18世紀、 大坂における文人詩社の変遷 菅甘谷塾から蒹葭堂会、そして混沌社へ

Abstract

This paper reexamines changes in literary societies in 18th-century Osaka, with a focus on the background factors leading to the formation of the Kontonsha. More specifically, I will pay attention to the Kontonsha’s relationships to the following organizations: the school of the Confucian scholar Kan Kankoku, and the Kenkado-kai, a literary society active later. Kontonsha was a literary society established in 1765 (in the old Japanese lunar calendar) under the leadership of Confucian scholar Katayama Hokkai and was one of the major meeting places for literary people of the time in Osaka. Researching the Kontonsha is crucial to understanding the state of literary societies in modern Japan since the late 18th century, as well as their diversity. The first section demonstrates how the Confucianism underpinning the conception and development of both the Kenkado-kai and Kontonsha societies, as well as their members’ crossing of the boundaries of student and teacher through free interaction, helped to drive the creation of future literary societies. The second section compares the different societies’ meetings, highlighting the distinct character of each literary society while simultaneously tracing what the activities and interactions of these societies were like and how they changed leading up to the formation of the Kontonsha. The third section draws on the poems recorded in materials such as Naniwa Konton Shishashu and Kenka Gashuzu to consider the possibility that the characteristics of the Kontonsha were already defined prior to its formation. In this section, I also focus on the way the groups of literary people gathered in these societies had interests and talents in a wide variety of areas, rather than being limited to Chinese-style poetry. Through this framework, I was able to reexamine how a certain way of life took root for these members with diverse literary interests, and how this was a driving force behind the changes in literary societies’ activities in modern Japan.