Morrison

Study Guide: On the Thought Pattern of the People of Edo (1943)

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1. What significance does Ishikawa see in the popular Edo legend, The Tale of the
Maidservant Otake (Hijo Otake no setsu)? What are the urtexts for this legend (and
senry)? What does Ishikawa mean when he says that the novel idea of transforming
some lowly Sakuma housemaid into the Dainichi Nyorai never would have occurred to
anyone had the Noh play Eguchi and the popular tales about Saigy (1118-1190) and
Courtesan Eguchi not preceded it?

2. Ishikawa identifies in this essay five transformative devices (tenkan no ssa) that
make up the process of haikaika (haikai-ification)a process he sees as running
through all art forms of the Edo period. The first device he identifies is mitate.
Explain this concept/technique. How does it function in the Otake legend? How does
this technique connect the Edo-era maid Otake to the famed prostitute of antiquity Lady
Eguchi, and also the young, wandering rake who solicits sexual services from Otake
to that old, itinerant monk Saigy?

3. Ishikawa believes that modern man has lost the ability to understand/appreciate Tale
of the Maidservant Otake and other haikai narratives. Explain his reasons for
thinking this.

4. The second transformative device Ishikawa identifies is zokuka
(secularization/vulgarization). Explain this concept/technique. How does zokuka operate
in the Otake legend? What does Ishikawa mean when he says the Edoites were much
more adept at vulgarizing/secularizing ideas than they were at excogitating them.

5. The third transformative device Ishikawa discusses is yatsushi (lowly disguise).
Explain this notion/technique. What does Ishikawa mean when he says that Otake is the
yatsushi of the Dainichi Nyorai, and that the Otake legend is the yatsushi of the
Buddhist doctrine of dependent origination?


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On the Thought Patterns of the People of Edo (Edojin no hassh ni tsuite). First
published in the March 1943 issue of the journal Shis. Translation (by me) forthcoming.
For the original, see Volume 12 of the Ishikawa Jun zensh (Chikuma shob, 1989).
6. Why does Ishikawa think that that it is the Edoitesand not, as most scholars
assume, their descendantswho truly deserve the label of modern? Discuss the
modern qualities that Ishikawa sees in the Edoites but finds lacking in his own time.

7. Most literary histories explain the transition from Matsuo Bashs haikai to ta
Nampos kyka/kyshi as a decline in the haikai movement. Ishikawa challenges this
history by insisting that the Tenmei kyka movement was in fact the ultimate expression
of the haikai spirit. Why does he think this?

8. The fourth transformative device Ishikawa describes is honkadori (allusive
variation). What does Ishikawa say about this notion/technique? How did ta Nampo
and others revolutionize the practice of honkadori in the collection Wild Poems of Ten
Thousand Generations (1783; Manzai Kykash)? Explain.

9. According to Ishikawa, Matsuo Bash made a revolutionary discovery in the
Genroku period that paved the way for further inventions/innovations (hatsumei) in the
Tenmei era. What was this discovery? How did the Tenmei kyka poets inherit/build on
this discovery?

10. Ishikawa describes the Tenmei poets as absent from their sobriquets (kymy). In
other words, he continues, they were anonymous personas, writing yomibito shirazu,
or anonymous, poems. The haikai linked verse of Bash made us forget the presence of
the author the moment of its formationyet the compilers of Wild Poems took this one
step further by erecting a whole world from this renunciation of authorial name.
Discuss the significance of this passage. How is this notion of erecting a whole world
from the renunciation a authorial name radically different from the credo of most
modern writers?

11. Ishikawa asserts that all modern hermeneutic modes completely miss the point of
haikai. What are his reasons for thinking this? Why does Ishikawa regard mimetic
modes of reading as inadequate for understanding/appreciating the haikai imagination
(to borrow Haruo Shiranes phrase)? What alternative mode of reading is required?

12. What classical anthology served as the basis/urtext for ta Nampos Wild Poems of
Ten Thousand Generations? Why was this particular anthology used?

13. The fifth transformative device Ishikawa discusses is his neologismhon-shi-dori.
Discuss this concept/technique. What anthology of Chinese poetry served as the
basis/urtext for kyshi? Explain the relation between this anthology and its genkai
(colloquial explanations)? How does ta Nampo parody Wang Changlings (698-795)
poem Parting with Xingjian At Hibiscus Inn? What negotiations (ksh)another
key term of the essayoccur between poet-reader/past-present in this poem?

14. Consider the following passage from the essay. What does he mean by
invention/innovation (hatsumei)? How is the critical standard of hatsumei different
from the critical standard of craftsmanship? Which does Ishikawa prefer?

By evaluating Edo poems capriciously and in isolation, we remove ourselves
from that original urgency which characterized the Tenmei Edoites method
of reading. The genius of Tenmei kyshi was articulated through
innovation/invention (hatsumei); hence it would be foolish to jump headlong
into a debate about craftsmanship in kyshi, which, unlike the native art of
kyka, is derived from Chinese poetry.

15. Ishikawa cites an episode from Sant Kydens sharebon Shigeshige Chiwa (1799)
in which the author refashions Cui Guofus melancholy poem from Selection of Tang
Poems into a humorous contemporary poem about a client at a brothel. Describe the
similarities/differences between the two poems. How does the new version reflect the
Genkai (colloquial explanations) of the Selection of Tang Poems, which was popular at
the time?

16. Haikaika is built on the interplay between shuk (twist/innovation/device) and sekai
(thematic base/classical setting). This interplay/reframing is only effective if the
audience/readers are familiar with the original sekai. How does Ishikawa describe the
importance of cultural literacy/familiarity in the medium of haikai? What has happened
to this cultural literacy in the modern period?

17. Although the explicit subject of this essay is the thought patterns of the people of
Edo, its implicit subject is the thought patterns of the modern age. Explain how this
essay is a disguised critique of the dominant aesthetic/hermeneutical modes of
modernity. How does the framework of haikaika serve for Ishikawa as one possible
alternative to these dominant modes?