Jippensha Ikku
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Jippensha Ikku (十返舎一九 jippensha ikku?, 1765 – 1831) was a Japanese writer in the late Edo period. He lived primarily in Edo in the service of samurai, but also spent some time in Osaka as a townsman. He was among the most prolific yellow-backed novel (黄表紙 kibyōshi?) writers of the late Edo period — between 1795 and 1801 he wrote a minimum of twenty novels a year, and thereafter wrote "Smart" books (洒落本 sharebon?) (books about the licensed quarters), comedic books (滑稽本 kokkeibon?) and over 360 illustrated stories (合巻 gōkan?).
Ikku was considered the Le Sage and Dickens of Japan. Ikku began his adult life with three marriages of which two were quickly ended by father-in-laws who could not understand his literary habits. He accepted poverty with good humor, and, having no furniture, hung his bare walls with paintings of the furniture he might have had. On holidays he sacrificed to the gods with picturs of excellent offerings. Being presented with a bathtub in the common interest, he carried it home inverted on his head, and overthrew with ready wit the pedestrians who fell his way. When his publisher came to see him, Ikku invited him to take a bath; and while his invitation was being accepted he decked himself in the publisher's clothes, and paid his New Year's Day calls in proper ceremonial constume. His masterpiece, Hizakurige, was published in twelve parts between 1802 and 1822, and told a rollicking tale in the vein of "The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club." Aston calls it "the most humorous and entertaining book in the Japanese language." On his deathbed, Ikku enjoined his pupils to place upon his corpse, before the cremation then usual in Japan, certain packets which he solemnly entrusted to them. At his funeral, prayers having been said, the pyre was lighted, whereupon it turned out that the packets were full of firecrackers, which exploded merrily. Ikku had kept his youthful promise that his life would be full of surprises, even after his death.
[edit] Works
- Footing It Along the Tōkaidō (東海道中膝栗毛 tōkaidōchū hizakurige?) also known as Shank's mare or Hizakurige (膝栗毛).
[edit] References
- Earl Miner, Hiroko Odagiri and Robert E. Morrell (1985). The Princeton Companion to Classical Japanese Literature. Princeton University Press, 172. ISBN 0-691-06599-3.
2.Our Oriental Heritage -Will and Ariel Durant
