tokugawa Tsunenari’s son, Tokugawa Iehiro, which would explain the many usage/grammatical errors and awkward wording issues I ran across. By no means did it hinder my understanding of the book, but it did highlight the importance of reading or at least skimming a Preface/Introduction for important information. 

I did find it difficult to put this book down, it was fascinating. I know very little about Japanese history and Tokugawa’s writing just flowed so well and was so filled with emotion that it almost read like a novel. But I had to remind myself to look for the important stuff. I will come back to this book when I have time for leisurely reading. The information I did find that relates to the time period we are focusing on, Chikamatsu’s life span, was brief and not all that different from information we already found. It was a peaceful time, the Tokugawa shogunate was in charge, they had control over all of Japan and it was united at last after a long period of constant war, and the arts in Japan flourished. It was not such a great time for Christian missionaries or foreigners as they banned Christianity and closed their doors to outside trade except to the Dutch, but this closing off, which is sometimes viewed negatively, allowed artists to build upon their own skills and create things without much influence from outside cultures (there would, of course, always be influence from other cultures as theirs is built upon cultures from the mainland, namely China and Korea, but when closing their doors to outside trade the authors argues that the influx of cultural influence ceases and what is already there can be improved upon and a more “Japanese” culture can thrive as it evolves from the inside). 

From this point on I think I need to look for different viewpoints on history as many of my sources come from a more educated and artistic view on history. History, especially in the Tokugawa book, is discussed from a wider social and political perspective of how the government worked and how the arts prospered, but I have yet to read something from the viewpoint of the lower class. The Edo Inheritance discusses peasants and how they were better off under localized governments under the control of the Tokugawa instead of the Samurai warlords, but as I mentioned before, this book approaches history as it developed through the upper/ruling classes and only briefly mentions the lower classes and how they were affected.

Tokugawa, Tsunenari. The Edo Inheritance. Trans. Tokugawa Iehiro. Tokyo: International House of Japan. 2009. Print.

Jamie Jones Week 2 Entry

Week 2 Entry

This week I paid close attention to the change of fine arts in Edo Japan. My goal was to find possible reasons why Bunraku, as one of the art form, was undergoing radical changes back to that time. This series of changes include fewer acts in one play, story became important, a climatic and dramatic form, current social incident became one of the major theme and so on. Though reading extensively in the book Arts of Edo Japan: The Artist and the city 1615-1868, I believe I found one clue: urbanization.

At the beginning, I only considered Edo period as strong and powerful centralized society. In my mind, a centralized government always gave the artists less freedom. However, Guth offered me new perspective to think about the centralization. The Tokugawa shogun government created an official hierarchy to foster stability. “With the samurai at the top, followed in defending order by farmers, artisans, and merchants.” (Guth 12) Though this rule, the Tokugawa government guaranteed the production of rice and other kinds of food. Along with the development of agriculture, social stability and peace reduced the cost of wars. All above created the conditions for urbanization and the blossoming of urban culture. Cities and rural areas became wealthy and affluent, which was the beginning of self-consciousness.

At that time, government controlled the artists’ choice mostly through the way of patronage. It was impossible for artists to refuse the official taste of choice if the city’s economy was very bad. Due to the economical developments of cities during urbanization, people had the ability to pay for theatre and performances, which gave the artists the opportunity to make their own choice and get rid of the government’s control. Arts were not only for the privileged few any more. The basic facts for the artistic survival in local areas is finding and keeping audiences. One of the best way to keep the audience is to entertain them.

Before Chikamatsu, Bunraku always include 10-12 acts. The story and plot is not important in the play. The process of seeing a play could take a long time. Bunraku, so as most of the other arts forms are performed for the privileged few, a group of people not had so much to do everyday. For people in lower class, their lives were much busier. That’s why the play need to be shorter with a climatic form.  And for the goal of keeping and entertaining the audience, story became important, especially the story happened in current time. 

Besides the analysis of change, I also looked into the Bunraku art form. I think it might be very dangerous to consider Bunraku as same as western drama or other Japan theatres. For the goal of understanding Chikamatsu’s writing style of the specific Bunraku, I think it is very important to understand the history and functions of this art form. Therefore, I read two books Bunraku: The Puppet Theatre and Backstage at Bunraku: A behind- the -scenes look at Japan’s Traditional Puppets Theatre. The first one is written by a Japanese while the second one is written though a Japan-American.  

According to Ando in Bunraku: The Puppet Theatre, it is highly possible that the puppets were solutions for performing in a small space. It also might be the pursue of idealized features caused the use of puppets. Puppets in performance are served as the tool to express feelings and emotions of the chanters. Since the chanters in Bunraku are less emotional than other forms of performances in Japan. So, we should look into Chikamatsu’s writing style with the relevance to the art form of Bunraku. For example, if his play seems very calm and cool, no character had strong emotion, that might have something to do with Bunraku art itself. In Backstage at Bunraku: A behind- the -scenes look at Japan’s Traditional Puppets Theatre. Adachi observed that Bunraku was more frightening than Kabuki, in both the stories and the characters.  So we ‘d better be careful about this aspect in Chikamatsu’s writing style.

And something frustrated: spending a lot of time on the anthology of Chikamatsu’s five late plays and found out finally that they are plays of Kabuki! So angry!

Guth, Christine. Arts of Edo Japan: The Artist and the city 1615-1868. New York: A Time Mirror Company, 1996. Print.

Ando, Tsuruo. Bunraku: The Puppet Theater. New York: Walker/Weatherhill, 1970. Print.

Adachi, Barbara C. Backstage at Bunraku: A behind- the -scenes look at Japan’s Traditional Puppets Theatre. New York: Weatherhill, 1985. Print.