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The Samurai Ethic in Mayama Seika's Genroku Chūshingura

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

Brian Powell
Brian Powell
Affiliation:
St Antony's College, Oxford
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Extract

Mayama Seika was born in Sendai in 1878 and came to Tokyo, after an unsuccessful start to a medical career, to try his hand at writing in 1903. A young writer needed a patron and literary mentor, if he was to have any hope of rising in the bundan, and Mayama set about finding one. He was rebuffed by Tokutomi Kenjirō, attached himself to Satō Kōroku for about one year and finally became a monkasei of Oguri Fūyō in 1905. Under Fūyō's tutelage, although the small difference in their ages and Mayama's strong character precluded a normal sensei/deshi relationship, Mayama Seika became a Naturalist writer of some note at the time. In six years, between 1905 and 1911, he published nearly one hundred short stories, most in prestigious literary magazines. Frank description of life in the raw was a requirement of Naturalist authors and many of Mayama's works were strong in this quality. In particular his accounts of life in poverty-stricken agricultural communities of the Tōhoku area, observed with a doctor's eye, and his accurate reproduction of the dialects of that region have been singled out as distinctive contributions to this genre of literature.

Type
Articles
Information
Modern Asian Studies , Volume 18 , Issue 4 , October 1984 , pp. 725 - 745
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1984

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References

1 Biographical details are taken from Nomura Takashi, Hyōden Mayama Seika’, and ‘Mayama Seika nenpu’ in Mayama Seika zenshū (Kōdansha, 1975), bekkan I, 7–214 and 579–92.Google Scholar

2 See Maeda Kingorō, ‘Mayam’ Seika no Edo jidai kenkyūa, ibid., 320–61.

3 ibid., I.

4 Mayama Seika, ‘”Rekishi shōsetsu no honryō” ni tsuite’, quoted in ibid.., XVIII, 136.

5 ibid., 642.

6 ibid., 93.

7 ibid., 642.

8 ibid., 211–12.

9 ibid., 696.

10 See Tsuguo, Tahara, Akō shijūrokushi-ron (Yoshikawa Kōbunkan, 1978), pp. 1–61.Google Scholar

11 See Shively, Donald H., ‘Tokugawa Plays on Forbidden Topics’, in Brandon, (ed.), Chushingura (Hawaii, 1982), pp. 33ff.Google Scholar

12 Ibid., 130. A similar comment is made by a different character in Daini no shisha, ibid., 74.

13 ibid.., 290.

14 ibid., 141.

15 Akio, Tanabe, Mayama Seiko (Hokuyōsha, 1976), p. 145.Google Scholar

16 Ibid., p. 150.

17 Zenshō, I, 671.

18 ibid.., 140–1.

19 ibid.., 177.

20 Otani Seifu, ‘Tōgeki shoshun kōgyō’, Engei gahō (February, 1935), p. 38.

21 Zenshū, I, 38.

22 ibid.., 21.

23 ibid.., 132.

24 ibid.., 180.

25 ibid.., 562–4.

26 ibid.., 245.

27 ibid.., 668.

28 Adachi Tadashi, Chūgai shōgyō (January 1939), quoted in Mayama Seiko zenshū (Kōdansha, 1940), geppō I (October, 1940), 14.Google Scholar

29 Inomoto Shigetami, ‘Kaitei hotei no genkai’, Engekikai (January, 1971), 25.

30 Zenshō, I, 305–6.

31 Donald Keene, ‘Variations on a Theme: Chushingura’, in Brandon (ed.), Chushingura.

32 Interview, 28 April 1981.