40 - A forest of books: seventeenth-century Kamigata commercial prose

Summary

This chapter explores the issues of seventeenth-century literature, by examining its contents and features, and by reflecting on its legacy throughout the early modern period. It also discusses catalogues of Nyoraishi. Nyoraishi always conveys his message by making extensive intertextual use of Japanese classical works, Chinese texts, and Confucian works. As encountered in the 1670 book-trade catalogue, the category of washo comprises didactic literature that dispensed knowledge. Other categories created in the 1670 catalogue and developed through the Edo period are hanashibon and Japanese-language Buddhist texts known as kana hogo. The main aim of kana hogo is to popularize Buddhist knowledge. A final category that developed in the seventeenth century and was included in the 1685 catalogue is that of koshokubon and rakuji. A patchwork category that plays a central role in seventeenth-century Kamigata popular prose is that of the soshi. In the 1670 catalogue, this contains a high percentage of tales composed in the Muromachi period.