A book could be written about the eccentricities of the fifth Tokugawa sh
gun, Tsunayoshi, known as the dog shgun. The years of his rule were called the Genroku period. Genroku officially lasted from 1688 to 1703, but its flowering of art and literature and drama extended into the next two decades of the two hundred and fifty years known as the Tokugawa or Edo period.
gun, Tsunayoshi, known as the dog shgun. The years of his rule were called the Genroku period. Genroku officially lasted from 1688 to 1703, but its flowering of art and literature and drama extended into the next two decades of the two hundred and fifty years known as the Tokugawa or Edo period.Saikaku Ihara, the son of a seventeenth-century merchant, wrote many entertaining novels detailing life and love among the common people of that time. His works, such as Five Women Who Loved Love, Some Final Words of Advice, The Life of an Amorous Man, This Scheming World, and Comrade Loves of the Samurai are available in paperback editions.
Howard Hibbert’s work, The Floating World in Japanese Fiction, and Stephen and Ethel Longstreet’s Yoshiwara give a good account of the demimonde of Tokugawa Japan’s pleasure districts and kabuki theaters. Charles Dunn’s Everyday Life in Traditional Japan is also a wealth of detail about the period.
Jippensha Ikku’s comic novel Shank’s Mare, translated by Thomas Satchell, follows two picaresque vagabonds down the Tkaid. Hiroshige Ando’s famous series of woodblock prints depicting the fifty-three post stations of the Tkaid Road are also available in book form. Because of the Tokugawas’ resistance to change and their refusal to allow foreign commerce, both Jippensha’s and Hirashige’s works, although done over a hundred years after this story, impart the ambience of the time.
kaid. Hiroshige Ando’s famous series of woodblock prints depicting the fifty-three post stations of the Tkaid Road are also available in book form. Because of the Tokugawas’ resistance to change and their refusal to allow foreign commerce, both Jippensha’s and Hirashige’s works, although done over a hundred years after this story, impart the ambience of the time.Various nonfiction accounts, with embellishments, have been written in English about the Ak-Asano affair. The two most widely read are found in A. B. Mitford’s Tales of Old japan and John Allyn’s The Forty-Seven Rnin Story.
-Asano affair. The two most widely read are found in A. B. Mitford’s Tales of Old japan and John Allyn’s The Forty-Seven Rnin Story.One study mentions that Lord Asano Takumi-no-Kami had a daughter and that Oishi Kuranosuke tried to arrange an adoption for her. Other research indicates that Lord Asano had no offspring. I chose the middle ground, postulating that he had a child by a secondary wife. This was a common occurrence and the children of such unions were often adopted.
The Ak rnin’s loyalty raised the issue of civil law versus a higher moral imperative. The common folk were loud in their support of the forty-seven and scholars argued the case at great length. As a consequence, almost more has been written about the aftermath of the vendetta than about the raid itself.
rnin’s loyalty raised the issue of civil law versus a higher moral imperative. The common folk were loud in their support of the forty-seven and scholars argued the case at great length. As a consequence, almost more has been written about the aftermath of the vendetta than about the raid itself.Oishi Kuranosuke and his men walked five miles through the center of Edo and no one interfered with them. After washing Kira’s head in the well at Sengakuji and visiting Lord Asano’s tomb, they surrendered to the abbot there. Sentence was passed on the fourth day of the second lunar month, about the third week in March by the Gregorian calendar. In the mansions of the lords who had hosted them, forty-six of the rnin, including Oishi’s sixteen-year-old son, committed seppuku on the same day. They were buried with their lord at Sengakuji.
nin, including Oishi’s sixteen-year-old son, committed seppuku on the same day. They were buried with their lord at Sengakuji.After the raid on Lord Kira’s mansion, the lowest ranking member of the league was dispatched to Hiroshima to take the news to Lord Asano’s brother. Two years later the messenger surrendered and begged to be allowed to commit seppuku and join his comrades. The shogun, perhaps unwilling to reawaken the whole tumultuous affair, denied his request and he lived to be eighty-three years old.
Within two weeks of the incident, the first play about the heroic forty-seven appeared. The events in it were only thinly disguised as having happened in an earlier century. Since then hundreds of plays, books, essays, and movies about the story have been produced. The version written in 1748, by the famous playwright Chikamatsu, is still performed every year on the anniversary of the raid. The two movies, called Chushingura, about the forty-seven loyal retainers, are broadcast nationwide on that same day.
At the quiet temple of Sengakuji, near the subway stop by that name on the outskirts of Tokyo, their graves are still visited by those who honor them. Clouds of incense burned in their memory always hang over them. Their names have become immortalized in Japan, and each of them is a national hero.