Edo Kabuki in Transition

From the Worlds of the Samurai to the Vengeful Female Ghost
Erscheinungsjahr 2016
ISBN: 978-0-231-17226-4
Verlag: Columbia University Press

Buch, Englisch, 392 Seiten, Format (B × H): 236 mm x 165 mm, Gewicht: 730 g

Satoko Shimazaki revisits three centuries of kabuki theater and its dynamic representations of medieval Japanese tales and tradition, boldly reframing Edo kabuki as a key player in the formation of an early modern urban identity. Challenging the common understanding of kabuki as a subversive entertainment and a threat to shogunal authority, Shimazaki argues that kabuki actually instilled a sense of shared history in Edo's inhabitants, regardless of their class. It did this, she shows, by constantly invoking "worlds," or sekai, largely derived from medieval military chronicles, and overlaying them onto the present.

Shimazaki explores the process by which, as the early modern period drew to a close, nineteenth-century playwrights began dismantling the Edo tradition of "presenting the past" by abandoning their long-standing reliance on the sekai. She then reveals how, in the 1920s, a new generation of kabuki playwrights, critics, and scholars reinvented the form yet again, "textualizing" kabuki so that it could be pressed into service as a guarantor of national identity, in keeping with the role that the West assigned to theater.

Shimazaki's vivid and engaging reinterpretation of kabuki history centers on the popular and widely celebrated ghost play Tokaido Yotsuya kaidan (Ghost Stories at Yotsuya, 1825) by Tsuruya Nanboku. Along the way, she sheds fresh light on the emergence and development of the ubiquitous trope of the vengeful female ghost, linking it to the need to explore new themes at a time when the old samurai worlds were rapidly losing their relevance.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Shimazaki, Satoko

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Geschichte einzelner Länder Asiatische Geschichte
• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Literaturwissenschaft: Dramen und Dramatiker
• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Literaturen sonstiger Sprachräume Ost- & Südostasiatische Literatur
• Geisteswissenschaften Theater- und Filmwissenschaft | Andere Darstellende Künste Theaterwissenschaft Theatergeschichte

Inhaltsverzeichnis

A Note to the ReaderIntroductionPart I. The Birth of Edo Kabuki1. Presenting the Past: Edo Kabuki and the Creation of CommunityPart II. The Beginning of the End of Edo Kabuki: Yotsuya kaidan in 18252. Overturning the World: The Treasury of Loyal Retainers and Yotsuya kaidan3. Shades of Jealousy: The Body of the Female Ghost4. The End of the World: Figures of the Ubume and the Breakdown of Theater TraditionPart III: The Modern Rebirth of Kabuki5. Another History: Yotsuya kaidan on Stage and PageNotesBibliographyIndex

Über Autor(innen)

Satoko Shimazaki is assistant professor of Japanese literature and theater at the University of Southern California. Her research focuses on early modern Japanese theater and popular literature; the modern history of kabuki; gender representation on the kabuki stage; and the interaction of performance, print, and text.