1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910483534103321

Autore

Groemer Gerald

Titolo

Portraits of Edo and Early Modern Japan [[electronic resource] ] : The Shogun’s Capital in Zuihitsu Writings, 1657–1855 / / by Gerald Groemer

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Singapore : , : Springer Singapore : , : Imprint : Palgrave Macmillan, , 2019

ISBN

981-13-7376-0

Edizione

[1st ed. 2019.]

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (XXIX, 372 p. 109 illus.)

Disciplina

952

Soggetti

Japan—History

Oriental literature

Cities and towns—History

History of Japan

Asian Literature

Urban History

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Nota di contenuto

Introduction: Reading the Edo Zuihitsu -- An Eastern Stirrup: The Great Fire of 1657 (Musashi abumi) -- Tales of Long, Long Ago: Recollections of Seventeenth-Century Edo (Mukashi-mukashi monogatari) -- The River of Time: Life in Eighteenth-century Edo (Asukagawa) -- The Spider’s Reel: Traces of the Tenmei Period (1781-1789) (Kumo no itomaki) -- Disaster Days: The Great Earthquake of 1855 (Nai no hinami).

Sommario/riassunto

This volume presents a series of five portraits of Edo, the central region of urban space today known as Tokyo, from the great fire of 1657 to the devastating earthquake of 1855. This book endeavors to allow Edo, or at least some of the voices that constituted Edo, to do most of the speaking. These voices become audible in the work of five Japanese eye-witness observers, who notated what they saw, heard, felt, tasted, experienced, and remembered. “An Eastern Stirrup,” presents a vivid portrait of the great conflagration of 1657 that nearly wiped out the city. “Tales of Long Long Ago,” details seventeenth-century warrior-



class ways as depicted by a particularly conservative samurai. “The River of Time,” describes the city and its flourishing cultural and economic development during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. “The Spider’s Reel” looks back at both the attainments and calamities of Edo in the 1780s. Finally, “Disaster Days,” offers a meticulous account of Edo life among the ruins of the catastrophic 1855 tremor. Read in sequence, these five pieces offer a unique “insider’s perspective” on the city of Edo and early modern Japan. .