546:"In view of our years of intimacy, I am deeply hurt that you should hesitate to die with me. Lest it prove to be a barrier to my salvation in the next life, I decided to include in this final testament all of the grudges against you that have accumulated in me since we first met. First: I made my way at night to your distant residence a total of 327 times over the past three years. Not once did I fail to encounter trouble of some kind. To avoid detection by patrols making their nightly rounds, I disguised myself as a servant and hid my face behind my sleeve, or hobbled along with a cane and lantern dressed like a priest. No one knows the lengths I went to in order to meet you!" —Ihara Saikaku,
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537:"Men take their misfortunes to heart, and keep them there. A gambler does not talk about his losses; the frequenter of brothels, who finds his favorite engaged by another, pretends to be just as well off without her; the professional street-brawler is quiet about the fights he has lost; and a merchant who speculates on goods will conceal the losses he may suffer. All act as one who steps on dog dung in the dark." —Ihara Saikaku,
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232:
Shortly after his wife's death, the grief-stricken
Saikaku decided to become a lay monk and began to travel all across Japan, thus leaving behind his three children (one of whom was blind) to be cared for by his extended family and his business by his employees. He started his travels after the death
220:
In 1673 he changed his pen name to
Saikaku. However, the death of his dearly beloved wife in 1675 had an extremely profound impact on him. A few days after her death, in an act of grief and true love, Saikaku started to compose a thousand-verse haikai poem over twelve hours. When this work was
178:. Scholars have described numerous extraordinary feats of solo haikai composition at one sitting; most famously, over the course of a single day and night in 1677, Saikaku is reported to have composed at least 16,000 haikai stanzas, with some sources placing the number at over 23,500 stanzas.
229:). It was the first time that Saikaku had attempted to compose such a lengthy piece of literature. The overall experience and success that Saikaku received from composing such a mammoth exercise has been credited with sparking the writer's interest in writing novels.
213:(linked verse). In 1662 at the age of twenty he became a haikai master. Under the pen name Ihara Kakuei, he began to establish himself as a popular haikai poet. By 1670 he had developed his own distinctive style, using colloquial language to depict contemporary
236:
In 1677 Saikaku returned to Osaka and had learned of the success his thousand-verse haikai poem had received. From then on he pursued a career as a professional writer. Initially
Saikaku continued to produce haikai poetry, but by 1682 he had published
244:
As
Saikaku's popularity and readership began to increase and expand across Japan, so did the amount of literature he published. When he died in 1693, at the age of fifty-one, Saikaku was one of the most popular writers of the entire
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185:. These stories catered to the whims of the newly prominent merchant class, whose tastes of entertainment leaned toward the arts and pleasure districts.
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Later in life he began writing racy accounts of the financial and amorous affairs of the merchant class and the
253:. Nevertheless, Saikaku's work is now celebrated for its significance in the development of Japanese fiction.
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Ihara
Saikaku was born in 1642 into a well-off merchant family in Osaka. From the age of fifteen he composed
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Paul Gordon
Schalow, translator, "The Great Mirror of Male Love" (Stanford University Press, 1990).
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Anthology of
Japanese literature, from the Earliest Era to the Mid-Nineteenth Century
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31:
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Japanese Death Poems: Written by Zen Monks and Haiku Poets on the Verge of Death
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life. During this time he owned and ran a medium-sized business in Osaka.
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570:(a selection of stories by Ihara translated into English via French)
717:
Barrow, Terence (April 2007) . "Introduction to the New
Edition".
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Born as
Hirayama Tōgo (平山藤五), the son of a wealthy merchant in
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The
Princeton Companion to Classical Japanese Literature
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poetry under Matsunaga Teitoku and later studied under
623:(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985), 167.
619:Earl Miner, Hiroko Odagiri, and Robert E. Morrell,
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The Great Mirror of Beauties: Son of an Amorous Man
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241:, the first of his many works of prose fiction.
575:The Life of an Amorous Woman and Other Writings
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539:What the Seasons Brought to the Almanac-Maker
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458:Reckonings that Carry Men Through the World
585:Stubbs, David C. and Takatsuka, Masanori,
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91:September 9, 1693 (aged 50–51)
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661:A Reader's Guide to Japanese Literature
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798:Japanese writers of the Edo period
555:Selected translations into English
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416:Twenty Cases of Unfilial Children
310:Kōshoku Nidai Otoko Shoen Okagami
663:. Kodansha International, 1988.
643:(Tuttle Publishing, 1998), 274.
491:Transmission of the Martial Arts
223:Haikai Single Day Thousand Verse
61:
808:17th-century Japanese novelists
436:The Eternal Storehouse of Japan
378:(The Encyclopedia of Male Love)
548:Love Letter Sent in a Sea Bass
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773:The Great Mirror of Male Love
581:The Great Mirror of Male Love
376:The Great Mirror of Male Love
720:Comrade Loves of the Samurai
568:Comrade Loves of the Samurai
341:The Life of an Amorous Woman
197:Statue of Ihara Saikaku, in
174:of poetry, which emphasized
813:17th-century Japanese poets
560:de Bary, William Theodore,
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151:" genre of Japanese prose (
138:, 1642 – September 9, 1693)
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684:(Grove Press, 1955), 350.
361:(made into the 1952 movie
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239:The Life of an Amorous Man
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562:Five Women Who Loved Love
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67:Portrait of Ihara Saikaku
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227:Haikai Dokugin Ichinichi
221:published it was called
600:Encyclopædia Britannica
233:of his blind daughter.
579:Schalow, Paul Gordon,
511:Tales of Samurai Honor
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290:Kōshoku Ichidai Otoko
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523:Buke Giri Monogatari
356:Kōshoku Ichidai Onna
147:and creator of the "
76:Hirayama Togo (平山藤五)
680:Donald Keene, ed.,
587:This Scheming World
566:Mathers, E. Powys,
462:This Scheming World
162:, he first studied
803:Writers from Osaka
332:Kōshoku Gonin Onna
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199:Ikukunitama Shrine
176:comic linked verse
738:978-4-8053-0771-7
731:. pp. ix–x.
729:Tuttle Publishing
690:978-0-8021-5058-5
659:Rimer, Thomas J.
364:The Life of Oharu
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32:Japanese name
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747:. Retrieved
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793:1693 deaths
788:1642 births
153:ukiyo-zōshi
121:Ukiyo-zōshi
782:Categories
607:References
304:好色二代男 諸艶大鏡
101:Occupation
410:) stories
189:Biography
183:demimonde
762:See also
749:22 March
142:Japanese
30:In this
725:Vermont
593:Sources
526:, 1688)
506:, 1687)
479:, 1692)
453:, 1688)
431:, 1686)
395:, 1687)
359:, 1686)
335:, 1685)
313:, 1684)
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170:of the
96:, Japan
83:, Japan
36:surname
18:Saikaku
735:
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550:(1687)
541:(1686)
517:武家義理物語
422:本朝二十不孝
407:chōnin
251:chōnin
215:chōnin
164:haikai
140:was a
104:Writer
34:, the
768:Shudo
497:武道伝来記
469:世間胸算用
443:日本永代蔵
349:好色一代女
325:好色五人女
283:好色一代男
257:Works
203:Osaka
160:Osaka
135:井原 西鶴
109:Genre
94:Osaka
81:Osaka
53:井原 西鶴
40:Ihara
751:2011
733:ISBN
702:ISBN
686:ISBN
665:ISBN
645:ISBN
625:ISBN
385:男色大鑑
145:poet
88:Died
78:1642
73:Born
671:p66
460:or
367:by
155:).
38:is
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