Posted by Hans Olof Johansson on January 07, 1999 at 15:00:43:
In Reply to: Re:Translation/Shells/Another Non-Ghost Subj posted by John Fiorillo on January 06, 1999 at 19:49:26:
John,
This may indeed seem like a narrowly focused discussion, and the ground we have covered is perhaps only from "Who knows more?" to "Who speculates most?". Presumably, Gary's finger is on the delete button again.
However, to get the broader perspective, we have to get down to details also. I think this has been a most illuminating discussion so far, even if we haven't arrived at any decisive solution. "I'm still confused, but on a higher level", to use a familiar expression once again.
Obviously, you misinterpreted my latest suggestion. I wrote "Senchô style", not "Senryû style". Having slept on it, I now think this is the most compelling explanation for the choice of characters, so far. It would implicate, though, that Senchô himself illustrated the book of senryû depicted, of course, and this remains to be determined.
Using the first character of a name as an abbreviation was common practice; we see it all the time in publishers' and woodcarvers' marks, for instance. Ryû is a very common suffix, meaning "style, fashion, type, form, manner, school, system; class, order, rate, rank, grade" (according to Nelson's character dictionary). In print titles we see it frequently in fûryû, "elegant, refined".
We must, of course, keep in mind that senryû in Keisei senryû awase literally refers to the book of comical poems. (After Dan's observations, I believe that to be a fairly safe assumption.) The literal meaning of awase is "putting two things together" - either two of a kind, as in kai-awase ("putting two shells together"), or two things of different kinds, in this case keisei (courtesans in the foreground of the prints) and senryû (comical poems in the background).
In my opinion, there are two or three weaknesses in your suggested explanation of the choice of characters for senryû. The order of the characters is perhaps not very important, as they must spell senryû to represent the comical poems, but it would seem like something of a flaw, especially if we cannot find other examples of either senryû or ryûsen being used in the sense you suggest.
The decisive weakness, however, concerns the very structure of the awase expression and its relation to the elements of the picture. "A comparison of courtesans to sources of fashion" would certainly imply that the book of comical poems is seen as the source of fashion, and this seems highly unlikely to me. If, on the other hand, the "source of fashion" alludes to the courtesan, it's on the wrong side of the fence, with a lack of elegance one wouldn't really expect from Senchô.
My own theory falls flat, of course, the moment someone finds the actual book and determines that the illustrator isn't Senchô at all.Until then I think I'll stick to it, though. Anyway, I would appreciate if all ehon collectors out there could have a look around and try to identify the book of senryû depicted in the background of this print:
It would be an easier task, if Dan had his print scanned and posted as well, but I realise that after what you both have said about scanning of ukiyo-e in another chat on this site, asking him to put the print on the scanner would probably be like asking him to tear it to pieces or burn it.
By the way, does anybody know of any Japanese online library catalogues, where one could expect to find this kind of books?
Best regards,
Hans Olof