Posted by DJM on January 06, 1999 at 14:38:56:
In Reply to: Re:Senchô title translation posted by Hans Olof Johansson on January 06, 1999 at 11:22:31:
Hi Hans,
Wow, we have all kinds of possibilities here now. And this dicussion is working its way off the page!
I'm as lost in this as any of us, but I still think the senryu poetry possibility is the strongest. I pulled out my copy of a print from this set and found--voila!--a senryu poem written on the ground. The comic figures suggest the senryu atmosphere as well.
I never even thought of the Izumi school, but that's an interesting connection. The comic figures in my copy from this set show a courtesan with her kamuro, which doesn't seem like any traditional kyogen I've heard of, unless kyogen is being used in the broader sense (which wouldn't fit with the Izumi school I guess.)
John's right about the "ryu" of senryu meaning fashionable, but that usually goes with "ryuko". I've never seen it with "sen". Also, to get "Fountainhead of fashion" I think the characters would need to be reversed ("ryusen"). The nuance of "fashionable" is no doubt there though.
Mysteries unending!
Dan
(Yes, I'm afraid so. THAT Dan.)
: John,
: Somehow I feel that, on this issue, I have lured you from the shallow waters of scholarship out into the deep sea of speculation. Your exposition is brilliant as usual, though, and I believe that you have covered most of what could be said without actually asking Senchô what on earth he meant.
: I just want to add one other possibility. The two characters that we are discussing could also be read as Izumi-ryû, "the Izumi school". This was, and still is, one of the leading schools of kyôgen.Suppose that the book depicted isn't a book of senryû at all, but a book illustrating the kyôgen of the Izumi school. Then we would have the title Keisei Izumi-ryû awase, "A Comparison of Courtesans with (the Kyôgen of) the Izumi School". I don't really believe this, but until we have identified the actual book, we cannot be absolutely sure.
: The inherent ambiguities of the Japanese language itself, is of course the root of all this, and we would probably have to walk the streets of 19th century Edo, listen to the edokko talking to each other, reading the popular books of the day, watching the kabuki plays, etc, to even begin to understand the "floating world" of these prints, where sometimes everything seems to be something else, as well.
: All these overtones, conveyed for instance by the seemingly coincidental exchange of one kanji character for another, don't always have to be calculated or even intentional. They may have been a more or less subconscious part of the creative process in a society, where the writers and artists always had to find new ways to outsmart the censors of the shogunate.
: Looking for references on ateji, that DJM mentioned (Thanks, DJM, for a long and stimulating wild-goose chase - do you happen to have any good references?), I came across an interesting piece of information, by the way. One of the alternative writings of the name Fuji literally means "immortality". The classical poets are certainly immortal, and so are ghosts, in a slightly different way. Yes, I'm trying to lure you further out into the ocean, John, but you didn't fall for that, did you? Still, it may be another clue...
: Joking apart, I have to mention a translation that in my humble opinion is ingenious: "One Hundred Phases of the Moon" for Tsuki hyakushi. It was used by Richard Illing in his Japanese Prints (Phaidon 1976), and possibly by others too. To me, this translation is far more Japanese than the literal ones, using words like "aspects" or "views".
: By the way, did you ever read my comments on another awase series, Murasaki Shibiku Genji kai awase (Kunisada II), literally meaning "A Comparison of Murasaki Shibiku's Genji to Shells"? I never got any reaction, and it would be interesting to get your view on this, as well.
: Best regards,
: Hans Olof