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The status of manuscripts and printed books

In this lecture, we will explore how the spread of printing affected the relationship between manuscripts and printed books.

Books come in two main types: handwritten books (shahon in Japanese) and printed books (kanpon). In this video, we will explore how the spread of printing affected the relationship between manuscripts and printed books.

In the video, Professor Ichinohe will introduce excerpts from two Edo-period texts. You’ll find the original Japanese text for each reproduced below, along with English translations, to enable you to take a closer look:

Example 1 : The story of a man who tried to borrow a copy of the Tale of Genji from a tayū

Shoen ōkagami (The Great Mirror of Beauties: Son of an Amorous Man, 1684) by Ihara Saikaku (1642-1693)

(Original)
むつかしきは太夫の身也。有時、物覚のよはき人、「「わりなきは情の道」と書きしは、柏木の巻にはなき」とあらそひ、去太夫殿へ、源氏物語を借(かり)に遣しけるに、其まゝ湖月おくられて、即座に其埒(らち)もあけしに、此本を見て、「さてもさても此里の太夫もすゑになるかな。むかしは名の有御筆の哥書を、揃へて持ぬはなし。板本つかはされて、物事(ものごと)あさまになりぬ。

(English Translation)
It is hard to be a tayū [senior courtesan]! Once, a man of feeble memory was having an argument about whether the phrase “love is the most irrational of all pursuits” appears in the “Kashiwagi” [The Oak Tree] chapter of the Tale of Genji. He dispatched someone to the house of a tayū to fetch a copy of the Genji. The man returned with a copy of the Kogetsushō. Having settled the dispute, the forgetful man said: “The tayū of this area are no longer what they used to be! In the olden days, a tayū would have owned a full library of the finest books in the hand of famous calligraphers. To send one of these printed books—how crude!”

Example 2 : A waka poet is proud of having personally copied the Kokinshū three times

Kokinshūshō no oku ni kakeru kotoba (A postface to the Kokinshūshō, 1742) by Katō Enao (1693-1785)

（Original）
今世に證本といふものは、定家卿貞応二年老の手づから筆を染たまひしなり。又嘉禄二年に書給ひしも有とぞ。古人の常に深切なるをしるべし。今民間の歌よむ人、板行の古今一部もちたれば、自筆にうつす事はせぬにや。今の世にも常にすける人は、荻生何がし儒学者にて有しが、文選をほぐのうらに三度うつしたるなり。すける人はかくこそ有けれとはげまされて、をのれもすでに古今集を書写する事三度に及べり。

(English Translation)
The trustworthy texts [of the Kokinshū] today are the ones that the aging Lord Teika copied late in his life, in Jōō 2 [1223] and Karoku 2 [1226]. Poets of commoner stock today feel that if they own a printed version of the Kokin wakashū, they don’t need to make their own copy of it. But even today true connoisseurs do not stop at that. For example, the Confucian scholar Ogyū Sorai [1666-1728] is said to have copied the Wenxuan[Literary Selections, c. 520] three times in his personal notebooks. That is what one must do if one is serious about art, and that is why I have already copied the Kokinshū three times myself.