Summary of the January 23 Lecture

"The Politician as Novelist: "The Tales of Toyokage"", by Dr. Joshua S. Mostow

Upon introducing our January speaker, Dr. Joshua S. Mostow of the University of British Columbia, newly elected ASJ President Sioris said that he himself felt somewhat akin to Koremasa as a civil servant trespassing into academia!

The literature of the Heian period that has come down to us, such as the "Ise Shuu" and the "Kageroh Nikki", said Dr. Mostow, is in fact connected with the Regents' House ("sekkan-ke") of the Fujiwara clan. This has become clear in the last decade, when Japanese scholars have been taking a broad overview of the literature, rather than each specializing in one genre.

From the time of Fujiwara no Yoshifusa (804-72), this family began to marry into the imperial family and get themselves appointed as regents for those emperors who were still minors. The regent Koremasa of the title of this paper was only the nephew of the regent Saneyori, but as the emperor for whom Saneyori was regent was Koremasa's son-in-law (succeeding to the throne after the Anna incident of 969) Koremasa was named regent upon Saneyori's death in 970. Up to this time there had been struggles for power between the Fujiwara and other clans, but from this time on all the struggles were between different branches of the Fujiwara clan.

This competition extended into the cultural realm as well, with regents sponsoring a variety of cultural events, the records of which basically took the form of collections of poetry. Such collections are extant in the case of Koremasa's father and uncles, and also for Koremasa himself and his brothers Kanemichi and Kane'ie (poems by whom are contained in the "Kageroh Nikki"), and include "The Diary of Murasaki Shikibu" and "The Pillow Book of Sei Shohnagon". Koremasa's collection of poems, the "Ichijoh Sesshoh Gyoshuu", has a narrative structure like the "Ise Shuu", one of the early "diary-like" poetry collections, and is also noteworthy for being the first poetry collection to employ a fictitious protagonist, one Kurahashi no Toyokage. This collection falls into two parts, of which only the first 41 poems, centring on Toyokage, were written by Koremasa himself, and it was to this section that Dr. Mostow devoted his attention, naming it "The Tales of Toyokage" and labelling it a "novel". Here the first question was, what was Koremasa's purpose in writing it?

To answer this question, we might first look at the collected poems of Koremasa's father, Morosuke. They are mostly love poems exchanged with 17 women, yet only three of them are exchanged with his principal wife, the mother of Koremasa and his brothers and also of the empress, the others being exchanged with imperial princesses. A modern editor, Yamaguchi Hiroshi, has argued that the poems were put together to demonstrate Morosuke's closeness to the imperial family and allow him to acquire some of its aura; his principal wife came only from nobility of the fifth rank, and the only appropriate objects for a high-class lover like Morosuke were imperial princesses. But this argument does not fit the case of "The Tales of Toyokage". Though Toyokage is a fictitious character, most of his loves can be identified with real people, and they were mostly only ladies-in-waiting. So why did Koremasa thus demean his hero?

Our answer to this depends to some extent on when we believe "The Tales" were put together. Several of the poems are also included in other anthologies, one of which was in circulation before 956, while another records that one poem was written when Koremasa was a gentleman-in-waiting, which was between 942 and 946, when he was 19 to 23. On the other hand, the use of the term "okina", 'old man', to refer to Toyokage in the latter half of "The Tales" has made another editor, Tamagami Takuya, suppose that the collection was the product of Koremasa's final years, the early 970s, and this opinion is shared by Yamaguchi. But Yamaguchi then goes further and interprets "The Tales" as being the product of Koremasa's nostalgic longing for the days of his youth. He argues that Toyokage, who was a low-ranking Treasury clerk, found in the writing of poems expressing genuine human emotions a literary escape from the brutal realities experienced at the social pinnacle of the Regents' House.

But Yamaguchi errs in classing Toyokage with the low-ranking protagonists of other tales from this period, specifically Narihira in the "Ise Monogatari" and Heichuu in the "Heichuu Monogatari". It is not the similarities between these men that is important, but the contrasts. Narihira finds true love in exile, away from the strictures of the politically motivated court, while all Toyokage's amorous adventures take place within the capital and the court. Heichuu is presented as a comically unsuccessful lover, his lack of social position being a major contributory factor to his lack of success in romance, whereas Koremasa seems to be bent on showing that in Toyokage's case talent and perseverance will win out. Of the two tales, it is the "Ise Monogatari" with which "The Tales of Toyokage" have the closest relation.

In the "Ise Monogatari", the famous poet and lover Ariwara no Narihira goes into self-imposed exile for having, as was believed, had an affair with an imperial consort-designate. Here in exile, unlike Toyokage, he finds two beautiful sisters hidden away, and dashes off a poem to them written on the hem of his garment that he has torn off; this action is defined by the narrator of the "Ise Monogatari" as displaying "miyabi". This word has been given various interpretations, but the contexts in which it is used suggest behaviour unbound by the strictures of court life and accordingly appropriate to a setting away from the capital. But Toyokage does not fit into this pattern.

Dr. Mostow then proceeded to highlight the contrasts between Toyokage and Narihira, largely as pointed out by Tamagami:

1) While both men are of low rank, Narihira frequently becomes attracted to women of a higher social status, whereas Toyokage confines his attentions to his social equals.

2) While the objects of Narihira's affections are beyond his reach and he often has to give up, Toyokage never lets himself be beaten.

3) Narihira is accordingly praised by the narrator of the tales for his freedom from convention, while Toyokage is held up as an example of dogged determination. Thus, while both tales do indeed share a nostalgia for the past, they differ in the qualities they are praising in the protagonist. Furthermore, Narihira finds his women away from the capital, while Toyokage's are in the capital; Narihira continues his "courtly" ways even when in exile, but this cannot be the motive behind Toyokage's actions, as he has never left the capital.

Some American scholars suppose that Koremasa was trying to imitate the "Ise Monogatari" in his "Tales of Toyokage", an interpretation which makes the unwarranted assumption that the people of those days regarded the former as superior. It also neglects to consider the fact that a work by a major political figure like Koremasa must also have had some political significance.

It is clear that the "Toyokage Monogatari" was meant to serve as Koremasa's literary representative, like the works of his relatives before and after him. It is also clear that it provides a contrast to both the "Ise Monogatari" and the "Heichuu Monogatari", which were centred on poets not belonging to the Fujiwara clan. We should not be surprised, then, to find that the behaviour of the protagonist is entirely in keeping with the norms of the Fujiwara-dominated society even a low-ranking clerk can find romance and success by virtue of his poetic abilities, without usurping the prerogatives of either the imperial or the Fujiwara clans. Unlike Narihira, Toyokage confines his attentions to his social equals without attempting to bed women set aside for the emperor; unlike Heichuu, he does not compete with any Fujiwara for the affections of courtesans; in short, he plays thoroughly by the rules of court society. Moreover, the majority of Koremasa's poems in "The Tales of Toyokage" are exchanged with the leading court poetesses Hon'in no Jijuu and Shohni Menoto, giving him cultural prestige by showing that he can, even as an amateur and a busy statesman, match the ability and wit of women who are essentially professionals.

There is one more piece of evidence that points towards "The Tales" having been written between 970 and 972, when Koremasa died, and that is Toyokage's practice of "politically safe sex" in contrast to Narihira. At the end of "The Tales" there is a reference to a man exchanging vows with a lady favoured by one of the imperial princes, with a poem recalling a notable one of Narihira's, while Toyokage's woman was Hon'in no Jijuu. She was the lover of Koremasa's brother Kanemichi, but Koremasa also had an affair with her which is revealed in the "Hon'in no Jijuu Collection", a work which gives a sympathetic account of her affair with Kanemichi, from whom she was "stolen" by Koremasa. It is stated that this affair took place in Kanemichi's youth, but he was now a Middle Counsellor, which he in fact was in 972. Why, then, did Kanemichi wait so long to have his romantic tale told? One possible explanation is that it was brought out in response to Koremasa's account of his affair, making it seem likely that this had been circulated not long before.

One more problem remained in the use of the word "okina", 'old man', to refer to Toyokage. Both Tamagami and Yamaguchi take this to suggest that Koremasa was an old man when he wrote "The Tales", but in fact he died at 49. It seems much more likely that this term was used in the same way as it was used of Narihira, to indicate that "The Tales of Toyokage" were to be read as his life story, just as the "Ise Monogatari" was Narihira's life story. At the same time, Koremasa's "Tales" were intended as a literary rebuttal to the "Ise Monogatari", designed to show that politically safe sex could also be fun. Koremasa's text celebrated himself, now become Regent, and demonstrated that "miyabi" was not the unique possession of those forced into exile, but belonged also to those who remained in the capital and functioned within the Fujiwara-dominated court.

A brief question time followed, and the meeting closed with a vote of thanks proposed by Mr. Aaron Cohen, before we adjourned to the lobby to enjoy a multifarious array of mouth-watering open sandwiches prepared by Mrs. Uta Schreck, "sake" donated as ever by Mr. Takeo Yamaoka, and wine remaining from a generous supply provided by Amway, Japan for a previous reception.
Adapted from "The Asiatic Society of Japan Bulletin No. 2", February 1995, compiled by Hugh Wilkinson.
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