Comparative Drama Pub Date : 2020-01-27 , DOI: 10.1353/cdr.2019.0009 Maki Isaka
Reviewed by:
- Edo Kabuki in Transition: From the Worlds of the Samurai to the Vengeful Female Ghost by Satoko Shimazaki
- Maki Isaka (bio)
Satoko Shimazaki’s Edo Kabuki in Transition: From the Worlds of the Samurai to the Vengeful Female Ghost is about kabuki, a four-century-old major genre in Japanese theatre, paying special attention to one of the most popular works in its repertoire, Ghost Stories at Yotsuya by Tsuruya Nanboku IV (1755–1829): how it has been received since its premiere in 1825 (through today) and what it has meant to the history of kabuki (and beyond). As indicated in its acknowledgments (vii), the book is based on the author’s dissertation (“Shades of Jealousy: Tôkaidô Yotsuya kaidan and the Cultural Imagination of Female Ghosts in Early Nineteenth-Century [End Page 149] Japanese Theater and Literature,” Columbia University, 2009). Since the author chose not to make its contents available through the dissertation database, the present book is in effect the first opportunity for many to read this work. The value of this publication is thus far greater than many other books based on dissertations available via the database. As such, this meticulous study of Ghost Stories at Yotsuya is a welcome and attractive addition to kabuki studies and Japan studies.
One of the strong suits of this book lies in the wide range of sources it cites, which come from roughly three clusters of materials: primary sources on kabuki from the Edo era (1600–1867), so-called “Western” theory, and contemporary scholars’ work on kabuki mostly from Japan and North America. In particular, the variety of materials in the first category is impressive. Using such rich materials, both linguistic and pictorial, the introduction provides readers with a colorful reconstruction of how Ghost Stories at Yotsuya was appreciated by audiences in 1825 Edo, followed by chapter 1, “Presenting the Past,” which furnishes the theoretical agenda and contexts of the book. One example of these is how kabuki dramaturgy utilizes the “past.” Kabuki’s composition methodology uses the two factors of “world” (sekai) and “device” (shukô), the former of which provides a play with a paradigm established in the past and delineates the frame and context of the play. The book pays suitable attention to other fields such as poetry. The connection is effective and appropriate, for in poetry traditions there is a comparable technique called “taking-an-original-poem” (honkadori), with which a poet is expected to allude to a preexisting poem in creating a new one (72). This is important, and the book is correct in paying attention to literature. (In fact, the use of the “past” in premodern Japan was even more far-reaching than suggested by the book, well beyond theatre and literature, carrying epistemological weight for the concept of “knowledge” and its creation.) The ensuing three chapters, clustered together as part 2, present an attractive, detailed analysis of what Ghost Stories at Yotsuya meant in 1825 or thereabouts, with the focuses of production systems (chapter 2) as well as female ghosts and female bodies (chapters 3 and 4). The fifth and final chapter surveys various derivative works born out of Ghost Stories at Yotsuya in the twentieth century.
A crucial premise of the book, underlying it in its entirety, is that “audiences at the time [audiences living in 1825 or thereabouts, i.e., those who saw and/or could see the premiere of Ghost Stories at Yotsuya] knew very well that on the kabuki stage, nothing was ever fixed: if a kabuki play outlived its first production, it would inevitably be reworked, transformed into something new. By the same token, every production was inevitably a reworking, a transformation, of earlier material” (6). This is a defining proposition appearing throughout the book (e.g., [End Page 150] pp. 8, 42, 72–73, 119), which recognizes “the nature of Edo kabuki as a process” (11) as opposed to something that can be studied “as a fixed text” (9), based...
中文翻译:
转型中的江户歌舞uki:从武士的世界到复仇的女鬼,由佐藤信智(回顾)
代替摘要,这里是内容的简要摘录:
审核人:
- 过渡时期的江户歌舞uki:从武士的世界到复仇的女鬼,佐藤聪(Satoko Shimazaki)
- Isaka Maki(生物)
岛崎里子的过渡江户歌舞uki:从武士世界到复仇女鬼是关于歌舞uki的一种歌舞uki。日本歌舞four是一种有着四个世纪历史的主要类型,特别关注其曲目中最受欢迎的作品之一《鬼故事》。 Tsuruya Nanboku IV(1755-1829年)在Yotsuya的展览:自1825年首映以来(至今)如何被接受,以及它对歌舞uki历史(及以后)的意义。如致谢书(vii)所述,该书基于作者的论文(“嫉妒的阴影:TôkaidôYotsuya kaidan和19世纪初女性鬼魂的文化想象力[End Page 149]日本戏剧与文学”,哥伦比亚大学,2009年。由于作者选择不通过论文数据库提供其内容,因此实际上,本书是许多人阅读此著作的第一个机会。因此,根据可通过数据库获得的学位论文,该出版物的价值远远超过许多其他书籍。因此,这项对四谷的鬼故事的细致研究是歌舞tsu研究和日本研究的一个受欢迎且有吸引力的补充。
本书的强项之一是它引用的资料来源广泛,大约来自三类材料:江户时代(1600-1867年)歌舞uki的主要资料,所谓的“西方”理论以及当代学者对歌舞uki的研究主要来自日本和北美。特别是,第一类材料的多样性令人印象深刻。引言使用语言和图画等丰富的材料,为读者提供了丰富多彩的再现,讲述了1825年江户时代观众对《四谷的鬼故事》的欣赏方式,随后是第一章“呈现过去”,提供了理论上的议程和背景资料。这本书。其中一个例子是歌舞uki戏剧如何利用“过去”。歌舞uki的构图方法运用了“世界”的两个因素(sekai)和“设备”(shukô),前者为戏剧提供了过去建立的范例,并描绘了戏剧的框架和背景。这本书对诗歌等其他领域给予了适当的关注。这种联系是有效和适当的,因为在诗歌传统中,有一种类似的技术被称为“以原始诗作”(honkadori)),希望诗人在创作新诗时暗指一本既存的诗(72)。这很重要,而且这本书在关注文学方面是正确的。(实际上,在近代日本使用“过去”比书中所建议的意义更深远,远远超出戏剧和文学范畴,在认识论和“创造”的概念上具有认识论上的分量。)随后的三个方面作为第2部分聚集在一起的各章,对生产系统(第2章)以及女性鬼魂和女性尸体(第3和4章)的重点,对1825年左右的四谷幽灵故事的含义进行了详细的诱人分析。。第五章也是最后一章,概述了二十世纪四十年代在四谷的《鬼故事》所衍生的各种衍生作品。
这本书的一个至关重要的前提是完整地将其作为基础,即“当时的听众[居住在1825年左右的听众,即那些在四谷见过和/或看到过《鬼故事》首映的人]非常清楚,在歌舞uki舞台上,没有任何固定的东西:如果歌舞uki的演奏超过了它的第一个作品,它就不可避免地会被重新制作,变成新的东西。同样,每件作品都不可避免地是对早期材料的重新加工,改造”(6)。这是贯穿全书的定义性命题(例如[End Page 150]第8、42、72–73、119页),它认识到“江户歌舞uki作为一个过程的本质”(11),而不是某些东西。可以“作为固定文本”(9)进行研究,基于...