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.

Assignment #3: Divide and Conquer: Building an Annotated Bibliography

Based on the group discussion, this is the contextual information that we feel is important for our audience (Will) to understand so we can have a fruitful discussion about Bunraku. First, we will give a brief overview of the origins of Bunraku — when puppetry, narrative storytelling and samisen music joined together to become one art form. We will also provide information on the terms used in Bunraku as well as the different elements involved, such as how the puppets are manned.

The political circumstances of the time were markedly different from previous eras. The consolidation of power in the Tokugawa family led to a time of peace and economic prosperity. Japan transitioned from a warring state to one of entertainment. Samurai with no wars to fight sought other ways to occupy their time. The mercenary class rose in wealth and disposable income. And wealthy patrons used their influence over the artists as an opportunity to spread their own ideologies and maintain the peace (Guth).

These changes in the social structure of Japan led to a burgeoning arts scene. Noh theater, kabuki, woodblock carving and painting all benefitted in addition to Bunraku. The typically lower class audiences of Bunraku aided the development of the form. Because they responded well to fantastical elements and theater tricks Bunraku theaters strove to outdo each other and show the audience something new. This was how the puppets gained arms, articulated fingers and the 3-man puppeteer system. Since this was what the audience clamored for, even Chikamatsu, with his emphasis on the text, had to build in a bit of spectacle from time to time (Keene, 34).

We will also need to provide information about Chikamatsu himself. The Great Edo Fire of 1657 forced many great Bunraku chanters to flee to Osaka, setting it up as the new center for puppet theater. Chikamatsu would soon follow after the huge financial success of one of his Bunraku plays. That and the fact that kabuki actors were altering his words led to Chikamatsu focusing solely on Bunraku plays. What other aspects of his personal life and philosophy may have contributed to the development of the art form? (Keene, 35)

One of the chief ideologies of the time was isolationism; Japan had closed its borders to most to keep out Christianity. This allowed the Japanese to flourish culturally "deriving wholly from their own experience, thought, and emotions," (Tokugawa, 70). Buddhism, now without Western competition, is also a key philosophy to understand as it relates to Bunraku.

Because we only have 20 minutes to present, we will likely not go into as much detail on the origins of Bunraku as large portions of it are highly speculative. And, while interesting, we will also probably condense the discussion of all the roles in Bunraku and the details of the puppet making process.