Writing violence

• Verfasst von: Atherton, David C. [VerfasserIn]
• Titel: Writing violence
• Titelzusatz: the politics of form in early modern Japanese literature
• Verf.angabe: David C. Atherton
• Verlagsort: New York
• Verlag: Columbia University Press
• E-Jahr: 2023
• Jahr: [2023]
• Umfang: xiii, 294 Seiten
• Illustrationen: Illustrationen
• Fussnoten: Includes bibliographical references and index
• ISBN: 978-0-231-21155-0
• ISBN: 978-0-231-21154-3
• Schlagwörter: (g)Japan / (s)Gesellschaft / (s)Literatur / (s)Gewalt <Motiv> / (z)Geschichte 1600-1868
• Sprache: eng
• Bibliogr. Hinweis: Erscheint auch als : Online-Ausgabe: Atherton, David C: Writing violence. - New York : Columbia University Press, [2023]
• RVK-Notation: EI 4962
• K10plus-PPN: 1851674020

Abstract

"Offers a new approach for understanding the relationship between the formal features of Edo-period Japanese popular fiction and the social and political world beyond its pages. Those formal features, which include formulaicness, narrative modularity, typological characters, and strong intertextual engagement with literary tradition, can appear to hold the "real" world at arm's length, leaving scholars divided over how to understand the politics of commercial fiction-or whether we should seek a politics there at all. Atherton addresses this problem by expanding our understanding of form to encompass both the aesthetic and the social realms. Drawing connections between the formal features of fiction and the Edo period's deep investment in social and political formalization, he demonstrates fiction's power to intervene in the perception of the world: to alter the perception of time and space, make latent social and economic forces apprehensible, defamiliarize conventions, and give voice to socially peripheral persons. Atherton traces this argument through works by major writers like Asai Ryōi, Ihara Saikaku, Chikamatsu Monzaemon, Ueda Akinari, and Santō Kyōden, focusing on violence during the 250 years of peace ruled over by warriors that is the Edo period"--