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Tragedy and Salvation in the Floating World: Chikamatsu's Double Suicide Drama as Millenarian Discourse |
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| Author |
Heine, Steven
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| Source |
The Journal of Asian Studies
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| Volume | v.53 n.2 |
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| Date | 1994.05 |
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| Pages | 367 - 393 |
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| Publisher | Association for Asian Studies |
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| Publisher Url |
https://www.asian-studies.org/
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| Location | Ann Arbor, MI, US [安娜堡, 密西根州, 美國] |
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| Content type | 期刊論文=Journal Article |
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| Language | 英文=English |
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| Note | 350 CONTAINS：bibliography; illustration(s) |
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| Keyword | Suicide in literature; Literature and society; Alienation (Social psychology); Buddhism and literature; Salvation in literature; Pure Land Buddhism; Chikamatsu, Monzaemon |
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| Abstract | STEVEN HEINE interprets the double suicides in the plays of Chikamatsu Monzaemon (1653-1725) as examples of Pure Land Buddhist millenarianism. For him, lovers' suicides (shinju) are acts of millenarian transcendence rather than the more familiar explanation in which double suicide is described as an extraordinary but unconvincing attempt to resolve conflicts between the lovers' social duty (giri) and their human passion (ninjo). These plays, based on actual incidents, were tremendously popular in the early eighteenth century and remain some of the most highly prized works of the Japanese literary canon. Heine focuses his attention on the question of what is accomplished through the lovers' suicide. He argues that previous explanations about these suicides have focused on explaining the social-Confucian elements while underplaying Chikamatsu's religious-Buddhist message. He characterizes the lovers in these plays as outcasts who can live neither in the Confucian-dominated Tokugawa social order nor in the anti-establishment "floating world" of the entertainment quarters. For him, the lovers' suicide constitutes a complete break with the prevailing order in which they choose to circumvent all forms of their present identities-both in the Tokugawa duty-bound social order and its opposite, the pleasure-driven "floating world"-to strive for a millenarian transcendence through Pure Land salvation. Heine emphasizes Chikamatsu's michiyuki scenes (literally, "traveling along a pathway") as evidence of the underlying millenarian nature of these plays. In these sequences, the lovers' words and actions reflect shamanistic folk practices of Japanese religion and, through recitation of the Buddha's name, accomplish salvation in Pure Land Buddhist terms for the protagonists in these powerful tragic dramas.
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| Table of contents | Significance of Double Suicide 367
Levels of Interpretation of Chikamatsu 373
The Main Elements of Millenarian Discourse 377
Alienation from Power 378
Redefining the Basis of Power 380
Endzeit as the Resolution of the Power Conflict 385
Conclusions 388
List of References 390
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| ISSN | 00219118 (P); 17520401 (E) |
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| Hits | 619 |
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| Created date | 1998.04.28
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| Modified date | 2020.03.30 |
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