RELIGION AND INTELLECTUAL THOUGHT IN TOKUGAWA LITERATURE: A DISCUSSION OF UEDA AKINARI’S UGETSU MONOGATARI

Abstract

In 1776, Ueda Akinari published his canonical work of fiction, Ugetsu Monogatari, an anthology of nine supernatural stories, which was widely enjoyed for its entertaining and didactic elements as it was for its exploration of human emotion. While there is extant literature examining Akinari as an author and the literary influences that drove him to create this work, the study of Ugetsu Monogatari itself as an expression of Akinari’s views on religion and intellectual thought during the Tokugawa period (1603-1868) has been largely overlooked in scholarship. In this dissertation, I argue that it is the combinatory paradigm of Buddhism, Confucianism and Shintō that prevailed during the Tokugawa period which created the framework for Akinari’s anthology. I posit that Ugetsu Monogatari contains crucial clues to Akinari’s standpoint on religion, society, and gender. The anthology also merits study as one of the earliest of Akinari’s works that hints at his transformation into a scholar of National Learning, whose aim was to rediscover the essence of the Japanese identity in ancient Japanese scholarship.