Part 22

The classic drama No and its companion the Kyogen had two children, the _Joruri_ and the _Kabuki_. They were born at the close of the 16th century and they owed their origin to the growing influence of the commercial class, who asserted a right to be amused but were excluded from enjoyment of the aristocratic No and the Kyogen. The Joruri is a dramatic ballad, sung or recited to the accompaniment of the _samisen_ and in unison with the movements of puppets. It came into existence in Kioto and was thence transferred to Yedo (Tokyo), where the greatest of Japanese playwrights, Chikamatsu Monzaemon (1653-1724), and a musician of exceptional talent, Takemoto Gidayu, collaborated to render this puppet drama a highly popular entertainment. It flourished for nearly 200 years in Yedo, and is still occasionally performed in Osaka. Like the No the Joruri dealt always with sombre themes, and was supplemented by the Kabuki (farce). This last owed its inception to a priestess who, having abandoned her holy vocation at the call of love, espoused dancing as a means of livelihood and trained a number of girls for the purpose. The law presently interdicted these female comedians (_onna-kabuki_) in the interests of public morality, and they were succeeded by "boy comedians" (_wakashu-kabuki_) who simulated women's ways and were vetoed in their turn, giving place to _yaro-kabuki_ (comedians with queues). Gradually the Kabuki developed the features of a genuine theatre; the actor and the playwright were discriminated, and, the performances taking the form of domestic drama (_Wagoto_ and _Sewamono_) or historical drama (_Aragoto_ or _Jidaimono_), actors of perpetual fame sprang up, as Sakata Tojuro and Ichikawa Danjinro (1660-1704). Mimetic posture-dances (_Shosagoto_) were always introduced as interludes; past and present indiscriminately contributed to the playwright's subjects; realism was carried to extremes; a revolving stage and all mechanical accessories were supplied; female parts were invariably taken by males, who attained almost incredible skill in these simulations; a chorus--relic of the No--chanted expositions of profound sentiments or thrilling incidents; and histrionic talent of the very highest order was often displayed. But the _Kabuki-za_ and its _yakusha_ (actors) remained always a plebeian institution. No _samurai_ frequented the former or associated with the latter. With the introduction of Western civilization in modern times, however, the theatre ceased to be tabooed by the aristocracy. Men and women of all ranks began to visit it; the emperor himself consented (1887) to witness a performance by the great stars of the stage at the private residence of Marquis Inouye; a dramatic reform association was organized by a number of prominent noblemen and scholars; drastic efforts were made to purge the old historical dramas of anachronisms and inconsistencies, and at length a theatre (the _Yuraku-za_) was built on purely European lines, where instead of sitting from morning to night witnessing one long-drawn-out drama with interludes of whole farces, a visitor may devote only a few evening-hours to the pastime. The Shosagoto has not been abolished, nor is there any reason why it should be. It has graces and beauties of its own. There remains to be noted the incursion of amateurs into the histrionic realm. In former times the actor's profession was absolutely exclusive in Japan. Children were trained to wear their fathers' mantles, and the idea that a non-professional could tread the hallowed ground of the stage did not enter any imagination. But with the advent of the new regimen in Meiji days there arose a desire for social plays depicting the life of the modern generation, and as these "croppy dramas" (_zampatsu-mono_)--so called in allusion to the European method of cutting the hair close--were not included in the repertoire of the orthodox theatre, amateur troupes (known as _soshi-yakusha_) were organized to fill the void. Even Shakespeare has been played by these amateurs, and the abundant wit of the Japanese is on the way to enrich the stage with modern farces of unquestionable merit.

Literature of the Tokugawa Era.

The Tokugawa era (1603-1867), which popularized the drama, had other memorable effects upon Japanese literature. Yedo, the shogun's capital, displaced Kioto as the centre of literary activity. Its population of more than a million, including all sorts and conditions of men--notably wealthy merchants and mechanics--constituted a new audience to which authors had to address themselves; and an unparalleled development of mental activity necessitated wholesale drafts upon the Chinese vocabulary. To this may be attributed the appearance of a group of men known as _kangakusha_ (Chinese scholars). The most celebrated among them were: Fujiwara Seikwa (1560-1619), who introduced his countrymen to the philosophy of Chu-Hi; Hayashi Rasan (1583-1657), who wrote 170 treatises on scholastic and moral subjects; Kaibara Ekken (1630-1714), teacher of a fine system of ethics; Arai Hakuseki (1657-1725), historian, philosopher, statesman and financier: and Muro Kiuso, the second great exponent of Chu-Hi's philosophy. "Japan owes a profound debt of gratitude to the _kangakusha_ of that time. For their day and country they were emphatically the salt of earth." But naturally not all were believers in the same philosophy. The fervour of the followers of Chu-Hi (the orthodox school) could not fail to provoke opposition. Thus some arose who declared allegiance to the idealistic intuitionalism of Wang Yang-ming, and others advocated direct study of the works of Confucius and Mencius. Connected with this rejection of Chu-Hi were such eminent names as those of Ito Junsai (1627-1718), Ito Togai (1617-1736), Ogyu Sorai (1666-1728) and Dazai Shuntai (1679-1747). These Chinese scholars made no secret of their contempt for Buddhism, and in their turn they were held in aversion by the Buddhists and the Japanese scholars (_wagakusha_), so that the second half of the 18th century was a time of perpetual wrangling and controversy. The worshippers at the shrine of Chinese philosophy evoked a reactionary spirit of nationalism, just as the excessive worship of Occidental civilization was destined to do in the 19th century.

Apart from philosophical researches and the development of the drama, as above related, the Tokugawa era is remarkable for folk-lore, moral discourses, fiction and a peculiar form of poetry. This last does not demand much attention. Its principal variety is the _haikai_, which is nothing more than a _tanka_ shorn of its concluding fourteen syllables, and therefore virtually identical with the _hokku_, already described. The name of Basho is immemorially associated with this kind of lilliputian versicle, which reached the extreme of impressionism. A more important addition to Japanese literature was made in the 17th century in the form of children's tales (_Otogibanashi_). They are charmingly simple and graceful, and they have been rendered into English again and again since the beginning of the Meiji era. But whether they are to be regarded as genuine folk-lore or merely as a branch of the fiction of the age when they first appeared in book form, remains uncertain. Of fiction proper there was an abundance. The pioneer of this kind of literature is considered to have been Saikaku (1641-1693), who wrote sketches of everyday life as he saw it, short tales of some merit and novels which deal with the most disreputable phases of human existence. His notable successors in the same line were two men of Kioto, named Jisho (1675-1745) and Kiseki (1666-1716). They had their own publishing house, and its name _Hachimonji-ya_ (figure-of-eight store) came to be indelibly associated with this kind of literature. But these men did little more than pave the way for the true romantic novel, which first took shape under the hand of Santo Kyoden (1761-1816), and culminated in the works of Bakin, Tanehiko, Samba, Ikku, Shunsui and their successors. Of nearly all the books in this class it may be said that they deal largely in sensationalism and pornography, though it does not follow that their language is either coarse or licentious. The life of the virtuous Japanese woman being essentially uneventful, these romancists not unnaturally sought their female types among dancing-girls and courtesans. The books were profusely illustrated with woodcuts and chromoxylographs from pictures of the _ukiyoe_ masters, who, like the playwright, the actor and the romancer, ministered to the pleasure of the "man in the street." Brief mention must also be made of two other kinds of books belonging to this epoch; namely, the _Shingaku-sho_ (ethical essays) and the _Jitsuroku-mono_ (true records). The latter were often little more than historical novels founded on facts; and the former, though nominally intended to engraft the doctrines of Buddhism and Shinto upon the philosophy of China, were really of rationalistic tendency.

The Meiji Era.

Although the incursions made into Chinese philosophy and the revival of Japanese traditions during the Tokugawa Epoch contributed materially to the overthrow of feudalism and the restoration of the Throne's administrative power, the immediate tendency of the last two events was to divert the nation's attention wholly from the study of either Confucianism or the _Record of Ancient Matters_. A universal thirst set in for Occidental science and literature, so that students occupied themselves everywhere with readers and grammars modelled on European lines rather than with the Analects or the _Kojiki_. English at once became the language of learning. Thus the three colleges which formed the nucleus of the Imperial University of Tokyo were presided over by a graduate of Michigan College (Professor Toyama), a member of the English bar (Professor Hozumi) and a graduate of Cambridge (Baron Kikuchi). If Japan was eminently fortunate in the men who directed her political career at that time, she was equally favoured in those that presided over her literary culture. Fukuzawa Yukichi, founder of the Keio Gijuku, now one of Japan's four universities, did more than any of his contemporaries by writing and speaking to spread a knowledge of the West, its ways and its thoughts, and Nakamura Keiu laboured in the same cause by translating Smiles's _Self-help_ and Mill's _Representative Government_. A universal geography (by Uchida Masao); a history of nations (by Mitsukuri Rinsho); a translation of _Chambers's Encyclopaedia_ by the department of education; Japanese renderings of Herbert Spencer and of Guizot and Buckle--all these made their appearance during the first fourteen years of the epoch. The influence of politics may be strongly traced in the literature of that time, for the first romances produced by the new school were all of a political character: _Keikoku Bidan_ (_Model for Statesmen_, with Epaminondas for hero) by Yano Fumio; _Setchubai (Plum-blossoms in snow)_ and _Kwakwan-o (Nightingale Among Flowers)_ by Suyehiro. This idea of subserving literature to political ends is said to have been suggested by Nakae Tokusuke's translation of Rousseau's _Contrat social_. The year 1882 saw _Julius Caesar_ in a Japanese dress. The translator was Tsubouchi Shoyo, one of the greatest writers of the Meiji era. His _Shosetsu Shinsui (Essentials of a Novel)_ was an eloquent plea for realism as contrasted with the artificiality of the characters depicted by Bakin, and his own works illustrative of this theory took the public by storm. He also brought out the first literary periodical published in Japan, namely, the _Waseda Bungaku_, so called because Tsubouchi was professor of literature in the Waseda University, an institution founded by Count Okuma, whose name cannot be omitted from any history of Meiji literature, not as an author but as a patron. As illustrating the rapid development of familiarity with foreign authors, a Japanese retrospect of the Meiji era notes that whereas Macaulay's _Essays_ were in the curriculum of the Imperial University in 1881-1882, they were studied, five or six years later, in secondary schools, and pupils of the latter were able to read with understanding the works of Goldsmith, Tennyson and Thackeray. Up to Tsubouchi's time the Meiji literature was all in the literary language, but there was then formed a society calling itself _Kenyusha_, some of whose associates--as Bimyosai--used the colloquial language in their works, while others--as Koyo, Rohan, &c.--went back to the classical diction of the Genroku era (1655-1703). Rohan is one of the most renowned of Japan's modern authors, and some of his historical romances have had wide vogue. Meanwhile the business of translating went on apace. Great numbers of European and American authors were rendered into Japanese--Calderon, Lytton, Disraeli, Byron, Shakespeare, Milton, Turgueniev, Carlyle, Daudet, Emerson, Hugo, Heine, De Quincey, Dickens, Körner, Goethe--their name is legion and their influence upon Japanese literature is conspicuous. In 1888 a special course of German literature was inaugurated at the Imperial University, and with it is associated the name of Mori Ogai, Japan's most faithful interpreter of German thought and speech. Virtually every literary magnate of the Occident has found one or more interpreters in modern Japan. Accurate reviewers of the era have divided it into periods of two or three years each, according to the various groups of foreign authors that were in vogue, and every year sees a large addition to the number of Japanese who study the masterpieces of Western literature in the original.

Newspapers and Periodicals.

Newspapers, as the term is understood in the West, did not exist in old Japan, though block-printed leaflets were occasionally issued to describe some specially stirring event. Yet the Japanese were not entirely unacquainted with journalism. During the last decades of the factory at Deshima the Dutch traders made it a yearly custom to submit to the governor of Nagasaki selected extracts from newspapers arriving from Batavia, and these extracts, having been translated into Japanese, were forwarded to the court in Yedo together with their originals. To such compilations the name of _Oranda fusetsu-sho (Dutch Reports)_ was given. Immediately after the conclusion of the first treaty in 1857, the Yedo authorities instructed the office for studying foreign books _(Bunsho torishirabe-dokoro)_ to translate excerpts from European and American journals. Occasionally these translations were copied for circulation among officials, but the bulk of the people knew nothing of them. Thus the first real newspaper did not see the light until 1861, when a Yedo publisher brought out the _Batavia News_, a compilation of items from foreign newspapers, printed on Japanese paper from wooden blocks. Entirely devoid of local interest, this journal did not survive for more than a few months. It was followed, in 1864, by the _Shimbun-shi (News)_, which was published in Yokohama, with Kishida Ginko for editor and John Hiko for sub-editor. The latter had been cast away, many years previously, on the coast of the United States and had become a naturalized American citizen. He retained a knowledge of spoken Japanese, but the ideographic script was a sealed book to him, and his editorial part was limited to oral translations from American journals which the editor committed to writing. The _Shimbun-shi_ essayed to collect domestic news as well as foreign. It was published twice a month and might possibly have created a demand for its wares had not the editor and sub-editor left for America after the issue of the 10th number. The example, however, had now been set. During the three years that separated the death of the _Shimbun-shi_ from the birth of the Meiji era (October 1867) no less than ten quasi-journals made their appearance. They were in fact nothing better than inferior magazines, printed from wood-blocks, issued weekly or monthly, and giving little evidence of enterprise or intellect, though connected with them were the names of men destined to become famous in the world of literature, as Fukuchi Genichiro, Tsuji Shinji (afterwards Baron Tsuji) and Suzuki Yuichi. These publications attracted little interest and exercised no influence. Journalism was regarded as a mere pastime. The first evidence of its potentialities was furnished by the _Koko Shimbun (The World)_ under the editorship of Fukuchi Genichiro and Sasano Dempei. To many Japanese observers it seemed that the restoration of 1867 had merely transferred the administrative authority from the Tokugawa Shogun to the clans of Satsuma and Choshu. The _Koko Shimbun_ severely attacked the two clans as specious usurpers. It was not in the mood of Japanese officialdom at that time to brook such assaults. The _Koko Shimbun_ was suppressed; Fukuchi was thrust into prison, and all journals or periodicals except those having official sanction were vetoed. At the beginning of 1868 only two newspapers remained in the field. Very soon, however, the enlightened makers of modern Japan appreciated the importance of journalism, and in 1871 the _Shimbun Zasshi (News Periodical)_ was started under the auspices of the illustrious Kido. Shortly afterwards there appeared in Yokohama--whence it was subsequently transferred to Tokyo--the _Mainichi Shimbun (Daily News)_, the first veritable daily and also the first journal printed with movable types and foreign presses. Its editors were Numa Morikage, Shimada Saburo and Koizuka Ryu, all destined to become celebrated not only in the field of journalism but also in that of politics. It has often been said of the Japanese that they are slow in forming a decision but very quick to act upon it. This was illustrated in the case of journalism. In 1870 the country possessed only two quasi-journals, both under official auspices. In 1875 it possessed over 100 periodicals and daily newspapers. The most conspicuous were the _Nichi Nichi Shimbun (Daily News)_, the _Yubin Hochi (Postal Intelligence)_, the _Choya Shimbun (Government and People News)_, the _Akebono Shimbun (The Dawn)_, and the _Mainichi Shimbun (Daily News)_. These were called "the five great journals." The _Nichi Nichi Shimbun_ had an editor of conspicuous literary ability in Fukuchi Genichiro, and the _Hochi Shimbun_, its chief rival, received assistance from such men as Yano Fumio, Fujita Makichi, Inukai Ki and Minoura Katsundo. Japan had not yet any political parties, but the ferment that preceded their birth was abroad. The newspaper press being almost entirely in the hands of men whose interests suggested wider opening of the door to official preferment, nearly all editorial pens were directed against the government. So strenuous did this campaign become that, in 1875, a press law was enacted empowering the minister of home affairs and the police to suspend or suppress a journal and to fine or imprison its editor without public trial. Many suffered under this law, but the ultimate effect was to invest the press with new popularity, and very soon the newspapers conceived a device which effectually protected their literary staff, for they employed "dummy editors" whose sole function was to go to prison in lieu of the true editor.

Japanese journalistic writing in these early years of Meiji was marred by extreme and pedantic classicism. There had not yet been any real escape from the tradition which assigned the crown of scholarship to whatever author drew most largely upon the resources of the Chinese language and learning. The example set by the Imperial court, and still set by it, did not tend to correct this style. The sovereign, whether speaking by rescript or by ordinance, never addressed the bulk of his subjects. His words were taken from sources so classical as to be intelligible to only the highly educated minority. The newspapers sacrificed their audience to their erudition and preferred classicism to circulation. Their columns were thus a sealed book to the whole of the lower middle classes and to the entire female population. The _Yomiuri Shimbun (Buy and Read News)_ was the first to break away from this pernicious fashion. Established in 1875, it adopted a style midway between the classical and the colloquial, and it appended the syllabic characters to each ideograph, so that its columns became intelligible to every reader of ordinary education. It was followed by the _Yeiri Shimbun (Pictorial Newspaper)_, the first to insert illustrations and to publish _feuilleton_ romances. Both of these journals devoted space to social news, a radical departure from the austere restrictions observed by their aristocratic contemporaries.

Era of Political Parties.

The year 1881 saw the nation divided into political parties and within measured distance of constitutional government. Thenceforth the great majority of the newspapers and periodicals ranged themselves under the flag of this or that party. An era of embittered polemics ensued. The journals, while fighting continuously against each other's principles, agreed in attacking the ministry, and the latter found it necessary to establish organs of its own which preached the German system of state autocracy. Editors seemed to be incapable of rising above the dead level of political strife, and their utterances were not relieved even by a semblance of fairness. Readers turned away in disgust, and journal after journal passed out of existence. The situation was saved by a newspaper which from the outset of its career obeyed the best canons of journalism. Born in 1882, the _Jiji Shimpo (Times)_ enjoyed the immense advantage of having its policy controlled by one of the greatest thinkers of modern Japan, Fukuzawa Yukichi. Its basic principle was liberty of the individual, liberty of the family and liberty of the nation; it was always found on the side of broad-minded justice, and it derived its materials from economic, social and scientific sources. Other newspapers of greatly improved character followed the _Jiji Shimpo_, especially notable among them being the _Kokumin Shimbun_.

Commercial Journalism.

In the meanwhile Osaka, always pioneer in matters of commercial enterprise, had set the example of applying the force of capital to journalistic development. Tokyo journals were all on a literary or political basis, but the _Osaka Asahi Shimbun (Osaka Rising Sun News)_ was purely a business undertaking. Its proprietor, Maruyama Ryuhei, spared no expense to obtain news from all quarters of the world, and for the first time the Japanese public learned what stores of information may be found in the columns of a really enterprising journal. Very soon the Asahi had a keen competitor in the _Osaka Mainichi Shimbun_ (_Osaka Daily News_) and these papers ultimately crushed all rivals in Osaka. In 1888 Maruyama established another _Asahi_ in Tokyo, and thither he was quickly followed by his Osaka rival, which in Tokyo took the name of _Mainichi Dempo_ (_Daily Telegraph_). These two newspapers now stand alone as purveyors of copious telegraphic news, and in the next rank, not greatly lower, comes the _Jiji Shimpo_.