Virgin Purity Assailed By Scurrilous Rumors: Interpreting Hakkenden in Meiji Japan

n this talk, Walley (University of Oregon) will be exploring a significant case of interpretation of Eight Dogs by Meiji writer Kitamura Tōkoku (1868-94).

Eight Dogs (Hakkenden, serialized 1814-1842) by Kyokutei Bakin (1767-1848) was one of the mid-19th century’s most popular and influential novels. In this talk, Walley (University of Oregon) will be exploring a significant case of interpretation of Eight Dogs by Meiji writer Kitamura Tōkoku (1868-94). In an essay entitled “Virgin Purity,” written for a magazine aimed at young women, he holds up one of the novel’s protagonists as a paragon of chastity, integrity, and virtue. Ironically, however, his essay was inspired by a popular tradition of reading this character in precisely the opposite way – a tradition alluded to in the very pages of the magazine for which he was writing. The tension underlying Tōkoku’s essay highlights the problematics of interpreting popular fiction in late 19th century Japan. Can didactic stories be entertaining? Can entertaining stories be morally edifying and intellectually respectable? How do we decide?

Bio
Glynne Walley is Assistant Professor of Japanese Literature at the University of Oregon. He received his PhD from Harvard University in 2009. He specializes in popular fiction of the late 18th and early 19th centuries, and is currently working on a book-length study of Eight Dogs (Hakkenden), a masterpiece of the early 19th century Japanese novel. He has also translated several works of contemp