Although Jōruri-gozen-monogatari is usually studied in relation to the origin of jōruri puppet theater, it also deserves more attention as the earliest form of early modern novels. Therefore before studying the text one must distinguish the novel editions from the theater ones, but such an important preliminary work is hardly done. The aim of this article is to classify the text into the two different categories and then compare the Tōdai Edition, the most authoritative novel edition, with the newly discovered one to more systematically define Jōruri-gozen-monogatari as an early modern novel.

How can we study Ihara-Saikaku more productively? Maybe we can do it by liberating the writer from the traditional framework of literary study and placing him in interdisciplinary networks. Metaphorically speaking, we should attack Saikaku in a bunch. Indeed there are many other early modern writers who need to be seen from a various viewpoints of more than one discipline. Such interdisciplinary collaboration will not only make the study of early modern literature more attractive but also offer a way out of the complications of subdivided academic fields.

I recently suggested kidan as a category of Edo literature. Not surprisingly, opposing views emerged. Responding to these opinions, I would like to consider this problem anew, especially concerning the spaces of narration in “Kidan”.

Now even in Japanese literature critical reading is indispensable for studies on early modern novels. But one of the earliest critical works was done by Kyokutei-Bakin who brilliantly critiqued Honchō-suiko-den. In this article I will critically read the same text in critical response to Bakin's critical essay. In so doing I will also analyze his criticism to consider why he so elaborately criticizes the episode of Hatano-Kanaakira.

Although Matsuo-Bashō often refers to a “poetical essay,” we have just a vague idea of what he means by it because he doesn't give any concrete definition of it. It is generally believed that the poet wrote Genjūan-ki as a poetical essay, but he continued to revise the concept of it while he was working on the manuscript of the book. The very essence of his literary style, however, seems to lie in such continuous evasion of categorization. Indeed, even his masterpiece Oku-no-hosomichi is hard to be categorized because of its hybridity between a travel essay and a collection of poems. As will be shown in this article, his ambiguous concept of a poetical essay gives an important clue to understanding the poetics of early modern times.

This article will chronologically trace a methodological shift in the interpretations of Ono-no-Komachi's poem “Mirume-naki” to make a historical review on the theory of annotation in early modern times. Most literary scholars of the Edo Period adopted the way of reworking the annotations of medieval works into their own interpretations. It is this method that Matsunaga-Teitoku and Kitamura-Kigin used in their annotations on Kokin-shū. The same method can be also found in Kamo-no-Mabuchi's positive annotations.

In the late eighteenth century the poetical theory called “shōryō” replaced the pseudo-classical style of the Kobunji School as the major poetics of early modern times. The theory placed a great emphasis on the poet's emotions and experiences, and it was so influential as to develop a variety of styles in kanshi poetry; romanticism, realism, and others. The postwar study of kanshi poetry, however, often underrates the poetics of “shōryō” in favor of a more lyrical style that is agreeable with the current literary trend.