Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. Climbing the Stairs of Poetry: Kanshi, Print, and Writership in
Nineteenth-Century Japan
2. Not the Kind of Poetry Men Write: “Fragrant-Style” Kanshi and
Poetic Masculinity in Meiji Japan
3. Clamorous Frogs and Verminous Insects: Nippon and Political
Haiku, 1890–1900
4. Shiki’s Plebeian Poetry: Haiku as “Commoner Literature,”
1890–1900
5. The Unmanly Poetry of Our Times: Shiki, Tekkan, and Waka Reform,
1890–1900
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Robert Tuck is assistant professor of modern Japanese literature and culture at Arizona State University.
Idly Scribbling Rhymers is a welcome contribution to the fields of
Meiji literary studies and intellectual history. Through his
excellent examples and careful examination of how gender, class,
and political affiliation shaped the poetic debates of the
nineteenth century, Tuck enhances our understanding of the ways in
which media unites and divides,
includes and excludes.
*Journal of Asian Studies*
The product of meticulous research into a wide variety of materials
from both Meiji and Tokugawa Japan, Idly Scribbling Rhymers is also
a lively and extremely interesting portrait of exchange among
modern intellectuals, some of them significant political figures,
who aspired to create new communities and new aesthetics. . . . For
graduate students and scholars working in all areas of Japanese
literature and cultural history, both premodern and modern, it is
essential reading.
*The Journal of Japanese Studies*
[Idly Scribbling Rhymers] sets a new standard for original
engagement with traditional poetic genres and will be an important
resource for anyone interested in the historical development of
traditional poetry in Meiji Japan and elsewhere.
*Nineteenth-Century Contexts: An Interdisciplinary Journal*
This is a masterful book; anyone with an interest in poetry or
politics should read it.
*Japanese Language and Literature*
A great new book about how new forms of poetry helped shape the
nation (and vice-versa), providing a refreshingly revisionist take
on how seminal poets like Masaoka Shiki changed the way Japanese
could practice traditional Japanese verse.
*East Asian Publishing and Society*
Tuck’s book is a valuable contribution to the field of Japanese
Studies, and is recommended for readers interested in the
relationship between literature and politics, literary discourse
and print media, and the legacy of traditional poetry in late
nineteenth-century Japan.
*Japanese Studies*
Were it simply a high-quality study of Masaoka Shiki, Idly
Scribbling Rhymers would still reward careful reading, but it is
much more: Tuck provides a broad picture of the fate of all
traditional poetic forms in the Meiji period. His erudite and
insightful attention to kanshi, valuable on its own, also reveals
new aspects of haiku and waka, and he breaks fresh ground with his
examination of poetry’s role in the emerging medium of the
newspaper.
*David B. Lurie, Columbia University*
Against the well-worn narratives of political instrumentalization
or aesthetic innovation, Tuck impresses with a powerful alternative
literary history of how poets made Japanese modernity: a riveting
story about the virulent anxieties over class distinction,
political commentary, new media, and gender identity in Japan’s
emerging empire. Richly documented, cleverly argued, and boldly
inquisitive, Idly Scribbling Rhymers is an exemplary study of how
traditional genres morph under the pressures of modernization.
*Wiebke Denecke, Boston University*
This is an important book that is impressive in its scope, thorough
in its research, and very timely. Idly Scribbling Rhymers provides
us with a fresh view of the Meiji poetic scene that is both richly
detailed and broadly based. Tuck takes readers on a deeply
rewarding tour of areas that are all but unknown in Anglophone
scholarship.
*Matthew Fraleigh, Brandeis University*
Idly Scribbling Rhymers is the first work in English, and one of
very few works in Japanese, to attempt to capture the rich social
and historical context of poetic composition in the Meiji period.
Tuck manages to wrestle an enormous amount of information into a
coherent and useful narrative. This book will remain a standard
reference work for years to come.
*J. Keith Vincent, Boston University*
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