HIRAGA GENNAI: TOKUGAWA JAPAN’S CREATIVE GENIUS AS AUTHOR

CHRISTOPHER SMITHUNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA

Hiraga Gennai (1728-1780) was, by all accounts, an extraordinary man. Born into a low-ranking samurai family, he resigned a comfortable position in the service of the Takamatsu daimyō, at a time when such positions were highly sought after, in order to free himself to devote more time to study and travel. Over the course of his tragically short life he studied various Western topics extensively, and introduced to Japan a diversity of things ranging from electricity to oil painting. He roamed the country developing new medicines and new mining techniques, and tried to create transplant industries for imported goods.

Most of the scholarly attention to Gennai has focused on his impressive scientific contributions. However, Gennai was also an author. He penned several very successful books and puppet plays, one of which (Shinrei Yaguchi no Watashi) is still in the Bunraku and Kabuki repertoire. While Gennai's achievements in scientific and rangaku (Dutch studies) are formidable, his contributions to the body of Japanese literature are also quite important. If anything, his innovations in literature are just as remarkable as the scientific innovations he is better known for. I intend to show that far from incidental to Gennai's long list of accomplishments, his writings should be counted chief among them.

Hiraga Gennai

Gennai was born in 1728 in the Takamatsu domain in present-day Kagawa Prefecture to a low-ranking samurai who served as a keeper of the daimyō's rice warehouses. He quickly showed an aptitude for honzōgaku, or the study of medicinal herbs, and at the age of eighteen the daimyō appointed him a pharmacologist in Takamatsu castle's herb garden.1 In 1749 Gennai inherited his father's post as manager of the daimyō's rice warehouses. In 1752, however, he was sent to Nagasaki for a year of study. We can imagine that this trip to Nagasaki was Gennai's first contact with Western learning and Dutch studies, and that it had a profound impact on him. Shortly after his return, in 1754, Gennai asked to resign his position as manager of the rice warehouses on the excuse of sickness, and was given permission. That same year he relinquished the headship of his household to his cousin and left Takamatsu.2

For the next few years Gennai traveled around studying under various teachers until he eventually made a name for himself under the distinguished honzōgaku scholar Tamura Gen'yu.3 He was still in the service of the Takamatsu domain, however, and his newfound renown meant that he was called on to perform services for his lord more frequently. In 1761 Gennai resigned from service in the Takamatsu domain, and later that year his resignation was accepted with the condition that he not enter service in any other domain.4

1 Jones, Stanleigh H. 1968. Scholar, Scientist, Popular Author Hiraga Gennai, 1728-1780. Dissertation, Columbia University, New York: pp. 6-7

2 Ibid., pp. 9-103 Ibid., p. 114 Ibid., pp. 12-13

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These actions were extraordinary in an era where samurai were underemployed and official positions (and their associated stipends) were highly sought after. Resigning from his service to his daimyō and becoming a rōnin was a major loss of status for Gennai. Gennai's motivation for taking such actions might be elucidated by a letter he wrote to a friend in 1760:

As for me, I'm terribly busy and making very slow progress. In particular, I am frequently required to be in attendance at the Takamatsu mansion in Meguro, and because of this I am distracted from the exhibits and my medical books, and it seems that my studies are getting nowhere. Indeed, nothing seems to be coming of all the trouble I took to come all the way to Edo.5

From this letter and his actions emerge an image of Gennai as a man impatient with the worldly, the requirements of society and even the necessity of earning a living. He seems to be only interested in the pursuit of knowledge; everything else is a distraction. This image of him is very Socratic, much unlike the ideal of the Confucian scholar who used his learning to govern in one capacity or another. Gennai tacitly acknowledged this image of himself by choosing as one of his pen names Fūrai Sanjin,6 or “mountain hermit that comes on the wind.” Gennai identifies himself not with the traditional men of learning, Confucian scholars or doctors who were very much involved in the political and mundane, but instead with mountain hermits; Daoist immortals or yamabushi who were said to isolate themselves on mountains so as to devote themselves fully to the pursuit of esoteric knowledge and often thought to be insane.

However, while Gennai wanted only to throw himself into his own pursuits and not be bothered by the requirements of service, his interests were not as impractical as those of the mountain hermits he named himself after. After becoming a rōnin Gennai lost no time in delving into the work that would characterize his career. As early as 1762 he presented to the daimyō of the Kii domain Kishū sanbutsu shi,7 in which he urged the daimyō to utilize the climate of Kii to grow plants that were normally imported from China, as well as the cultivation of olive trees, one of which Gennai had found in Kii, for the medicinal use of olive oil as used by the Dutch.8

Throughout his life Gennai tried to develop what we would call transplant industries; domestic replacements for imported commodities. Most notable are his attempts to create domestic sources of wool and pottery. During Gennai's time wool was an exotic Western commodity. Although uncommon in Japan it was sold at high prices. Gennai managed to obtain four sheep and successfully developed a method of weaving their wool into fabric.9 High quality Chinese pottery was also an exotic foreign commodity that commanded high prices in the Japanese market. Gennai found clay in Amakusa that was suitable for making the high quality pottery with raised designs that Japanese loved to buy from China and developed techniques creating pottery of comparable quality. Apparently so good that it was often confused for actually imported Chinese pottery, Gennai's style of pottery making came to be

5 Ibid., p. 12, Jones' translation6 風来山人7 紀州産物志8 Jones, Stanleigh., pp. 13-149 Ibid., pp. 59-60

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called Gennai-yaki.10 11

Gennai's obsession with transplant industries is best illuminated by a letter of his from 1771:The Japanese place great value on foreign things and we lay out great sums of money for them. If Japanese pottery surpassed the imported ware, we would naturally be satisfied with the Japanese product. Though it is human nature, of course, to look down on what is close at hand and to esteem that which is distant, Japanese are satisfied with the long and short swords and the gold-dusted lacquer work which we make because in such things we excel all other countries. In the case of pottery too, if the Japanese ware is good, then naturally we will not spend out gold and silver on the foreign commodity. Rather to the contrary: since both Chinese and the Hollanders will come to seek out these wares and carry them home, this will be of everlasting national benefit. Since it is originally clay, no matter how much pottery we send out, there need be no anxiety about a depletion of resources.12

Precious metals, mainly silver and copper, were one of the only Japanese commodities that Dutch and Chinese merchants were interested in. The outflow of these metals to pay for imports and the perceived diminishment of their supply in Japan was a major concern during Gennai's time. To the present day reader, Gennai's attempts to transplant production of imports to domestic sources and establish a multilateral trade balance seems strikingly modern. Especially striking is his consideration of a national benefit in an age when the “nation” was still an amalgamation of semi-autonomous feudal domains.13 The modernness of some of Gennai's ideas is perhaps evidence of his formidable grasp of the principles of the world around him. In Fūryū shidōken den Gennai writes that “the Way of economics responds flexibly to the times, correcting customs, making up for scarcities and reducing surpluses,”14 a theory of supply, demand, production and consumption that would be at home in the economics department of any modern university, but was quite innovative at the time.

All his forward thinking, however, never got Gennai very far. His efforts were either misunderstood or ignored by officials. In a letter to a friend about his experiments with wool he wrote:

Regarding the matter of the sheep I mentioned to you some time ago, the other day I sent a memorial to Kawai and stated my views on the subject. But the petty officials around him are so stupid they had no idea of what I was talking about, so they just threw the

10 源内焼き11 Jones, Stanleigh., pp. 55-5912 Ibid., p. 56, Jones' translation13 Gennai's interest in a national benefit should be inferred rather than taken directly from the quoted passage. What

Stanleigh translates as “everlasting national benefit” is 永代之御国益 (Stanleigh, p. 260). Although kuni (国) can be translated as “nation,” during the Edo period it often referred to feudal domains. This passage is taken from a petition for support to the shogunal magistrate of Amakusa, so this phrase could well be interpreted as Gennai trying to convince his reader of “everlasting benefit to your domain.” However, elsewhere he posits Japanese (日本人) against foreign goods (外国物) and he is specifically writing about trade with foreign countries which implicitly posits them against the whole of Japan. Given that Gennai was a rōnin not tied to a specific domain and pursued such transplant efforts throughout Japan, it can be reasonably assumed that he was interested in benefiting the whole “nation” (as it is conceived of in modern times) of Japan.

14 Shirane, Haruo. 2002. Early Modern Japanese Literature : An Anthology, 1600-1900. New York: Columbia University Press. p. 510. Chris Drake's translation

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whole thing away.15

His efforts to develop a domestic pottery industry never received official support either. Frustrated at every turn, Gennai developed a low opinion of officialdom that comes out strongly in his later writings.

Gennai dabbled in an astonishing breadth of activities, including developing techniques for refining ore, starting a mining business, a barge service and a charcoal wholesale business.16 However Gennai is perhaps best remembered for his study of western science and technology. He made many pilgrimages to Nagasaki and developed relationships with the Dutch in Dejima, the artificial island the Shogunate confined them to. He was very interested in Western natural science, especially medicinal herbs, his original specialty. But he also studied and reproduced some western technology, including, most famously, an electrical generator. His erekiteru17 worked by rubbing an insulated cylinder of glass (a commodity imported from the west at the time) against a piece of foil to produce a static charge.18 The device was sensational, and easily the most famous of Gennai's inventions. The physician Tachibana Nankei described it in his 1795 journal Seiyūki:

The device called an erekiteru came to Japan twenty-three years ago. It is a machine for drawing fire from a person's body. Wheels are set within a box; it is just under an metre and an iron chain, five or six metres in length and ending in a looped handle, leads off. You have someone grasp the handle and then start the wheels rotating, so that power is transmitted along the chain. This provokes a reaction in the person, and little bits of paper brought up to them will move and dance of their own accord; if someone brings their hand close, you can hear a sound like spitting fat, and see a flame flying out. No-one who has yet to see the amazingness of this device will believe in it.19

The device was used medically for electrotherapy. A patient would sit on an insulated platform and hold the conductive chain leading from the device. After a charge had built, someone would touch a conductive instrument to the place on the patient's body that hurt, discharging the static electricity and producing a spark; what Tachibana interpreted as “drawing fire from a person's body.” Apparently the device could build up quite a charge, so the shock probably at least numbed the painful area. But whether or not the therapy was effective, the “amazingness” of the device that Tachinaba cites left a lasting impression, and it became one of Gennai's most notable legacies.

Gennai also learned the techniques of western painting in Nagasaki. His interest in western art may have stemmed from the detailed and realistic illustrations and colors in the Dutch books about flora and fauna he acquired, which were printed from etched copper plates. In any case Gennai not only learned techniques of shading and perspective, but also had to develop the oils and dyes used in western painting from Japanese sources. Although he may have acquired a copy of Gerard de Lairesse's Het Groot Schilder-Book, a painting manual with formulae for various oils, he still had to figure out what the untranslated recipe components were and find domestic replacements when the originals were not available.20 Still extant today is his oil painting Painting of a Western Woman (Seiyō

15 Jones, Stanleigh., p. 60, Jones' translation16 Ibid., pp. 52-5317 エレキテル18 Jones, Stanleigh., p. 8019 Screech, Timon. 1996. The Western Scientific Gaze and Popular Imagery in Later Edo Japan : The Lens Within the

Heart. Cambridge ; New York: Cambridge University Press. p. 45. Screech's translation20 Isozaki, Yasuhiko. 1999. Hiraga Gennai Shozō no Ransho to Odano Naotake, Satake Shozan. Fukushima Daigaku

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Fujin zu21). Although probably a copy of a western painting since the Dutch population of Dejima was almost exclusively male, nevertheless the painting demonstrates Gennai's understanding of the western techniques of color and shading.22 Gennai later taught the techniques of western painting to pupils, making much of his money from his teaching fees. There is a story, possibly apocryphal, that Gennai asked the painter Odano Naotake to draw him a rice dumpling as seen from above. When Odano did, Gennai said “You can't tell whether it's a tray or a cart wheel.” In other words Odano, drawing in the Japanese style that primarily uses lines to depict figures, had drawn a circle. Gennai then showed him how to use western techniques of shading and perspective to make it look realistic.23

All of Gennai's extraordinary activities, from his resignation from feudal service to his experiments, from his business ventures to his electrical generator and paintings, had earned him quite a reputation. The image of him in the popular mind is perhaps comparable in the present day to that of Stephen Hawking. Hawking is primarily famous for his scientific work, but he is well known even outside of scientific circles. He occasionally writes for general audiences, and even makes appearances in television shows (or at least his image and signature computer generated voice do). If, perhaps, Hawking were less revered and wrote bawdy popular novels, his popular image might approximate that of Gennai's. He had an image as an eccentric scientist, and himself appeared as a character in gesaku stories where, for example, he might try to mine gold from the Mountain of Swords in hell.24 This popular image survives even to this day, where Gennai makes appearances in manga and anime as a mad or eccentric scientist.25

Scholarly Reception of Gennai's Literature

The above account should draw a picture of Gennai's extraordinary life, diverse career and eccentric personality. Most of the scholarly attention to Gennai has focused on those aspects of his life, especially his scientific accomplishments. This is not unreasonable, since Gennai stands out as an extraordinary scientist and scholar, experimenting and proclaiming very modern ideas in an era that seems to have produced very few like him. However, this focus has meant that Gennai's literary works have often been dismissed or ignored as peripheral to his other, more interesting achievements. Gennai himself wrote that his literary works were merely a way to earn money, presumably to fund his more “serious” interests,26 and coined (or at least imported) the term gesaku, playful literature, in order to create distance between his popular literature and his scholarly writings.27 Therefore it is perhaps not surprising that scholars would, accordingly, study his scientific exploits while dismissing his literature as mere “playful” pieces written merely to earn Gennai some extra income.

Gennai's works are also often dismissed because of the genre he worked in. Gennai wrote his

Kyōiku Gakubu Ronshū, Jinbu Kagaku Bumon. 66: 35-54. p. 4321 西洋婦人図. This painting is sometimes mistakenly attributed as the first Japanese oil painting22 Jones, Stanleigh., p. 6623 Ibid., p. 6924 Ibid., pp. 149-15025 For Example; Shonen Jump's popular Gintama by Sorachi Hideaki features a cantankerous mechanic named Hiraga

Gengai (平賀源外). The name is obviously a thinly disguised reference to Gennai, reversing the last character of his name (replacing nai or 内, meaning inside, with gai or 外, meaning outside). Hiraga Gennai also appears in the Read or Die novels by Kurata Hideyuki (Shūeisha), where he uses his erekiteru to fight the American military.

26 Jones, Stanleigh., pp. 96-9727 Totman, Conrad D. 1993. Early Modern Japan. Berkeley: University of California Press. p. 417

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prose fiction in a genre popular at the time called dangibon,28 literally “lecture books.” This genre developed as a response to the Kyōhō reforms, an attempt by the shōgun Yoshimune to reign in the perceived excesses of urban life by, among other things, cracking down on literature that did not serve a moral didactic purpose. The “lectures,” however, were often the front for parody and satire, and many of the works in the genre had quite a biting edge. Unfortunately, many scholars have accepted the outward justification of dangibon as moral lectures and dismissed them as mere didacticism.

Donald Keene, for example, writes that dangibon were “books of humorous sermons... created by priests of the Jōdō sect [of Buddhism] who tried to instruct their listeners while amusing them.”29 Keene concludes that the dangibon “never attained much literary importance,”30 and he mentions it only in relationship to the development of the kokkeibon (comic fiction books) genre. Some take the authors' own claims of the didactic nature of their works at face value. Stanleigh Jones, whose dissertation on Gennai is one of the best English language sources available on him, nevertheless takes Jōkanbō Kōa's claim in his Imayō heta dangi (Modern Clumsy Sermons), one of the more popular representatives of the dangibon genre, at face value, writing that Jōkanbō “made it clear that is purpose was didactic,” and citing Jōkanbō's text:

I realize fully that my little book is nothing more than a piece for acolytes to study during walks in the country, that it is so wordy and unskillfully written as to provoke the laughter of savants. Nevertheless, my desire to enlighten people is no less than that of the most accomplished teacher. Therefore, taking courage, I have called it – this little tale to while away the tedium of the spring rains – The Clumsy Sermon.31

Jones is perhaps a bit too credulous to take this statement at face value. This statement is most likely designed to appease the censors, and perhaps a wink to the readers who really understood what was going on. Jones goes on to describe the book as:

Seven independent stories, each taking to task a certain aspect of contemporary society which the author felt was morally reprehensible. In one, for example, an Osaka kabuki actor traveling in the neighborhood of Mount Fuji on his way to Edo is accosted by a ghost who, as a spokesman for the author, lectures him on the degeneracy of the theater, lamenting the evil influence upon women and children of such unwholesome themes as lovers' suicides.32

However, the story he cites should not be read as a basic lecture with a character serving as the author's mouthpiece. Instead the (samurai) ghost is the quintessential grumpy old man who rants on about stuffy, old-fashioned values and the degenerate youth of the time. Once he disappears the traveler criticizes him and quickly forgets about the lecture he had been forced to sit through.33 The story is clearly not a straightforward didactic piece, but an indirect criticism of the out of touch ruling samurai class and a satire of their admonitions against the supposed immorality of popular culture. The

28 談義本29 Keene, Donald. 1976. World Within Walls : Japanese Literature of the Pre-Modern Era, 1600-1867. New York: Holt,

Rinehart and Winston. p. 41230 Ibid. 31 Jones, Stanleigh., p. 94, Jones' translation32 Ibid.33 For an English translation, see Shirane, pp. 453-461

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dangibon, therefore, should not be taken at face value as simple didactic lecture books, but rather be viewed as a satirical popular genre.

Gennai's Innovative Literature

Perhaps Gennai's most interesting work is his Fūryū shidōken den (Modern life of Shidōken), which he published in 1763. The story tells the tale of one Shidōken, a popular storyteller who regaled Edo townspeople with his popular tales near the Asakusa Kannon temple. While Shidōken is a historical character, Fūryū shidōken den is entirely fictional. The story starts irreverently with the Bodhisattva Kannon taking the form of a dildo-shaped mushroom in order to impregnate Shidōken's mother in a dream after she and her husband pray at the Asakasa temple for a son. Shidōken, named at birth Asanoshin, is born from this. Asanoshin grows up to be quite bright and excels at all his studies, and his parents send him away to become a monk, although Asanoshin himself is unwilling. While in the mountains meditating, he encounters a Daoist immortal who tells him to give up the recluse life and gives him a magical feathered fan.

The feathered fan is a fantastic device that allows Asanoshin to ride on the wind. He uses it to fly away from Japan and visit all sorts of different countries. Some places he visits, like China, are real. Others are not. He visits a land of giants, a land of tiny people. A land of people with holes in their chests, a land of people with long arms, and land of people with long legs, and many other exotic places, including the Island of Women.

Fūryū shidōken den has been cited as Japan's first science fiction story. Inagaki Takeshi introduces Fūryū shidōken den as “Japan's first real SF,”34 35 although he does not explain the claim any further. Sumie Jones writes:

Although [Hiraga Gennai] boasted of being the first in Japan in creating Asbestos, electrical generators, oil painting and great many other things, he was unaware that he was also the inventor of science fiction. In The Dashing Life of Shidōken (Fūryū Shidōdenden)... the hero's only equipment is the feather fan given to him by the immortal sennin. The range of its capabilities is amazing; it operates as a ship, a flying carpet, a water divider across the river, an invisibility cloak, and even a universal translator. The sennin also claims that the fan can measure all sorts of distances and let the holder see microscopic details of anything – the scientist's dream. Gennai's conception of the functions of the fan is highly science fictional and postmodern, reminding us of the latest novels and films of our time.36

However, labeling Fūryū shidōken den as science fiction is perhaps the result of too much enthusiasm to establish Gennai as a literary forerunner, or to blend the scientific and literary aspects of his career. Fundamentally the story lacks any scientific principle or device that drives the plot or setting. Jones tries to establish the feathered fan as a “science fictional” device, but although it does perform many functions that are performed by scientific devices in today's fiction (invisibility cloak, universal

34 日本初の本格 SF35 Inagaki, Takeshi. 1989. Hiraga Gennai Edo no Yume. Tokyo: Shinchosha. p. 8536 Jones, Sumie. 2007. Lying About Flying; the Invention of Science Fiction and the Fictions of Colonialism in Modern

Japan. Travel in Japanese Representational Culture : Its Past, Present, and Future. Association for Japanese Literary Studies Meeting (15th : 2006 : Kioicho, Japan), and Association for Japanese Literary Studies ed. 2007 West Lafayette, IN: AJLS. p. 162

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translator, etc.), the fan is a magical device that has long existed in Chinese and Japanese folklore and literature. The imaginative, fictional use of a scientific device is better demonstrated in such works as Santō Kyōden's Kaitsū unubore kagami. This kibyōshi (comic book) uses as its device a western-style mirror. Western mirrors were lined with mercury and reflected images much more clearly than Japanese mirrors, which were made from polished metal, usually bronze, and showed softer images pigmented by the color of the metal. In Kaitsū unubore kagami the mirror reflects so well that it can even reflect people's inner thoughts and emotions, and the protagonist carries it around Yoshiwara (the pleasure quarters in Edo) and uses it to peer into the minds of various people.37 This story is a clear case of an author taking new technology and imaginatively expanding its scope and function in fiction, much like later authors would take the new technologies of sonics and lasers and extrapolate them to fantastic extremes.

Jones herself refers to A Glossary of Literary Terms to furnish a definition of science fiction as “narratives which – unlike in pure fantasy – an explicit attempt is made to render plausible the fictional world by reference to known or imagined scientific principles, or to a projected advance in technology, or to a drastic change in the organization of society.”38 Gennai, of all people, would have understood that the fan was not based on scientific principle or a projected advance in technology. Therefore we can not view his story as an attempt to “make plausible the fictional world” through those means. The story is better classified as fantasy.

Even if we acknowledge a broader definition of science fiction, Fūryū shidōken den will still fall outside of it. Robert Matthew writes that:

Science Fiction, of course, is not particularly about science. This has long been recognized by buffs and critics alike. It is, however, the literature of a society that is aware of science and of the changes it can bring. It is above all the literature of a society conscious of change - a society that understands that the present is not the same as the past and that the future will be different from the present. It is the most natural thing in the world that a society that is introducing rapid technological changes should be concerned with the human consequences of such changes and the directions in which change may lead.39

Fūryū shidōken den, however, does not indicate that it is the literature of a society conscious of change. The fan does not represent a construct that could change Japanese society. The distant lands that Asanoshin visits can not be said to be representations of a changed, future Japan, so it can not be said that it shows a conscious appreciation of the distinction between the future and present. Although Gennai was certainly familiar with science, and even tried to effect change with it through his transplant projects, he did not bring that awareness of change from science to his fiction.

That being said, however, Fūryū shidōken den does share a remarkable feature with science fiction; Gennai's creation of imaginary worlds. In the various countries that Asanoshin visits Gennai creates entirely imaginary societies, places, customs and political structures. For instance, Gennai describes the land of the chest hole people:

37 Screech., pp. 163-16438 Jones, Sumie., p. 16339 Matthew, Robert. 1989. Japanese Science Fiction : A View of a Changing Society. London ; New York; Oxford,

England: Routledge; Nissan Institute of Japanese Studies, University of Oxford. p. 2

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Everyone has a hole in the middle of his or her chest. When the aristocrats here go out, they don't ride in palanquins but have their carriers pass a pole through their chests and carry them around on the poles. It's completely painless. Commoners holding pose stand waiting on street corners shouting “Get poled! Get poled!” just the way they call out “Ride our palanquin!” in Japan.40

Later Asanoshin becomes betrothed to the princess of the chest hole kingdom, but people are shocked when they discover he has no chest hole:

The ladies in waiting report you are deformed. In this country, it is without exception the case that intelligent people have large holes and fools smaller holes in proportion to their lesser intelligence. That is the reason why it is very difficult for people with small holes to attain a high rank. As for those who have no hole at all, well, it would be more than just out of the question for one to become emperor. The wedding, therefore, has been canceled. Moreover, his majesty orders you to leave the country immediately.41

In this story Gennai imagines ex nihilo the customs and social structure of a fictional country, even providing an image of a street scene there.42 Although this is clearly a parody of contemporary society, nevertheless his creation of this new world is quite extraordinary.

Perhaps most impressive is Gennai's description of the Island of Women:

There wasn't a single man on the entire island. When the woman here wanted to have a child, they opened their robes and faced in the direction of Japan. Wind blew on their bodies and made them pregnant, and later they bore girl babies. They had a ruler, but it was always a woman. Island law required that if a ship from outside were blown here, the women had to go greet any person who came ashore. The women had to place their straw sandals on the beach facing towards the sea, and the law stipulated that if a man put on a pair he had to marry the woman whose sandals he happened to use.43

Later Gennai describes the rudimentary government structure; an empress who rules with ministers but also responds to public dissatisfaction.44 Although the Island of Women is certainly not Gennai's creation, here he has invented customs, laws and a government for it.

Gennai's creation of new worlds is similar to modern imaginative literature,45 and should be acknowledged as a landmark in the development of Japanese literature. Prior literature in Japan had rarely utilized entirely imagined settings like Gennai does. Most literature utilized either contemporary

40 Shirane., p. 501, Chris Drake's translation41 Ibid., p. 502 Chris Drake's translation42 Although Gennai was pulling the basic idea of chest-hole people from encyclopedias of foreign lands (as will be

discussed later), he filled in the details himself.43 Ibid., p. 504, Chris Drake's translation44 Jones, Sumie., p. 16445 I use “imaginative literature” to denote those genres, such as science fiction and fantasy, which do not use real or

realistic settings and characters from the past or present. The term is intentionally open-ended, but can be thought to exclude stories that use realistic characters in real past or present settings.

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or historical settings. In both of these categories the stories are situated in the culture, society, customs and government of Japan of either the past or present. Stories that fall outside of these two categories, such as supernatural stories, might be situated in a demon's cave or hell; a setting informed by folklore and religious imagery. Gennai, on the other hand, is the first author to create entirely new settings, including details of custom, society and government, that are not derived from any outside reference. Of course this description paints the long history of Japanese literature with very broad strokes, and the amount of imaginative creation of setting by other authors can be reasonably debated. However, even if Gennai is not the first Japanese author to create imaginary new worlds, Fūryū shidōken den is at least an important forerunner of modern imaginative literature and should be recognized as such.

Gennai's Satire

Parody and satire were a staple of Edo literature from the very beginning of the period, with the publication of inu (“mongrel”) parodies of classical works of literature dating from as early as 1607. However, Gennai offers a unique brand of satire that sets itself apart from most satire of his era. Much satire of the Edo period relied on mitate, a complex term that might be best translated as “visual confusion.” The mitate mechanic works by deliberately confusing one image for another. In satire this technique was used to confuse ga (elegant) images with zoku (common, vulgar) images. This “confusion” could either lower the ga or raise the zoku by its new association with the other.

Gennai is clearly interested in elevating the common and lowering the elegant. However, rather than lowering the elegant by associating it with the common he flat out lambastes and denounces what is traditionally considered high. Rather than raise the common by associating it with the elegant he instead provides rational arguments as to why what is typically considered low is superior.

This is not to say Gennai does not transpose the elegant and the common for comic effect. In Fūryū shidōken den Gennai's description of Asanoshin's realization that he is wasting his time being a Buddhist monk is a classic example of the technique: “Enlightened, Asanoshin clapped his hands together. 'Your wise teaching,' he said, 'has stripped away my delusions in a single moment. I feel as thought I've just woken from a dream. As of now, I renounce my Buddhist vows. I will go to live in the world.'”46 Here Gennai uses classical narrative tropes of Buddhist enlightenment to describe Asanoshin's “enlightenment” that Buddhism and hermitage are not the path to truth. It could be argued that Gennai is using mitate here in order to elevate going out to live in the vulgar world by associating it with traditional, elegant images of Buddhist enlightenment. However, shortly after this statement Gennai, through the immortal sage, spends several pages outright abusing nearly all the traditional custodians of elegance. He begins:

Masters of the game of go spend their time continually lining up and scattering little round stones. Their wisdom never goes beyond the 360 small squares on the board, and after they die and their souls reach the river on the border to the otherworld, they're reduced to piling up stone prayer mounds in the river bed and clinging to the sleeves of the bodhisattva Jizō, begging him for protection from the club-swinging guards of hell. Masters of Chinese chess, meanwhile, claim the game is basically military strategy, but famous generals like Han Xin or Kong Ming never played chess. If you gave a commander's rod to one of these chess masters and had him lead an actual army into

46 Shirane., p. 492. Chris Drake's translation

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battle, he'd be trampled to death by enemy horses, and his knights would jump too far ahead and be killed by enemy pawns.47

Gennai goes on to attack nearly every elegant profession; incense masters (“When famous incense masters claim that the names of the six main kinds of incense are the names of the countries from which they came, well, their ignorance of the fact that these countries don't even exist is truly laughable”), archers (“Practitioners of indoor archer who get five hundred hits out of a hundred shooting at as standing target can't get near a moving mouse”), Confucian scholars (“These men have wrapped themselves so tightly in wastepaper from ancient China they've lost they're own freedom. They're as rigid and solemn as sets of old armor placed out on racks for airing. But even with this pose, they can't hide their ignorance of the world. They know less about it than ordinary people. That's why they're called 'rotten scholars' or 'farting Confucianists.' They stink as badly as ripe bean paste.”) and others.

Stanleigh Jones remarks that “[Gennai's] attacks are often so sharp that one wonders how he escaped reprimand for his unabated invective.”48 Indeed, the above examples are openly abusive and outright taunting, very atypical of the social satire of the time. Finally, after wrapping up his tirade, the sage tells Asanoshin directly why the low and common are better than the elegant professions he has just finished denouncing:

You must never, never become so arrogant as to call yourself a professional artist. On the other hand, if you teach lofty truths, people won't gather to listen to you. If you aim too high, eventually you'll have to abandon the world – or it will abandon you. So follow the example of Dongfang Shuo of Han, who had much learning but wrote amusing poems. Appeal to people with lightness and humor, and they will gather around you. Take your images from things near at hand and give people guidance.49

Gennai argues here, directly and rationally, that wisdom is better gained and teaching better served by going out into the popular world because people will be attracted to ideas they can identify with. Again, this technique of directly and harshly criticizing the ga and directly and rationally arguing for the elevation of the zoku is very different from the mitate technique of confusing images of the two. It is a unique characteristic of Gennai's satire.

Gennai also employs this form of satire in his Hōhiron (Theory of Farting). The story recounts the author's fictional visit to the performance of a farting man near Ryōgoku bridge in Edo. The farting man is so skilled at farting that he can imitate sounds and music:

The man's greetings to the audience were clear and unaffected. His opening number, together with the musicians, was a fart version of the Sanbasō blessing dance. He progressed rhythmically with nō drums and flutes, toppa hyoro hyoro, hiih-hiih-hiih. The he gave off a rooster's cry at the ruddy eastern sky, bu-bu-buuu-buu. Next came a waterwheel. He loosed a sloshing buu-buu-buu as he did cartwheels and made the exact sounds of water filling the buckets and then pouring out as it pushed the wheel around.50

47 Ibid., p.493. Chris Drake's translation. The next three quotes are from this source, pp. 493-49448 Jones, Stanleigh., p. 10449 Ibid., p. 495. Chris Drake's translation50 Ibid., p. 515. Chris Drake's translation

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The author/narrator later gets into an argument with another patron who thinks the farting man is disgusting and disgraceful. The author offers both a rational defense of the farting man and a vicious denouncement of supposedly more proper art forms:

Tomisaburō became a great kabuki star only after he began using the prestigious stage name Kikunojō II. But farts have no hereditary titles, no fans to sleep with, and no rich patrons. They have only themselves, plainly, as they actually are. They ask to be judged for that alone. Using nothing but a two-inch hole, the Farting Man is blowing away all the other shows. Triumfartly, if I may put it that way, he's left the competition flatulented on their backs.51 How different he is from our professional musicians who go to a certified master to receive secret instruction on the proper way to articulate and chant so they themselves can later charge high fees to their own students... But look at the Farting Man. He's invented everything by himself, without master or secret oral transmission. With an unspeaking rear end and uncomprehending farts, he's learned articulation and rhythmic breathing, he has natural sense of timbre and pitch at all five tones and twelve semitones, and he's able to make so many clearly distinct sounds that his rear end is clearly superior to the voice of a second-rate puppet-play chanter. Call him one of a kind, call him a wonder. Truly he is the founder of the Way of Farting.52 53

Gennai here offers his readers what is clearly a rational argument in defense of the farting man. He is, essentially a self made farting man, having developed sophisticated farting techniques all on his own without instruction, and actually sounds better than most singers who receive instruction but have no talent. Having argued for the superiority of the farting man, Gennai goes on to tear down masters of all the other arts for their unoriginality, uncreativeness and imitation of the past:

Scholars stare at thousand-year-old wastepaper from China... Waka poets just sit around, but rice grains manage to stick to the bottoms of their feet, and they make a good living. Herbal doctors follow the Old Method or the Later Method and dispute loudly among themselves, but they can't cure ordinary ailments, while epidemics kill thousands. The people who call themselves haikai linked-verse masters suck up the drool of Bashō and Kikaku, and tea ceremony masters try to look genteel and elegant as they lick the two-centuries-old turds of Sen no Rikyū and Sōtan.”54

This caustic criticism is characteristic of Gennai's satire. Of all Gennai's works Hōhiron shows best his style elevating the zoku over the ga by directly criticizing the elegant and rationally arguing for the superiority of the common. Perhaps this unique style reflects his background in scientific writing, where arguments must be clearly stated.

Lastly, Gennai seems to inject into his satire a strikingly modern understanding of economics and demographics. In the above passages from Hōhiron Gennai offers as evidence of the superiority of

51 屁威光 and 屁柄者, puns on 威光 (influence) and 手柄者 (a person of achievement). See Hiraga, Gennai, and Yukihiko Nakamura. 1961. Furai sanjin shū. Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten. p. 234. Drake has done a good job capturing the spirit of the puns.

52 屁道. (hedō) Ibid., p. 235. A mockery of the many Ways in Japanese arts, such as the Way of Tea (chadō) or the Way of Archery (kyūdō)

53 Shirane., p. 518. Chris Drake's translation54 Ibid., pp. 518-519. Chris Drake's translation

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the farting man the fact that he is driving all the other small theaters out of business. This implies a theory of “creative destruction,” or economic survival of the fittest, in which competition elevates successful ventures and weeds out unsuccessful ones, and that value, therefore, should be measured objectively by market success. This kind of theory is central to modern economic thinking, and quite remarkable in 18th-century Edo Japan. As noted above, in Fūryū Shidōden Den Gennai writes that “the Way of economics responds flexibly to the times, correcting customs, making up for scarcities and reducing surpluses,”55 a rather sophisticated understanding of the effect of market and prices on production and consumption.

Gennai demonstrates his understanding of demographics in Fūryū Shidōden Den when Asanoshin visits the Island of Women. Because all of the women want the limited supply of men, the island is beset by a crisis. Asanoshin proposes the establishment of a gender-inverted Yoshiwara, where men are kept in a restricted quarter as prostitutes for women customers. This satire demonstrates Gennai's understanding of the demographic imbalance in Edo (which was mostly male) and the utility of the pleasure quarters in providing access to a scarce resource. Finally, in the opening to his Nenashigusa (Rootless Grass), Gennai depicts a hell overcrowded with an increase in sinners, which must employ shady contractors in order to expand hell to accommodate them. As they add more property hell experiences the problems of growth. The growth of the population during Gennais' time was a major topic of discourse, but Gennai demonstrates a grasp of the problems of demographic expansion, such as changing property values and the need to adjust rents. Perhaps Gennai's surprisingly modern understanding of the world might be attributed to his scientific background. In any case these ideas seem years ahead of their time, and are indicative of the keen observation and insight Gennai demonstrated in his scientific endeavors.

Gennai's Prose

Gennai wrote his fiction with thickly descriptive prose that was unusual for his time. Specifically, he was perhaps exceptional among his contemporaries for his use of descriptive prose to depict setting. Roughly contemporaneous to Gennai the sharebon (books of wit and fashion that described life in the pleasure quarters) was beginning to emerge. The sharebon, however, used hardly any descriptive prose at all. Probably influenced by the puppet and kabuki theaters, sharebon are structured more like play scripts, using mainly dialog, and featuring little or no descriptive prose. Also roughly contemporaneous to Gennai is the emergence of the early yomihon (reading books), such as Ueda Akinari's Ugetsu Monogatari (Tales of Moonlight and Rain). Although these books do use descriptive prose, it is usually used to describe action rather than setting. The most extensive description of setting in Ugetsu Monogatari occurs in the “Reed-Choked House” chapter, when the protagonist awakens to discover the house he had fallen asleep in the night before had become dilapidated and overgrown overnight:

The roof had been torn off by the wind, and he could see the waning moon, lingering in the sky. The house had lost its shutters. Reeds and plumed grasses grew tall through gaps in the decaying floorboards, and the morning dew dripped from them, saturating his sleeves. The walls were draped with ivy and arrowroot; the garden was buried in creepers.56

55 Ibid., p. 510. Chris Drake's translation56 Ibid., p. 580. Anthony Chambers' translation

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This is a reasonably extensive description of setting, but it is also a crucial part of the action of the plot, since it describes the protagonist's realization that he had spent the previous night with a ghost.

Gennai, on the other hand, used description of setting liberally, giving his readers a sense of the story's scene and situate them within it. Most remarkable is the opening to the fourth chapter of Nenashigusa, where Gennai devotes several pages to describing a scene at Ryōgoku bridge in Edo, a busy crossroads and landmark. A short excerpt will, hopefully, convey a sense of Gennai's mastery of descriptive prose:

The cries of insects! A salesman brings autumn early to the city in cages hanging from both ends of his shoulder pole. “Cup of water? Cold water!” A water seller calls from the shade of a willow, which, unlike the country willows that poets praise, has no clear stream running beneath it. A low voice chanting a puppet play in an impromptu reed-screen shed is drowned out by “Repent! Repent!” as passing pilgrims pour purifying water over their heads. A fragrance comes from Igarashi's Hair-Oil store, followed by the smell of spitted eels broiled in soy sauce. People peep into boxes at moving stereoscopic prints, imagining they're in other worlds, and a crowd around a glassblower wonders whether icicles have formed in summer. Potted trees revive and suddenly look fresh when a florist sprinkles water on them, while papier-mâché turtles hanging out for sale move in the wind and take on souls.57

Here Gennai captures a moment in the bustle of the city of Edo, providing a compelling view of life in the city and immersing the reader in the setting of his story. This sort of descriptive prose, and certainly Gennai's skill at it, is not evident before Gennai, and not much evident even after him, until the Meiji era. Although the use of prose and sometimes poetry to describe settings, particularly natural settings, can be found in works as far back as the Heian era, Gennai's use of extensive prose to compellingly portray the city and immerse his readers, as well as his ability to capture a moment in time, are unique and remarkable and should be recognized as a milestone in the development of Japanese literature.

Gennai's Western Influence

Gennai was a premier scholar of rangaku (western learning, literally “Dutch Studies”). He made several trips to Nagasaki, interacted with the Dutch on Dejima, acquired many western books, reproduced several western scientific devices, and even corresponded with Dutch colleagues.58 Given his contact with the West, it is tempting to think that some Western influence might be reflected in his writing, especially since his writing is so unique. Particularly compelling is the similarities between Fūryū shidōken den and Gulliver's Travels. Both stories take the same form of a man traveling around to various exotic countries, and Gulliver and Asanoshin seem to visit some of the same places; lands of giants and tiny people, for example.

There is indeed some scholarly discourse on Gennai's possible exposure to Gulliver.59 However,

57 Ibid., pp. 473-474, Chris Drake's translation58 Nakamura., p. 459 See, for example, Uda, Toshihiko. 1994. Daijin Koku Yobun - Hiraga Gennai to Garivaa Ryokouki. Edo Bungaku. 13: 4-

14 Uda's argument is tempting but ultimately circumstantial: Gennai's account of the land of giants is very similar to that in Gulliver; the word he uses for that land (大人国) is different from the word used in the encyclopedias usually

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Gennai could not read Dutch,60 and he relied on the shogunate's hereditary translator families for all of his translations and interactions with the Dutch. Therefore it is unlikely he had the opportunity to read any western literature. Instead it is more likely that Gennai got his ideas from encyclopedias that provided accounts of various strange foreign lands, including the Island of Women and countries of long-armed and long-legged people.61 However, Gennai did obtain a Dutch atlas of the world, including maps of the Americas.62 Although it is mere speculation, it is easy to imagine that an atlas of the wide world, including places newly discovered, kindled in Gennai the idea for Fūryū shidōken den. Any other apparent influences in Gennai's writing, however, must be attributed to his participation in the movement towards scientific observation, description and reasoning that was talking place in the West.

Conclusion

Hiraga Gennai was certainly an extraordinary man. The breadth of his interests and the depth of his insight would be exceptional in any era, but was singular in 18th-century Edo Japan. Unfortunately his remarkable life and scientific achievements have tended to overshadow his literature, and it has been overlooked or dismissed by scholars. However, his literary accomplishments rival those he made in the scientific field, and he should be recognized as a major contributor to the development of Japanese literature during the Edo period. He imagined new worlds in an era where setting not derived from existing sources was rare, he wrote biting satire that used direct arguments to advocate his positions, and he mastered the description of setting in prose a century before the influence of Western novels would lead Japanese authors to follow in his footsteps. He was clearly far ahead of his time, and his works should be understood as one of the highlights of Edo period literature.

Works CitedHiraga, Gennai, and Yukihiko Nakamura. 1961. Furai Sanjin shū. Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten.

Inagaki, Takeshi. 1989. Hiraga Gennai Edo no yume. Tokyo: Shinchosha.

Isozaki, Yasuhiko. 1999. Hiraga Gennai shozō no ransho to Odano Naotake, Satake Shozan. Fukushima daigaku kyōiku gakubu ronshū, Jinbun kagaku bumon. 66: 35-54.

Jones, Sumie. 2007. Lying About Flying; the Invention of Science Fiction and the Fictions of Colonialism in Modern Japan. Travel in Japanese Representational Culture : Its Past, Present, and

attributed as his source; there was a Dutch translation of Gulliver at the time; one of Gennai's Dutch acquaintances was known to be an avid reader; given all of this, it is not impossible to think that Gennai's Dutch acquaintance told him about the land of giants episode in Gulliver at some point. However, these are merely layers of circumstance, and there is no real evidence that Gennai knew of Gulliver.

60 Isozaki., p. 3561 Jones, Stanleigh., pp.169-17062 Isozaki., p. 39. The atlas was published in 1759, before Fūryū shidōken den was written, but it is unclear when Gennai

obtained it.

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Future. Association for Japanese Literary Studies Meeting (15th : 2006 : Kioicho, Japan), and Association for Japanese Literary Studies ed. 2007 West Lafayette, IN: AJLS.

Jones, Stanleigh H. 1968. Scholar, Scientist, Popular Author Hiraga Gennai, 1728-1780. Dissertation, Columbia University, New York:

Keene, Donald. 1976. World Within Walls : Japanese Literature of the Pre-Modern Era, 1600-1867. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.

Matthew, Robert. 1989. Japanese Science Fiction : A View of a Changing Society. London ; New York; Oxford, England: Routledge; Nissan Institute of Japanese Studies, University of Oxford.

Screech, Timon. 1996. The Western Scientific Gaze and Popular Imagery in Later Edo Japan : The Lens Within the Heart. Cambridge ; New York: Cambridge University Press.

Shirane, Haruo. 2002. Early Modern Japanese Literature : An Anthology, 1600-1900. New York: Columbia University Press.

Totman, Conrad D. 1993. Early Modern Japan. Berkeley: University of California Press.

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