Genre, secrecy and the book: A history of late medieval and early modern literary scholarship on 'Ise monogatari'

This dissertation uses fifteenth through twentieth century commentaries on Ise monogatari (Tales of Ise) as the vehicle for a cultural history that explores the production, consumption and social value of literary knowledge. I examine the social networks and institutions within which literary scholarship was conducted, how these evolved as the audience for classical literature expanded beyond aristocratic circles to include other social groups, and the impact of print technology and publishing on the circulation and reception of the classics. At the same time, I analyze shifts in how Ise monogatari was read, paying particular attention to the commentators' changing perceptions of the genre with which the text is most closely aligned (history, fiction or poetry collection) and their handling of the text's erotic content.; The first chapter discusses aspects of the relationship between genre and exegesis, sets out characteristics of commentary as a discursive practice, and gives essential information about Ise monogatari and its formation. Chapter 2 examines the culture of secret teachings within which court scholars produced commentaries on the text in the late 15th and 16th centuries, and the implications of their preliminary recognition of Ise monogatari as at least partly fictitious. Chapter 3 turns to the dramatic changes in the production and circulation of Ise monogatari commentaries brought about by the rise of print capitalism in the 17th century, tying the reconfiguration of text and commentary on the printed page to re-evaluations of earlier scholarship and its methods as well as to the pursuit of new markets. Chapter 4 discusses the work of 18th and early 19th century nativist scholars, who deplored early aristocratic scholars' secretiveness and lack of philological rigor, and promoted study of the vernacular literary canon as a repository of national identity. The dissertation concludes with an epilogue concerning the creation of the generic category utamonogatari, or "poem-tale" to contain Ise monogatari in the modern period as part of an effort to create genealogies of narrative kinds that led smoothly to the modern novel.