Philology for an Enchanted World: Motoori Norinaga and the Study of Japanese Language and Literature in Early Modern Japan

Abstract This article focuses on a pioneering figure in the philological study of language and literature in early modern Japan, Motoori Norinaga 本居宣長 (1730–1801). In his studies of Japan’s “ancient Way,” Norinaga describes the correct understanding of the syntactical elements of the ancient Japanese language as a way to restore a lost sense of the world as enchanted, the abode of powerful presences known as kami. For Norinaga, the study of Japan’s ancient literature and language was thus situated within a broader interpretive framework. This article will show how philology contributed to the configuration of this framework as the method by which the disciplined individual was empowered to retrieve a lost sense of enchantment. As such, it takes the position that Norinaga’s philological restoration of enchantment is best understood as a re-enchantment, an attempt to transcend (early) modern disenchantment.

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Nichiren and his nationalistic eschatology

Religious Studies ◽

10.1017/s0034412500011057 ◽

1979 ◽

Vol 15 (1) ◽

pp. 41-53

Author(s):

Takashi James Kodera

Keyword(s):

World War Ii ◽

Early Modern ◽

World War ◽

Early Modern Japan ◽

The World ◽

Salient Features ◽

Modern Japan

A noticeable number of contemporary Japanese intellectuals have associated Nichiren (1222–82) with intolerant nationalism and henceforth have viewed him with an air of aloofness, if not of contempt. For these intellectuals, who have come to denounce nationalism and patriotism as a dangerous ideology that led Japan to the tragedy of World War II, Nichiren's passion for Japan runs counter to their decided preference for a man more cosmopolitan in taste, even a man critical of Japan. It is true that the followers of Nichiren attempted to promote Nichiren as a patriotic Buddhist when ultra-nationalistic fervour was steadily advancing Japan as a formidable power in the world through her victory in the Sino-Japanese War in 1895 and the Russo-Japanese War a decade later.1 The image of Nichiren presented by his ultra-nationalistic followers in early modern Japan and by contemporary intellectuals continues to obscure Nichiren's own teaching. The present paper probes Nichiren's attitude toward Japan in the context of his messianic view of history, which constitutes one of the most salient features of Nichiren's teaching of seven centuries ago.

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Was Early Modern Japan Culturally Integrated?

Modern Asian Studies ◽

10.1017/s0026749x00017066 ◽

1997 ◽

Vol 31 (3) ◽

pp. 547-581 ◽

Cited By ~ 12

Author(s):

Mary Elizabeth Berry

Keyword(s):

Nineteenth Century ◽

Early Modern ◽

Early Modern Japan ◽

The World ◽

Modern Japan

In an earlier draft of his essay, Professor Lieberman quoted, with some bemusement, a remark by Edwin O. Reischauer that has flown from the text but stuck in memory. Japan during the Tokugawa era, observed E.O.R., achieved ‘a greater degree of cultural, intellectual, and ideological conformity … than any other country in the world … before the nineteenth century.’ The claim is remarkable—no less for its tone than for its unlikelihood (were we even remotely able to test it). Still, the claim is tantalizing, and versions of it, more hesitant, continue to resonate in the survey literature.

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Maps of the World in Early Modern Japan

Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Asian History ◽

10.1093/acrefore/9780190277727.013.69 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Radu Leca

Keyword(s):

Social Networks ◽

Early Modern ◽

Mental Maps ◽

Intellectual Culture ◽

Direct Experience ◽

Early Modern Japan ◽

The World ◽

Study Case ◽

Modern Japan ◽

Mental Constructs

Since the world in its entirety cannot be grasped through direct experience, world maps are mental constructs that serve as a radiography of a given culture’s attitudes towards its environment. Early modern Japan offers an intriguing study case for the assimilation of a variety of world map typologies in terms of pre-existing traditions of thought. Rather than topography, these maps stress topological connections between “myriad countries” and therefore embody the various mental maps of cultural agents in Japan. The maps’ materiality and embeddedness in social networks reveal connections to other areas of visual and intellectual culture of the period.

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