(合巻) is a variety of Japanese

woodblock printed Woodblock printing or block printing is a technique for printing text, images or patterns used widely throughout East Asia and originating in China in antiquity as a method of printing on textiles and later on paper. Each page or image is creat ...

literature under the broader category of picture books known as ' (草双紙) produced during the late

Edo period The , also known as the , is the period between 1600 or 1603 and 1868 in the history of Japan, when the country was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and some 300 regional ''daimyo'', or feudal lords. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengok ...

from circa 1805 to the late nineteenth century. It is a successor of (黄表紙), which featured adult themes that changed significantly in content and style following censorship imposed by the Kansei Reforms. However, in physical form and production much remained the same between the two, such as large images with whitespace filled with narrative text and dialogue composed largely of

kana are syllabary, syllabaries used to write Japanese phonology, Japanese phonological units, Mora (linguistics), morae. In current usage, ''kana'' most commonly refers to ''hiragana'' and ''katakana''. It can also refer to their ancestor , wh ...

. are typically much lengthier works than their predecessors, with the longest extant example being , which contains ninety chapters produced between 1849 and 1885. Because of the lengthy nature of the works, individual books were often gathered together and bound into larger volumes, which is reflected in the Japanese term for the genre (lit. "bound volume"). , along with the rest of the varieties, belong to the literary genre of Edo literature known as ''

gesaku is an alternative style, genre, or school of Japanese literature. 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, gesa ...

'' (戯作).

History

The first piece that explicitly utilizes the term is written by Shunsuitei Genkō. Although itself classified as a by the Waseda Classics Database, the complete story is a collection of ten books bound into a single volume as shown on the cover, giving a name to the new process. The first author who laid claim to the origination and proliferation of is

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 Writers of the Edo period {{Japan-writer-stub ...

. Although not the sole progenitor of , his work contributed to the staying power of the works in the coming decades. By far the most studied and best-selling example of is Ryūtei Tanehiko's . Published from 1829 until 1842 by Senkakudō, the story is a parody of

Murasaki Shikibu was a Japanese novelist, Japanese poetry#Age of Nyobo or court ladies, poet and lady-in-waiting at the Imperial Court in Kyoto, Imperial court in the Heian period. She was best known as the author of ''The Tale of Genji'', widely considered t ...

Tale of Genji Tale may refer to: * Narrative A narrative, story, or tale is any account of a series of related events or experiences, whether non-fictional (memoir, biography, news report, documentary, travel literature, travelogue, etc.) or fictional (fa ...

. The setting changes from the

Heian Period The is the last division of classical Japanese history, running from 794 to 1185. It followed the Nara period, beginning when the 50th emperor, Emperor Kammu, moved the capital of Japan to Heian-kyō (modern Kyoto). means in Japanese. It is a ...

to the

Muromachi Period The , also known as the , is a division of Japanese history running from approximately 1336 to 1573. The period marks the governance of the Muromachi or Ashikaga shogunate ( or ), which was officially established in 1338 by the first Muromachi ...

, with the titular Genji becoming Ashikaga Mitsuuji, the fictional son of

Ashikaga Yoshimasa "Ashikaga Yoshimasa" in ''Encyclopædia Britannica, The New Encyclopædia Britannica''. Chicago: Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 15th edn., 1992, Vol. 1, p. 625. was the eighth ''shōgun'' of the Ashikaga shogunate who reigned from 1449 to 1473 du ...

. By the

Meiji era The was an Japanese era name, era of History of Japan, Japanese history that extended from October 23, 1868, to July 30, 1912. The Meiji era was the first half of the Empire of Japan, when the Japanese people moved from being an isolated feu ...

, the production of was in significant decline due to the emergence and subsequent popularity of

newspaper A newspaper is a Periodical literature, periodical publication containing written News, information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray background. Newspapers can cover a wide variety of fields such as poli ...

serials. A notable late work was , written by

Kanagaki Robun was the pen name of (9 February 1829 – 8 November 1894), a Japanese author and journalist. Career Kanagaki Robun, the son of a fishmonger, was originally known for light fiction in the ''gesaku'' genre. He is said to have met painter K ...

. Initially serialized in his own , the work was quickly transferred over to the format for a lengthier and more in-depth story.Marran (2007: 4-5) This late flourishing of was primarily reserved for (毒婦) literature, outlining stories of murderous sensational women.

Notes

References

* * * * * * *{{cite book , last1=Marran , first1=Christine , title=Poison Woman: Figuring Female Transgression in Modern Japanese Culture , date=2007 , publisher=University of Minnesota Press , jstor=10.5749/j.ctttt1cn , isbn=978-0-8166-4727-9 , url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5749/j.ctttt1cn Edo-period works Gesaku Japanese art Japanese literature Japanese words and phrases