Nichibunken Evening Seminar

Over the course of his sixty-six-year life, Jippensha Ikku (1765–1831) penned over five hundred texts across a wide variety of prose, poetic, and dramatic genres. Most famous is his Hizakurige (Shank’s Mare) series, the first eight installments of which were published annually between 1802 and 1809 in Edo. Immensely popular though they were, there is a common thread in critiques on Hizakurige: that as the series went on, it become more repetitive and less original. But why was this? I argue that Ikku did not simply run out of ideas for the antics of his buffoonish protagonists Yaji and Kita, but was forced to innovate the ways he went about researching and writing Hizakurige because of a serious health condition. Using biographical evidence taken from the prefatory matter of his texts, I piece together the timeline of his illness, suggesting that he likely suffered from chronic neuro-syphilis. The ravages of the disease effectively rendered Ikku disabled, and forced him to rely not on first-hand experiences of his travels around Japan as he had done in the early parts of the Hizakurige sequence, but on a variety of travelogues—most notably various Meisho zue (Illustrated Guidebooks) by Akisato Ritō. Although later Hizakurige volumes may lack some of the verve and vigor of his earlier works, Ikku demonstrated a remarkable ability adapt his written style to overcome the limitations imposed by his illness.