Kafu Literature and the Performing World - Literary World and the Hanayanagi Circle from the Meiji Era to the Early Showa Era

Kafu Literature and the Performing World - Literary World and the Hanayanagi Circle from the Meiji Era to the Early Showa Era

Nagai Kafu's literature has always had the willow world as its backdrop. The "comprehensive record of geisha names" found in the documents was not merely a record of amusement, but part of a literary effort to record urban culture. Kafu depicted the atmosphere of the geisha, teahouses, and waiting rooms that adorned the Hanamachi district, and the desires and ties of the people who lived there.

At the time, the geisha world was the center of socializing and entertainment in Tokyo. The teahouse was a meeting place for customers and geisha, and the waiting area was a place to prepare for and enjoy the afterglow of the entertainment. These spaces were not merely places for fun, but also social places where human relationships and economics were intricately intertwined. Regular customers, or familiarity, supported the lives of geisha, and their relationships are symbolized by the words "color" and "familiarity. Flirtation and transference were depicted in literature as the inevitable fluctuations that occurred between customers and geisha.

Even more characteristic is the culture of "actor-buying. The act of patronizing a well-known actor at a playhouse and spending money on him has been a custom since the Edo period (1603-1868), when entertainment and amusement intersected. Through this "yakusha-buy", Kafu depicts the cultural magnetic field in which the performing arts and the willow world interact with each other.

The uniqueness of Kafu's literature lies in the fact that he recorded every detail of the reality of the geisha world without glorifying it, and sublimated it into literature. By writing down the names of geisha, leaving behind the words of teahouse wives, and faithfully capturing the interactions in the waiting room, Kafu attempted to convey to posterity the human drama that breathes in this corner of the city.

The connection with the literature of Higuchi Ichiyo is also important. Ichiyo also took as her subject matter the world of the common people in places like Shimotani and Hongo, and delicately depicted the daily lives of women. Kafu, while continuing the literary tradition, more directly depicts the willow world as the setting for his works. The literature of both writers is characterized by a gaze that focuses on women living in the lower strata of urban society, a true reflection of the social changes from the Meiji to the early Showa periods.

In the early Showa period, the Hanayagi world was still the core of culture, although it showed signs of decline. Geisha were not only the bearers of entertainment, but also became an integral part of literature and movies, and continued to support the popular culture of modern Japan. The entertainment world depicted in Kafu's literature was a microcosm of the urban society of the period and the intersection of human desire and the performing arts.