Online Lecture On Edo Period (Outline):

I. Intro to the Edo/Tokugawa period (1603-1868)

A. Politics

1. 1467 (Onin Wars) to 1615 perpetual civil war between powerful samurai clans ("Warring States Period")


2. Toyotomi Hideyoshi takes control of the country in 1582, but dies in 1598, leaving his infant son, Toyotomi Hideyori, to be Shogun; his former retainer Tokugawa Ieyasu takes control of the country with the Battle of Sekigahara (1600) and is appointed Shogun in 1603; in 1614-15 Ieyasu completely consolidates his control with the siege of Osaka Castle; with the fall of the castle, Ieyasu forces Hideyori to commit seppuku.

3. Tokugawa clan controls the country from 1615 to 1868, when the Meiji "restoration" of the Japanese emperor occurs.

B. Religion
1. Away from Buddhism towards Neo-Confucianism

a. Hierarchy of roles originating in the basic notion of filial piety
b. Four class system

1) Samurai
2) Peasants
3) Artisans
4) Merchants
5) outside the system: emperor and court aristocracy; religious figures; doctors;
actors and prostitutes; other outcaste groups

c. Destruction of major Pure Land Buddhist temple in Osaka (same time as the siege of Osaka Castle); 15,000 people died

d. 1639: Seclusion of the country (country closed to foreigners, persecution of Christian converts)

C. Economics

1. Mercantile urban economy flourishes
2. Growth of merchant class
3. Position of samurai as salaried government administrators (bureaucrats)

D. If samurai can no longer fight, what can they use to defend their claim to be the appropriate
rulers of the country?

1. "Code of the Samurai" (Bushidô) develops

2. Tension between merchants and samurai

a. fixed rice stipend and inflation causes samurai to get in debt to merchants

b. government periodically cancels the samurai debt

3. Righteous vendettas

a. Neo-Confucianism versus Buddhist ideas about passionate attachment

b. sympathy of audience

E. Audience and Patronage
1. New genres
a. popular fiction (17th-18th c.)
b. Kabuki/Bunraku theater (18th-19th c., most ghost stories 19th c.)
c. woodblock prints (18-19th c.)


2. Who was the audience/patron for these genres?

3. What was the main goal?

a.

b.

4. How (and why) did samurai Neo-Confucian values affect stories?

a. Censorship, eg. "Reward the good, Punish the evil" (but level of censorship changes over time)