Shikitei Sanba and the Comic Tradition in Edo Fiction

Book excerpt: The last decades of the eighteenth century gave rise to an explosion of literary activity in Edo (now Tokyo) that lasted until the mid-nineteenth century, with an army of writers producing prodigious quantities of fiction. This study traces the life and literary career of Shikitei Sanba (1776-1882), a writer in the mainstream of that generation, the author of more than one hundred works of fiction, many in comic veins. This book-length critical treatment of a major writer of gesaku(playful compositions) is a welcome breakthrough, since Samba's life, his era of literary activity, and the popular genres in which he worked have received scant treatment in English. Robert Leutner describes Sanba as a representative writer within a literary scene shifting from amateur to professional and becoming increasingly commercial. The text is enhanced by Leutner's translations of excerpts from Sanba's various writings and culminates in two long passages in original translations, fully annotated, of Ukiyoburo, "The Bathhouse of the Floating World," one of Sanba's best-known works. In "The Men's Bath" and "The Women's Bath" readers will encounter an array of Edo types. Their informal conversations convey the qualities of humor, the sociological characteristics, and much of the flavor of life in Sanba's Edo.