The first paragraph of “the Tale of the Heike,” that is one of the most popular medieval literature works in Japan, would be considered to be representative of an ethics. This very popular paragraph sounds as the statement that every strong power, such as the Heike, the ‘Taira’ samurai clan, is bound to eventually ruin themselves; The sound of Gion Shōja bells echoes the impermanence of all things; the color of sala flowers reveals the truth that the prosperous must decline. The proud do not endure, they are like a dream on a spring night; the mighty fall at last, they are as dust before the wind [the Tale of the Heike: 1.1]. It will sound to be that nothing is immortal, universal, and permanent, this mortal world appears to be meaningless. Many of Japanese people might see it as an essential ethics peculiar to Japan. They would think that “the Heike” is representative of the ethics. But, according to the form of “the Heike,” it is not absolutely true through the whole of this tale.

There is an introduction book of “the Tale of the Heike” written by Ishimoda Shō, who is Marxist, although he is strongly influenced also by Hegel’s philosophy, and would have been the most influential authority of medieval Japanese history. This introduction, that Ishimoda entitles the same name of “the Tale of the Heike,” finds that authors of “the Heike” — The medieval literature work had been, while handed down, written and rewritten many times by bards, monks, lower-aristocrats, and so on, it must be noted — , as discussed below, unconsciously describe Taira no Kiyomori, the tyranny leader of the Heike, the most powerful villain in this tale, as very attractive one. His own nature seems to be all opposed to the ethics that many of Japanese people would find out in “the Heike.” That the ethics would reside in most of these authors, Ishimoda does not reject, and, it’s certain that he should see it as a remarkable thesis of this epic; It would be shared among people who, through turbulent decades, had survived, says Ishimoda. But, Kiyomori, in the first part of ‘the Heike,’ shines greatly just as one of the main characters, even though they detail severely how wicked and greedy he is — Kiyomori in history was a great politician who, in form, subjected Japan to the Chinese dynasty Song and used Chinese money to build money-oriented-economy. The Taira samurai clan in Japan dominated the sea trade with China. And the opponent clan ‘Minamoto (Genji)’ was based on the agriculture of east Japan. If Carl Schmitt reads ‘the Heike,’ he will find out a conflict between maritime-merchant-capital and territorial-agriculture, namely, that between Leviathan and Behemoth, as his reading of Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” did — . These critics against Kiyomori seem to praise his intelligent son, Taira no Shigemori, and describe his personality to be ideal to themselves. Ishimoda would see Shigemori as a representation of the ethics that nobody avoids the inevitable; This historian, to find Kiyomori’s view of death to be completely different from Shigemori’s, prompts his readers; Since Shigemori had made the dire prediction that he and his clan were going to their doom, he, when his death became imminent, refused any treatment and shamanic healing, but Kiyomori is depicted, by the authors, as a character who, until the last second of his life, continued his struggle with ill of fever [(Ishimoda’s) ‘the Tale of the Heike’: 2.I]. It is necessary to find the difference between Kiyomori and Shigemori very clear. And the character of Shigemori is, as pointed out by Ishimoda, so ideological that the authors could not harmonize well him with this epic story; Author , in the matter of literature, often fails in shaping his ideal characters and one such example is Shigemori [(Ishimoda’s) ‘the Heike’: 1.II]. Therefore, the ethics symbolized by Shigemori, “the Heike” seems to fail to complete, and it would not be intended by these authors — This may recall yourself to postmodern criticism in which critic, without being bound by the intention of author, tries to grasp just text itself. He sure thinks that text basically betrays its author. But the theory Ishimoda would not know. It is necessary to note that his own text-critique should stem both from Hegel’s philosophy and from Marxism materialistic interpretation — . By contrast with Shigemori, Kiyomori is, beyond doubt, severely described as a very sinful person, but it seems to result in making this samurai tyrant extraordinarily prominent; Ishimoda says, It will be easy to find that Kiyomori is so carnal, optimistic, and attached to the land of the living that he should appear to be distinct in the whole of “the Tale of the Heike” [(Ishimoda’s) ‘the Heike’: 2.I]. Kiyomori must be beyond the ethical framework of ‘the Heike.’ And Ishimoda draws the conclude shown below:

Any person like Shigemori does not, at all, shape history and he does not make a hero of story. It is not until he does not become fatalistic, he gets attached to his mortal life, that he can become a main character of story, therefore, that “the Tale of the Heike” happens to emphasize Kiyomori who attempts to avoid the inevitable would be a necessary consequence of this story.

(Ishimoda’s) ‘the Tale of the Heike’: 2.I

Kiyomori has a strong presence, it causes that “the Heike” lacks unity, and the lack of unity is considered to be necessary in the term of ‘story.’ The idea ‘story’ — ‘monogatari’ in Japanese — to which Ishimoda refers, it is certain, should be completely combined with ‘history.’ Story is history. It is necessary to consider Ishimoda’s text-critique to be correlate to history. The form of “the Heike” represents the history of medieval Japan; “the Heike” is the first national literature, in his own view of Japanese literature, and “the Tale of Genji,” that some of literature readers consider as the first psychological novel in history, is not. “Genji,” since Motoori Norinaga, has been considered as a great achievement of kana-character-literature. Kana-character is, although originally built from Chinese-character, unique to Japan. Therefore, “Genji” is said to be representative of Japanese own culture and perfectly liberated from the influence of Chinese. Therefore, that we define Genji as the first national literature of Japan, it seems natural, but Ishimoda disagrees. In the first work of Ishimoda “the Formation of the Medieval World (Chūseiteki Sekai no Keisei),” although he takes the building of kana-character-literature highly as well, “Genji” does not perfectly mean the completion of cultural independence from China. The writing style of “Genji” that rejects imported words does not mean that the author could take imported culture objectively. Imported words, Buddhism terms and Chinese words, are effectively used in “the Heike.” The style of “the Heike” does not seem well-organized. This tale has culturally diverse writing styles.

That independence from Chinese culture means the transition that the language unique to this country became a literature language and it is one of the greatest legacies of that period to posterity […] As soon as thought and feeling could be freely expressed with its own language, it rapidly liberated the spirit constructed by men who had ever rather thought in Chinese language than expressed their own ideas in Chinese, and it immediately made a bloom of divers literature forms. “The Great Mirror” followed the form of Chinese history book and the fact meant that its author consciously found himself objective to Chinese history book; When authors could become unbound by Chinese culture, the culture prompted them to new creation. As the result, the delicate and contrasting writing style of Japanese character and the strong and accurate style of the fusion of Japanese and Chinese, that represented the duality of the Heian period aristocrat spirit, had been constructed to make a Japanese-styled-culture. From the later, the unique style of “the Tale of the Heike” should issue, in the term of its nature, it is certain, but the style is more amazingly rich, free, high-toned, and cadent. “The Heike” did not reject imported words, as kana-character-literature did, but positively and effectively used Buddhism terms and Chinese words to create its own writing style and the style highly improved the mixed style of Japanese and Chinese extremely undervalued and represented by “Konjaku Monogatarishū.” That highly development would be not only attributable to the nature peculiar to “the Heike,” but made by the cooperative producers of “the Heike” who consist of its divers class readers and listeners. That is to say, “the Heike” made a medieval literature and could complete the independence from Chinese culture that originated in the later Heian dynasty culture. The revolution of literature language, without the substantial conversion of literature and the critical transition of history, never occurs.

The Formation of the Medieval World: 4.2

“Genji” is, beyond doubt, a great work of kana-character-literature, but it does not prove “Genji” to be completely liberated from Chinese culture. “Genji” would be only an antithesis of Chinese style. But, in contrast, “the Heike” merges also Chinese-styled literature into itself. Here, it is necessary to note that Ishimoda founds his reading on Hegel’s philosophy, it is necessary to consider Chinese-styled literature as a token of the ancient regime of Japan under the influence of China, kana-character-literature as the opposite thesis, and “the Heike” as the sublation — That Hegel’s dialectic must be not only a logic but completely coupled with history as well , we, if referring to his reading of “Antigone” in “the Phenomenology of Mind,” can find. Note that Ishimoda never reduces texts into the grand story ‘history.’ Language has been ever built, destroyed, and rebuilt through human activity creating history. Ishimoda explicitly exposed that nothing distinguished literature language from history. It is necessary to carefully look at his describing many literal fabrics weaved of literature languages to be indivisibly united with history. And it would basically apply also to French text-critique, such as Roland Barthes. Both theorists, even though Ishimoda’s dialectical view of literature is, in many ways, different from Barthes’ view, when weighing language with nationality, certainly refer themselves to history.

Writing(écriture) appears, just when language is nationally constructed to make a kind of negativity, namely, just when, without asking itself the origin of its taboo and its rationalization, language becomes the horizon that makes the distinction between the banned and the allowed. Classical grammarians created super-time grounds to remove all linguistic problems from the French. And that purified language made a writing. That is to say, it made the value in language shown to be universal in response to a variety of historical phase.

Writing Degree Zero: II. the Triumph and Break-up of Bourgeois Writing

When the bourgeois era came to France, its language (or languages?) got strongly regulated down to build a modern national language and the national language made the universal framework of language in modern France, and the obviousness of language, nobody, excluding radical novelists and poets, such as Stéphane Mallarmé, had ever doubted. If nobody tracks language history back to the premodern time when nation was not firmly constructed, national language would appear only taken for granted. The national language framework could become severely criticized, just when the origin of language was historically asked themselves — The view of language and writing advanced by Barthes, even though it is influenced by Maurice Blanchot, sounds partly akin to Martin Heidegger. Of course, it is said that Blanchot’s theory has a lot of common with Heidegger’s, I know — . Barthes, if he knew the history of medieval Japanese literature, would not define “the Heike” as the first national literature in Japan. This textile is weaved of a diverse of writings. But “the Heike” would not be an original pattern of postmodern literature. The authors of “the Heike” do not share modern world with Mallarmé. The poet could be truly scared of white blank pages. His poetry was involved in modern publishing culture that the authors of “the Heike” had never known. It is very difficult to compare modern French literature with medieval Japanese literature in direct. But I can find “the Heike” close to Shakespeare. Shakespeare effectively used imported languages as well. He sometimes seems to feel the Leviathan era coming to Britain as pointed out by Schmitt; “Hamlet” describes the fall of Behemoth in Britain. The Taira clan was a son of Leviathan. You may think that Shakespeare is an original pattern of postmodern literature. I basically agree. But “the Heike” is not. They finally lost at the battle against Behemoth, the Minamoto clan.

posted by kimarx at: 16:20 | path: Japanese Literature | permanent link to this entry