Knowing the Amorous Man: A History of Scholarship on Tales of Ise by Jamie L. Newhard (review)

Knowing the Amorous Man sheds new light on reception and commentary concerning Ise monogatari and also resonates with broader areas of inquiry in valuable, and sometimes surprising, ways. Though its New Historicist approach is only partially successful, overall this is an excellent book, with much to offer both students and scholars.

The unabashedly New Historicist perspective can be seen in comments throughout the book: Early on, for example, Newhard writes that the difficulties of the Ise monogatari text provide an “appealing playground within which the commentators of various persuasions might ride their hobby horses with abandon” (pp. 2–3). Her final sentence, too, is revealing in this respect: “Narihira and Ise monogatari itself, its congenial openness to interpretation undisrupted by some 800 years of scholarly activity, merely provide the pretext that allows scholars to expound freely on whatever issues are most meaningful to them, in ways that reflect the intellectual and ideological concerns of their times” (p. 238).

Such statements reflect the reductionism that can sometimes threaten a New Historicist undertaking, and I am not prepared to believe that the scholars Newhard writes about had no genuine interest in the texts they studied, that they were motivated only by a desire to act out their own worldviews—in other words, that they displayed no jouissance, but only self-indulgence. Leaving that aside, a New Historicist approach does seem apt for this enterprise, since, as Newhard very ably demonstrates, Ise monogatari commentary has taken many interesting twists and turns over the centuries.

However, such an approach requires thick description in order to establish the political, cultural, and social discourses that the commentator inhabits, and that in turn inform his commentary (yes, all “his” as far as the written record shows). Unfortunately, I think what Newhard gives us is rather thin and conventional. She depicts Muromachi as a time of upheaval and the final collapse of the old aristocracy, and she argues that this somehow is enough to explain the prevalence of secret teachings (denju). But as Newhard herself shows, the aristocracy never really disappears as a serious intellectual and cultural force until late Edo, and, furthermore, the teachings are never really all that secret. (In fact, this latter point is one of the book’s more interesting revelations.)

Moreover, the scholars she discusses are not themselves very well historicized in the book. A specific case in point is Hosokawa Yūsai (1534–1610), whose commentary Ise monogatari ketsugishō Newhard treats as an iconic representative of the “Transitional Commentaries” phase of Ise monogatari scholarship (discussed on pages 4–6). You would never know from reading this volume that Yūsai was a key figure in the development of the Way of Tea, for example, or that he somehow pulled off the impressive feat of being a close confidant to Oda Nobunaga, Toyotomi Hidetoshi, and Tokugawa Ieyasu without losing his head! Not to mention that his son and daughter-in-law embraced Christianity. How does his Ise monogatari commentary fit into that résumé? Now that’s the kind of question a New Historicist should be grappling with.

Likewise, Kokugaku and nativist scholarship are stripped of much of their connection to Shinto and to anti-Tokugawa politics—not to mention, eventually, to nationalism. Newhard depicts the Kokugaku and nativist scholars as “positivist” (p. 190), as “[having] great independence of mind, never hesitating to put forward new interpretations and generally basing these on independent research rather than blindly citing the authority of their predecessors” (p. 183). However, she does not talk about how they might have gotten that way. Likewise, her discussion of Meiji and Taishō Ise monogatari commentaries that depict Narihira as a “patriot” (p. 237) begs for more detail.

Though Knowing the Amorous Man may not totally succeed as New Historicism, it is invaluable as a study of Ise monogatari reception and commentary. Anyone who...