The was a genre and type of early modern

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

ese

novel A novel is a relatively long work of narrative fiction, typically written in prose and published as a book. The present English word for a long work of prose fiction derives from the for "new", "news", or "short story of something new", itsel ...

. It came into being late in the

Edo period The or is the period between 1603 and 1867 in the history of Japan, when Japan was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and the country's 300 regional '' daimyo''. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengoku period, the Edo period was characteriz ...

during the 19th century. As a genre, it depicted the comical behavior occurring in commoners' daily lives. The ''kokkeibon'' genre is the successor of the ''

dangibon The was a pre-modern Japanese literary genre. Texts were written in a humorous, satirical sermon-style with the purpose of educating the masses. It is type of gesaku. Developments and are credited with establishing the early foundations upon w ...

'' genre.

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 ...

's ''

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 ro ...

'' (1802–1822) is identified as the first representative novel. A less strict definition includes the ''dangibon'' as an "early ''kokkeibon''". ''Kokkeibon'' generally consists of dialogue among the main characters and includes illustrations. The genre was most popular between 1804 and 1830, and is most representative by the works of Jippensha Ikku and

Shikitei Sanba , better known by his pen name , was a Japanese comic writer of the Edo period. Major works *''Ukiyoburo'' *''Ukiyodoko'' References

1776 births 1822 deaths Japanese writers of the Edo period {{Japan-writer-stub ...

References

* * Edo-period works Gesaku Japanese literature {{Japan-lit-stub

See also

References