The culture of play: kabuki and the production of texts
| Autor: | C. Andrew Gerstle |
|---|---|
| Rok vydání: | 2003 |
| Předmět: |
Cultural Studies
History media_common.quotation_subject Kabuki lcsh:GR1-950 The arts lcsh:Folklore lcsh:Chinese language and literature Reading (process) Haikai Narrative Composition (language) Earth-Surface Processes media_common Literature Poetry business.industry Orality Aristocracy (class) lcsh:PL1001-3208 Calligraphy Literary culture Performing arts business Drama |
| Zdroj: | Oral Tradition, Vol 20, Iss 2, Pp 188-216 (2005) |
| ISSN: | 1474-0699 0041-977X |
| Popis: | Japan is an interesting comparative point in the broader history of modes of reading and literary/artistic composition, and in understanding the role of performance in literary culture.2 It has a relatively long tradition of literary production in both popular and elite genres. The creation and survival of literary texts in manuscript and in woodblock print (commercial woodblock printing from the early 1600s to the 1870s) is also considerable, and the many types of extant literary texts-illustrated scrolls, poetry sheets, manuscripts, woodblock printed book genres-have been treasured as precious objects. Court culture, from as early as the seventh century, demanded high literacy (including the skill of composing poetry) from those who participated in the aristocracy and government. Reading and literary composition (including in Chinese) have continually been prized skills among the elite (courtiers, clergy, samurai, or merchants). As a consequence literacy rates have also been relatively high, particularly from the early modern Tokugawa period (1600-1868), and especially in the cities and towns. Along with this long history of the creation and preservation of literary texts as art objects, often with illustrations, we also see a culture that has consistently encouraged active participation in the arts, not only from the elites, but also at the popular level. This tendency to cherish physical texts as art objects (perhaps bolstered by the strong East Asian tradition of the high status of calligraphy as art), however, has not meant a diminishment of the importance of oral performance in literature. Ironically, the opposite seems to have been the case. 'Orality' has remained central in Japanese literary culture even at the most highly literate levels. This has usually meant participation in a group activity, a performance of some kind, in which the individual takes a turn at being the reader/interpreter (audience) and at being the creator (performer). As a consequence, performance has been a key element in the process of both literary composition and literary reception, whether this was in poetic, narrative or theatrical genres. The relationship between a performance (using the term in its broadest sense) and its physical representation is a fascinating subject, and an essential aspect of literary cultures throughout the world. In this article, I will make a case that performance has been a stimulant and a catalyst for the artistic production of physical objects, both visual and literary texts. Furthermore, I shall argue implicitly that it is more useful to consider such physical texts not simply as representations of performance. They, of course, may have been created directly in response to a performance, but as physical objects they became something entirely distinct and of a different genre. Such objects (texts) exist on their own and may serve various functions, one of the most important of which is to stimulate new performances. Another fundamental premise of this article is that a performance should also be viewed as a 'text', one that has a physical existence in sound and |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
| Externí odkaz: |
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