is an alternative style, genre, or school of

Japanese literature Japanese literature throughout most of its history has been influenced by cultural contact with neighboring Asian literatures, most notably China and its literature. Early texts were often written in pure Classical Chinese or , a Chinese-Japanes ...

. In the simplest contemporary sense, any literary work of a playful, mocking, joking, silly or frivolous nature may be called gesaku. Unlike predecessors in the literary field, gesaku writers did not strive for beauty and perfect form in their writings, but rather for popular acceptance. Gesaku writers were dependent on making a living by sale of their books. Like popular magazines and books of the 21st century, their product was aimed at as wide a public as possible. When a book was successful it was usually followed by as many sequels as the audience would tolerate. A very popular humorous variety of gesaku fiction was ''

Tōkaidōchū Hizakurige , abbreviated as ''Hizakurige'' and known in translation as ''Shank's Mare'', is a comic picaresque novel ( kokkeibon) written by Jippensha Ikku (十返舎一九, 1765–1831) about the misadventures of two travelers on the Tōkaidō, the main ...

'' by

Jippensha Ikku was the pen name of Shigeta Sadakazu (重田貞一), a Japanese writer active during the late Edo period of Japan. He was among the most prolific writers of the late Edo period — between 1795 and 1801 he wrote a minimum of twenty novels ...

, the story of the travels and

slapstick Slapstick is a style of humor involving exaggerated physical activity that exceeds the boundaries of normal physical comedy. Slapstick may involve both intentional violence and violence by mishap, often resulting from inept use of props such a ...

adventures of two carefree men from Edo along the Tokaido, the broad highway between

Kyoto Kyoto (; Japanese: , ''Kyōto'' ), officially , is the capital city of Kyoto Prefecture in Japan. Located in the Kansai region on the island of Honshu, Kyoto forms a part of the Keihanshin metropolitan area along with Osaka and Kobe. , the ci ...

and Edo. Historically, a specific group of late-Edo period Japanese writers whose work reflected a playful style, a joking and perhaps cynical voice, and disaffection with conventional norms, came to be called gesaku.

References

* Japanese literature {{Japan-lit-stub