Literarture on the Periphery

[JLBadgley]

Still working through the collection of essays on the Heian Period: Centers and Peripheries, but I recently read through a great report on the often overlooked kanbun culture.

Of some particular interest was the "eroticist parody", with titles that one would expect as Brick McBurly movie titles. One was claimed as the oldest piece of Japanese "pornography": Tettsui-den ("The Iron Hammer"), a fictional biography composed by Fujiwara Akihira under the nom de plume of Ra Tai (Dick Large)--a character name from an earlier work of his dealing with the lower classes, where one man's son's only attribute is his large physical endowment, with which he is able to make a living.

Fujiwara Akihira appears to have been an academic who would have felt at home during the 1960s in the US--he apparently enjoyed taking the piss out of the hard core Confucian scholars, and was once caught prompting students on the proper characters and pronunciation of poetry during the state poetry exam. The uproar caused his brief banishment, though he was pardoned only six months later, and it does not seem to have hurt his chances for promotion within the Bureau of Great Learning (Daigaku-ryo).

Proving that today's academic community is hardly alone in its ability to pick nits, there is also the inclusion of a famous row between Oe Masahira and his rival, Ki Tadana (aka Tokina). Going into excruciating detail during an argument over the status of a student's poetry that rose to the level of memos to the emperor, Oe Masahira, during his rebuttal, apparently accused Tadana of "blowing at an animal's fur to check for wounds". Considering that Tadana then issued a counter-rebuttal approximately thrice as large as Masahira's initial memorandum, it appears to be a reputation that stuck.

This is definitely a fun read, though not easy--it does make you think. I'll have more on it later, but it definitely is one I wish I had picked up earlier.

-Josh

[AJBryant]

Thanks for the heads up.

I've had this one forever, but haven't yet had the chance to read it. It just got bumped up on the list.
_________________
http://www.sengokudaimyo.com