SOURCE: Young, Blake Morgan. “The Final Years.” In Ueda Akinari, pp. 115-40. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 1982.

[In the following excerpt, Young provides an overview of the composition and contents of Tales of the Spring Rain, while also discussing Akinari's literary reputation during and after his life.]

During the last years of his life—perhaps as much as the last decade—Akinari was working sporadically on his second major work of fiction, Harusame monogatari (Tales of the Spring Rain). He probably never finished it to his own satisfaction. It was read as a manuscript by a small number of admirers, but it was not published until 1907, and then only in fragmentary form. Not until after World War II did the complete text become available in print.¹ Akinari may never have intended the work for publication, for its contents are not aimed at the general reader. A work of deep meaning, it is pervaded by a philosophical element and covers a wide range of subjects, including historical events, literature and literary conventions, religion, ethics, and social problems, with Akinari's personal views on them. Its lack of form is an outstanding feature. The ten tales have no uniformity of length, the longest one being about twenty times the length of the shortest. Some of the stories are scarcely worthy of the name, being little more than collections of random thoughts or disjointed narrations of events, while even those which do qualify as tales suffer from imperfect organization and roughness of narrative. The uneven quality may be no more than evidence that Akinari was still revising Harusame when he died, but in any case the reader will appreciate the collection more if he examines its component parts, rather than the work as a whole.

The two stories that begin the collection may be considered together, since the second is a continuation of the first. “Chi katabira” (“The Bloodstained Robe”), is set during the reign of the emperor Heizei (774-824; r. 806-9), who is the central character and whose gentle and upright nature is the focal point of the story. Heizei is the embodiment of naoki kokoro, that legendary quality of the ancients that encompassed the virtues of purity and sincerity and total lack of deceit, leading them to do as a matter of course that which was right and proper. The tranquility of the realm is idyllically portrayed, but it soon becomes apparent that this is a façade. Heizei is a vanishing species, for the native Japanese virtues are being assailed by corrupting influences from China. In contrast to the simple and guileless Heizei stands his brother, the Crown Prince Kamino. Well-versed in Buddhist and Confucian teachings and in continental manners and culture, he is talented and sagacious and, above all, ambitious. Although supernatural manifestations portend disaster, Heizei proceeds with his plans to abdicate and so retires to the former capital of Nara, where scheming courtiers, led by Fujiwara no Nakanari and his sister Kusuriko, conspire to persuade him to rescind his abdication, rally support to his side, and declare Nara to be the imperial capital once again. Prince Kamino, now reigning as the emperor Saga (r. 809-23), hears of the plot and has Nakanari put to death. Kusuriko is placed in confinement, but she stabs herself to death, unrepentant. The depth of her corruption and resentment are made clear when the blood that has stained her clothing refuses to dry. Arrows cannot cause her robe to move, and swords shatter against it. Recognizing his own negligence in having been unaware of the conspiracy, Heizei takes monastic vows.

“Amatsu otome” (“The Celestial Maidens”), continues the action of “Chi katabira.” The efforts of Saga and his successors, the emperors Junna (r. 823-33) and Nimmyō (r. 833-50), to reproduce in Japan the splendour of China, are portrayed together with the further rise of the continental influences, the increasing luxury and frivolty of the court, further plots against the throne, Buddhist influence on domestic politics, and the concomitant decline of the Japanese spirit. But the material is not clearly represented. The sentence structure lacks polish, and the events are isolated from one another, not following smoothly in logical sequence. In sum, the tale emerges as little more than a collection of brief episodes and does not succeed as a story.

The didactic element overshadows the story in “Chi katabira,” and overwhelms it in “Amatsu otome.” In these two tales Akinari used literature as a podium from which to propound his view of history as a process of decay, rather than of progress. Like many other scholars of his time, he saw the early Heian period as an era of upheaval in Japanese thought which had led to corruption of the native spirit. Confucian and Buddhist teachings, with their promise of limitless rewards had, he believed, stimulated human desires, causing men to forget the simple virtues of the past and provoking power struggles even among members of the imperial family, who ought to have been above such things. Thus in “Chi katabira” it is continental learning that has corrupted Prince Kamino and made him eager for authority. Heizei is portrayed as a man who is good, but not in step with the times. His nature is better suited to the past, when ruler and subject alike possessed upright hearts and the Japanese emperor could rule like the Taoist sage-king, through non-action. In his own day, Heizei's extreme simplicity appears not so much a virtue as an unfortunate naivete, but Akinari's tone is not condemnatory. Rather he is lamenting for a bygone era. Retaining his own virtue while others are losing theirs, Heizei transcends the corruption around him with a kind of greatness. But though he transcends, he lacks the power to overcome, and therein lies the tragedy.

Akinari saw the decay that had begun in the Heian period as extending to his own time. His later writings, especially Tandai shōshin roku, are filled with passages lamenting that things are no longer as they were in his youth. Everything had changed, and for the worse. Scholars had become lax, no longer rigorous in their pursuit of truth. Artists were no longer striving for excellence, but thinking only of money. In former times, courtesans had been good-hearted, wearing simple costumes with few adornments, and they had been besieged by wealthy patrons; now they had become scheming women with petty thieves for customers. Even the sumō champions of his old age were inferior to those of his youth, he felt, succeeding only through lack of competition. “In Shikoku,” he once said, “it is badgers that take possession of people; in Kyushu, water imps. In Kyoto and Osaka it is courtesans, teachers, and tea masters who possess you and cause you grief. You cannot be at ease anywhere in this world.”²

The third tale, “Kaizoku” (“The Pirate”), takes as its setting the poet Ki no Tsurayuki's voyage back to the Capital in 935 after completing his term as governor of the province of Tosa. In his Tosa Diary, Tsurayuki spoke repeatedly of the danger of pirates, though none were actually encountered, but in Akinari's version a pirate does overtake the ship and comes aboard. His objective, however, is not to plunder, but to criticize Tsurayuki and expound his own views on poetry, scholarship and society. At this point, what has been an interesting narrative gives way to an undisguised polemic that touches on such topics as the correct interpretation of the Man'yōshū title, whether the varieties of poetry can be classified or whether they are as numberless as the human emotions they express, the doubtful propriety of including poetry about illicit love in the imperial anthologies, and other matters. No doubt most readers will find “Kaizoku” the least satisfying of Harusame monogatari's ten items. It begins quite well as a tale, but it fails to fulfil its promise. The story stops in midstream to end in a welter of disconnected scholarly arguments, most of them hair-splitting and pedantic and not clearly presented. The story and the polemic stand apart from each other; there is no fusion of the two, and neither is really successful.

After these first three attempts, however, Akinari managed to settle into the role of storyteller and yet retain that of moral apologist. The next two tales, while quietly didactic, remain stories from beginning to end. “Nise no en” (“The Destiny that Spanned Two Lifetimes”), is a satirical tale with a religious theme. A young farmer, sitting up late one night reading, becomes aware of the sound of a bell. Mystified, he searches for its source, finally determining that it comes from beneath a stone in a corner of his garden. Next morning, when his servants excavate the site, they unearth a coffin in which lies a man, old and shrivelled, his hair grown down past his knees, but alive. They realize that he is a priest in a state of zenjō, a trancelike condition of suspended animation said to be achieved by certain devout followers of religious disciplines. At length they succeed in reviving him, but the words of inspiration they expect to hear are not forthcoming. The priest cannot even remember his own name, let alone his former life or the paradise he sought. As his condition improves, he exhibits an ordinary man's desire for food, including forbidden things such as fish. When he has fully recovered, he makes his living at the lowest sort of menial labour. He takes a wife and proves to have a normal sexual appetite. He displays anger. His wife nags and henpecks him. Such is the man who had aspired to spiritual greatness. He seems, if anything, even lower than the average man, as though his religious austerities have had a negative effect. With this example of the fruits of piety before their eyes, the villagers lose their faith and turn away from religious activity, disregarding their priests' efforts to explain the situation.

Observers laughingly suggest that the priest has remained in the world in order to fulfil the saying, Fūfu wa nise, which refers to the teaching that a married couple's relationship extends from this life into the next. The implication is that the man's new wife is a reincarnation of his former mate, and this is the reason for the title, “Nise no en.” Phonetically, however, the same words may be interpreted to mean “fake destiny,” and the pun was probably intentional, since the Buddhist teachings on the relationship of cause and effect are made to appear false. Still, Akinari had not simply become anti-Buddhist, for it becomes clear in subsequent tales that this was not the case. It was not religion as such, but the hypocritical practice of religion for ostentatious display or personal gain that he was opposed to. He recognized that there were many among both clergy and laity who were motivated by selfish concerns, and he abhorred that kind of false piety, but true religious devotion, which led to personal peace of mind and rectitude of heart, remained his ideal.

“Me hitotsu no kami” (“The One-Eyed God”), may remind readers of Ugetsu monogatari, for it has the strongest supernatural element of all the Harusame tales, but it is a light-hearted and amusing supernatural, the world of “Muō no rigyo” or of “Himpukuron.” Aspiring to become an accomplished waka poet, a youth from Sagami, in the uncultured eastern part of the country, sets out for Kyoto to take instruction from the masters there. On the last night of his journey, he lies down to sleep in front of a small shrine in the midst of a forest. He is awakened by the arrival of a Shinto priest, an itinerant Buddhist mendicant, and two women who are actually foxes in disguise. A weird-looking deity with only one eye emerges from the shrine to join them. Terrified, the lad pretends to be still asleep. A cask of wine is carried in by a monkey and a hare, and the group begins to drink. At length they call on the youth to join them. The situation is reminiscent of that on Mt. Kōya in “Buppōsō,” though these supernatural beings are a good-humoured, harmless lot, and the sinister and terrifying atmosphere of that tale is totally missing. As the boy consumes wine with the group, the one-eyed god counsels him against going to study under the so-called masters of poetry in the Capital. Such men are all imposters with no real ability, he says, and in any case, it is better to develop one's talents by oneself. He concedes that a teacher may be necessary to get started, but he maintains that true poetry comes only from the heart and cannot be learned. The story concludes with the youth agreeing to accept this advice and being whisked back to his home in Sagami by supernatural power. In this tale, the polemic element does not intrude into the story. It fits in smoothly and is kept short enough to prevent it from overshadowing the action. The mood is light and entertaining throughout. Akinari was particularly successful in this attempt to tell a story and at the same time restate his oft-repeated views on poetic talent. It should not be overlooked that he himself was a one-eyed person when he wrote the tale.

In four of the last five stories, overt didacticism virtually disappears, and the emphasis shifts from scholarship to human interest, with stress on what Akinari considered virtues to be cultivated and vices to be avoided. “Shikubi no egao” (“The Smiling Death's-Head”), a tragic tale of romantic love, is based upon the same incident that Takebe Ayatari had used as his source for Nishiyama monogatari. There are varying reports of the actual event, but the basic facts are that in 1767, in a village on the northern outskirts of Kyoto, a youth named Watanabe Unai, the son of the village headman, fell in love with Watanabe Yae, who lived in the neighbouring house with her mother and two brothers. The families, though related by blood, were on bad terms, and the affair was carried on secretly until it became a matter for village gossip. The girl's mother had her elder son, Genta, try to arrange a marriage, but Unai's father refused the overtures and sent his son away to the home of a relative. At last, in a final attempt to allow the young people to marry, the mother sent her daughter to her lover's home once again, escorted by Genta. When the father ordered them away, Genta abruptly drew his sword and decapitated his sister on the spot.³ In 1806 Akinari, who had long been interested in the incident, had chanced to meet the now elderly Watanabe Genta in person and had heard his version of the affair. Following this encounter, he had written Masurao monogatari (A Tale of a Man of Valour), in which he related the facts as Genta had presented them, and condemned Ayatari (for whom, it will be remembered, he had little regard) for the way he had distorted the truth in Nishiyama.⁴

Nevertheless, having set the record straight, as he supposed, with Masurao monogatari, Akinari went on to adapt the events to suit his own purpose in “Shikubi no egao.” Gosōji, as the father is called in this tale, is a very prosperous sake brewer, but the epitome of miserliness, while his son, Gozō, is quite a different person, accomplished in the arts, refined in his behaviour, and considerate of others. Nearby lives Mune, the daughter of a once-wealthy family now forced to rely upon the meagre wages of the son, Motosuke, to maintain a state of genteel poverty. Gozō and Mune pledge themselves to each other, but Gosōji violently opposes a marriage with a girl from such a family and forbids his son to visit her home. His wife is more sympathetic but begs Gozō to obey, even so. Mune becomes genuinely ill with grief and longing, and her mother summons Gozō in desperation. Gozō affirms his vow to Mune, whose condition thereupon shows a marked improvement, but then he must return home to face his father's wrath and his mother's pleas. He begs their forgiveness and thereafter spends each day diligently working in the brewery, obeying his father's every command and neglecting his pledge to Mune, who once again starts to pine away. When she seems to be at the point of death, word is sent to Gozō. Going to her home, he tells her mother to send her to his house the next day as his bride, and together they celebrate the betrothal before he has to return home. But next morning, when Motosuke and his sister, dressed for her wedding, appear at his door, Gosōji is taken completely by surprise and orders them away. Gozō, it would appear, has not spoken to his father. Now he attempts to leave his home and family, taking Mune with him, but Motosuke forestalls such action by drawing his sword and striking off his sister's head. Throughout the story, to this point, Motosuke has presented an air of indifference, as though he did not care what happened to his sister, but at last this seeming insensitivity is revealed as stolid self-control. He has felt deeply and acted in accordance with those feelings, killing his sister with no outward display of emotion in order to spare her the disgrace of going through life as the wife of a disinherited son and to save his own family name from Gosōji's insult. Although his crime is a capital offence, the judge recognizes the purity of his motives and lets him off with banishment. Motosuke continues as the filial son he has been, working to support his mother, who accompanies him into exile. Gosōji's wealth and property are confiscated, and he and Gozō are likewise banished from the province. Unrepentant and greedy to the end, Gosōji disinherits his son and goes into exile vowing to become rich once more. Gozō himself becomes a monk.

Akinari left no doubt as to where his sympathies lay in this conflict between romantic love and filial duty, but Gozō's behaviour is subject to differing interpretation. On the surface, he appears to be vacillating, led first by love to pledge himself to Mune, then by duty to obey his parents, and lacking the determination to adhere strictly to either course. The tragedy may be seen to result from his indecision, and thus his entering the priesthood becomes an act of penance. But this is probably not what Akinari had in mind. More likely, considering his praise of Gozō's character, he wanted to portray him as striving to win his parents' approval for his love through his exemplary conduct as a son, but this is nowhere clearly stated, and the resulting ambiguity is the story's fundamental weakness. There is no such uncertainty as to Akinari's view of the other characters, however. Mune, who dies a martyr to her love, and Motosuke, who saves her from shame, both display the courage and uprightness of heart that Akinari so much admired. Unable to wed the man of her choice, Mune seals her love for him with her death, and the smile that remains on her lifeless face symbolizes the victory of this pure love over the squalid world she has left. But, Akinari would appear to be saying, such purity has little place in the present day. One must leave the contemporary world if one is to be unsullied by it. The gap between the ideal and the reality cannot be bridged in any other way.

“Suteishimaru” also has its roots in fact, though much more loosely than “Shikubi no egao.” It was suggested by the actions of the priest Zenkai, who devoted thirty years of his life in the mid-eighteenth century to digging the Ao no Dōmon tunnel in what is now Shimoge-gun, Ōita-ken, in order to bypass a precipitous mountain route over which many travellers had lost their lives.⁵ Akinari's story, however, begins in the far northeastern part of Honshu, where Suteishimaru, the protagonist, is in the service of a wealthy landowner. He is a natural man, exceedingly strong, unrefined, naive and simple, uneducated, and relatively untouched by philosophies or religion. The master, an inveterate tippler, often invites Suteishimaru to join him in his cups. During one such spree Suteishimaru, befuddled by drink, begins to struggle with his master, and thinking that he has killed him, he takes flight. When the master actually does die during the night, Suteishimaru is branded a murderer. The master's son, Kodenji, is ordered by the local magistrate and the provincial governor to go and bring back the supposed killer's head or have the property to which he is heir confiscated. Kodenji is neither physically strong nor skilled in the use of weapons, but he spends the next two years assiduously training under a master of the martial arts, and then sets off on his mission of revenge.

Meanwhile, Suteishimaru makes his way to Edo where, after making his living as a sumō wrestler for a time, he enters the service of a daimyo and goes to the domain in Kyushu. At length his habit of drinking to excess produces abscesses in his legs which render him a cripple. Now he begins to reflect on his past life and is struck with remorse at having killed his former master. To atone for his supposed crime he vows to spend the remainder of his life digging a tunnel through the nearby mountain, making the hazardous route safe for travellers. Thus when Kodenji, after three years of searching, at last tracks him down, it is to find him engaged in this labour. Touched by his virtue, Kodenji loses all desire for revenge and stays to help dig the tunnel. Together they work on, completing the task just before Suteishimaru dies. Akinari was not the only person to write a fictionalized account of Zenkai's labour,⁶ but while others concentrated on the avenger's change of heart, he placed the emphasis on Suteishimaru's spiritual growth, which changes him from a natural man to a saint. He saw the simple, unsophisticated Suteishimaru as the clay from which a Buddha may be fashioned; it is the same theme that he developed more fully in “Hankai,” the final story in the collection.

Miyagi, the heroine of “Miyagi ga tsuka“ (“The Grave of Miyagi”), evokes memories of the Miyagi of “Asaji ga yado” and of Fujino of Seken tekake katagi—the gentle, pure, self-sacrificing, and above all, faithful woman whose virtue transcends the worldly corruption around her. Miyagi is the daughter of an imperial councillor who dies, leaving her, her mother, and a servant of the family in desperate poverty. Through the machinations of the servant, the mother is deceived into selling her daughter to a brothel. Though hating the life she now leads, Miyagi dutifully accepts her fate for her mother's sake. Soon she becomes a celebrated beauty, beloved of Jūtabei, a wealthy and refined young man who determines to ransom her and make her his own. But Miyagi is also coveted by Fujidayū, a man of considerable authority. Fujidayū arranges for Jūtabei to be murdered and then courts Miyagi himself. She, unaware of his responsibility for her lover's death, finally yields to him, and only later, to her dismay, learns the truth. Just at that time, it happens, the priest Hōnen, known as the founder of the Pure Land sect of Buddhism, is about to depart from the Capital on his way into exile in Shikoku. Hearing that his boat is to pass her way, Miyagi has herself taken out into the middle of the river to meet him. As the priest's boat draws near she calls out to him, asking what a person like herself must do to obtain salvation. Then and there Hōnen teaches the efficacy of the nembutsu, whereupon Miyagi, chanting this invocation to the Buddha Amida, casts herself into the river and drowns.

Akinari's tale of Miyagi was based on a purportedly factual incident. The grave of the real Miyagi was located at Kanzaki, just across the river from Akinari's dwelling at Kashima-mura, where he had first heard her story more than thirty years before. The tale closes with an account of his visit to her grave and with the long poem he had composed in her memory. His lingering affection for the area is apparent in this postscript, but more important is his view of Miyagi herself, as a strong, intelligent, faithful, and pure woman whose spirit remains unsullied by what her body is compelled to do. She was only the latest manifestation of this kind of woman in his writings, indicating that he retained her as his ideal woman nearly all his life.

The polemic element revives briefly in “Uta no homare” (“The Glory of Poetry”). This item is no more than a short discourse; Akinari did not even attempt to tell a story. Rather he presented four waka from the Man'yōshū, each of which describes cranes crying out as they fly over the sea. The wording in all four poems is similar, which fact, says Akinari, is not the result of plagiarism, for the upright men of old would never have stooped to pirate the work of another. In former times, he maintains, since people were not burdened with restraining conventions, they simply expressed in poetry what they perceived with their senses. The result was a brand of verse independent of theory and rules, which came directly from the heart of man. Since two upright hearts would see the same thing in the same way, it was only to be expected that they would describe it in similar terms. Thus, he argues, the four poems were composed independently of one another, and their common expressions are a reflection of the spirit of ancient times.

Finally, there is “Hankai.” It is the story of a rough, untutored, wild and impulsive young man who fears neither gods nor men and makes no distinction between good and evil, relying on his own near-superhuman strength to surmount all difficulties—much like Suteishimaru. His character becomes apparent right at the beginning of the tale when, challenged to pay a nocturnal visit to the shrine of a reputedly ferocious deity, he goes with no hesitation and with some bravado. He is punished for his sacrilege and returns home chastened and subdued, but the lesson does not last. Greed leads him to steal from his family. He murders his father and brother in the process and must flee. Akinari uses this flight to take his hero on a journey to enlightenment—an odyssey whereby he comes to recognize the limits of physical strength, to distinguish right from wrong, and at last to change from a scoundrel to a saint.

As Hankai begins his journey he is much the same as he has always been, living by his own means, removing obstacles by brute force. In Hakata and Nagasaki he makes his way by gambling; in Shikoku he joins a band of robbers. Gradually, however, it becomes apparent that his character is not all bad. He saves a family from being deceived by a dishonest merchant. During the winter he cultivates his own musical talent. After robbing the treasury of a wealthy man, he handsomely rewards his friend who had once saved his life. And in Edo he risks his own life out of genuine concern for the welfare of his two comrades. The action moves rapidly from one place to the next, and Akinari manipulates his character, not always logically, in order to give him the experience prerequisite to his conversion. The tale is episodic, but the grand tour of Japan on which the reader is taken is engrossing in itself.

There are two key episodes in Hankai's transformation. The first takes place in a dilapidated temple where, for the first time in his life, he is soundly beaten in a fight—and by a most unlikely opponent—and comes to realize that he is not invincible. The second occurs on the Moor of Nasuno where, impressed by the virtue of a priest he has robbed, he experiences an abrupt but lasting change of heart. No details of his subsequent life are given, but the final glimpse of him is as the abbot of a Zen temple in northeastern Honshu, at the point of death and entry into enlightenment.

Akinari's final comment on the action: “All who rule their passions have the Buddha nature; all who set them free are monsters,”⁷ sums up the theme of “Hankai.” It is well to note that Hankai, like Suteishimaru, reforms not through the preaching of others, but through himself. His salvation is not something acquired, but simply the result of his own innate goodness coming to the fore; it comes not so much through religious or philosophical teachings as through cultivation of qualities that he already possesses. This is not to say that Akinari rejected such teachings. He recognized their value, and they do prove helpful to Hankai in his quest for salvation. Akinari himself was affiliated with religious institutions throughout his life. As before, it was the misuse of religion, not religion as such, that he was against. He had no sympathy for those who self-consciously strove for salvation as personal gain or who sought for magical formulas which would produce salvation without effort on their own part. In sum, he believed that in ancient times people had been good by nature. By his own day, human nature had become corrupt. It was not possible to go back to the past, but one could, nevertheless, incorporate the spirit of former times into oneself. The virtues of old Japan had not vanished; they had merely become tarnished. A man could still discover this ideal nature within himself and nourish it to fruition. But there were no shortcuts; to rely on them was to shirk responsibility. It was only through simple living, shunning worldly matters, upright conduct, and strict self-mastery that one could obtain peace within his own mind and in the world. Such was Akinari's conviction, and if one looks for a common theme running through the diversities of Harusame monogatari, this must be it. Indeed, it runs through much of his other writing as well.

It is not always the work into which a writer puts his greatest effort that wins the most favour with the critics. Harusame is a good example. Though recognized as an important work, it has suffered from the natural tendency to compare it with Ugetsu. The style of Harusame is relatively straightforward with little artistic embellishment, and its structure and organization are lacking in polish. Reading it does not provide the aesthetic experience of Ugetsu. In part, this may be just a reflection of the fact that Akinari was in poor health and nearly blind when he wrote it, and that he died before he considered it finished, but his basic intentions when he wrote the two works were not the same. Ugetsu was conceived and executed as a work of pure literature; Harusame, more as a summary of what Akinari considered truth to be. When writing the latter, he saw his role to be more one of informing his readers than of pleasing them. This was relative, of course. Some of the Harusame tales are first-rate examples of the storyteller's craft, and Akinari's opinions are propounded to some degree in all of the Ugetsu pieces. But even in the openly didactic Ugetsu tales, Akinari paid such attention to the artistic element that they remain primarily literature, and only secondarily intellectual discourses. The essential difference between Ugetsu and Harusame is that in the former work the scholarly and literary qualities are fused and digested, while in the latter they tend to be separate. Harusame is clearly unequal to Ugetsu as a work of literature, but such a comparison is neither fair nor, in the end, possible, for they are not really specimens of the same kind of writing.

In 1808, the same year that Harusame monogatari and Tandai shōshin roku were completed, Akinari declared that he had cast his writing brush away.⁸ In 1809 he did revise some of his entries in Tandai and compile his favorite haiku compositions, and he apparently wrote a new draft of Harusame as well, but his statement was probably an accurate reflection of his state of mind, nevertheless. Tandai and Harusame together amounted to a summation of what he wanted to leave behind. Thus, “All who rule their passions have the Buddha nature; all who set them free are monsters,” may be seen not only as his final comment on “Hankai,” but as his final comment on life. He now felt that his work was finished. There was little more to say, he was almost totally blind, and his general health was failing rapidly.

He was well enough to make the journey to Osaka toward the end of 1808 to observe the fiftieth anniversary of his father's death,⁹ but he had little time remaining. Sometime in 1809, probably sensing that the end was truly near, he left his Nanzenji dwelling to live once again at the home of Hakura Nobuyoshi. It was there that, 8 August 1809 (Bunka Era, sixth year, sixth month, twenty-seventh day), the death he had so long awaited, and had at times longed for, claimed him at last. His grave may still be seen today, standing by itself in honoured isolation in the garden of the Saifukuji Temple, marked by the simple stone monument that his surviving friends erected on the thirteenth anniversary of his death.¹⁰

Akinari's reputation as an author was already secure long before he died. Both Ōta Nampo and Takizawa Bakin had given him high praise, and the continuing popularity of Ugetsu monogatari and Shodō kikimimi sekenzaru, and the posthumous publication of some of his other works attest to the regard in which he was held. His popularity suffered for a time in the general preoccupation with things Western and the corresponding indifference to traditional Japanese culture that followed in the wake of the Meiji Restoration, but by the last decade of the nineteenth century the pendulum was starting to swing back. Akinari again became a subject for appreciation and, for the first time, academic research. Beginning in the 1880's and 90's, a solid base of scholarship was gradually built up over the next few decades and after a brief hiatus during World War II, study of Akinari truly began to flourish. Some of the stimulus, both in Japan and elsewhere, may be credited to Mizoguchi Kenji's film, Ugetsu monogatari, based primarily on the tales, “Asaji ga yado” and “Jasei no in,” which won the grand prize at the Venice Film Festival in 1953 and remains an international classic. The discovery of the complete text of Harusame monogatari (purchased during the war in a secondhand bookshop for a mere twenty sen¹¹) and its publication in 1950 made possible more extensive scholarship on that work and led to a more complete appreciation of Akinari's talents. It may in part be the emphasis on scholarship and waka verse in Harusame that has sent some researchers delving into Akinari's role as a kokugakusha and poet. Much remains to be done, especially in these latter areas, but the trend shows every sign of continuing and is gradually rounding out the general view of the man who once was known almost exclusively as a writer of supernatural fiction.

In the West, Akinari has attracted attention ever since Lafcadio Hearn retold the Ugetsu tales, “Kikuka no chigiri” and “Muō no rigyo” in his A Japanese Miscellany in 1905. English translations of individual Ugetsu stories have been appearing since 1927, and two complete versions came out during the 1970's. Ugetsu has also recently appeared in French, German, Hungarian, Polish, Spanish, and Czech translations, and a complete English rendition of Harusame has come off the press as well.

Study of Akinari's works is rewarding both for its own sake and for the debt owed him by other Japanese writers. Tanizaki Jun'ichirō, Ishikawa Jun, Mishima Yukio, Satō Haruo, Kawabata Yasunari, Kōda Rohan, Izumi Kyōka, Akutagawa Ryūnosuke, Dazai Osamu, Ibuse Masuji, and Enchi Fumiko have all acknowledged his influence on their own writings. Today Akinari's place in the literature of Japan is secure and interest in him is, if anything, growing. A recent report from Japan indicated that university students are turning from modern to classical Japanese literature, and suggested that studies of Akinari may rank closely after The Tale of Genji in popularity as topics for graduation theses.¹² It is as though there is something in an age of rational scepticism and scientific technology that sends people back to the haunting imagery, absorbing fantasy, and pursuit of traditional beauty to be found in his works. Likewise, in a world of confusion with the breakdown of long cherished social and moral attitudes, the study of Akinari's life reveals a man who did not seek to ingratiate himself with the world, but strove, sometimes unsuccessfully, but without ceasing, to live according to his own principles and beliefs.

Notes

1. For a discussion of the various Harusame manuscripts, and their discovery and publication, see Tales of the Spring Rain, trans. Barry Jackman (Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press, 1975), pp. xix-xxiii.

2. Tandai, no. 35, NKBT [Nihon Koten Bungaku Taikei], 56: 276. See also nos. 54, 55, 70, 138, pp. 287, 295, 341-43.

3. Readers who are interested in the actual incident should consult Asano Sampei, “Genta sōdō to Ayatari, Akinari,” (1962) in Akinari, ed. Nihon Bungaku Kenkyū Shiryō Kankōkai, pp. 231-46; Noma Kōshin, “Iwayuru Genta sōdō wo megutte: Ayatari to Akinari,” Bungaku 37 (June 1969): 46-55; (July 1969): 39-50. See also my “A Tale of the Western Hills: Takebe Ayatari's Nishiyama Monogatari,” in MN [Monumenta Nipponcia] 37 (1982) 77-121.

4. Masurao monogatari was, in fact, the name given to this work by Fujii Otoo when compiling Akinari ibun. Akinari's own manuscript was untitled.

5. See Dai Nihon hyakka jiten, 1: 69.

6. “Onshū no kanata ni” by Kikuchi Kan is the best-known work of fiction based on this episode, but Akinari's “Suteishimaru” was unknown at the time it was written and so could not have had any influence. For comparative notes on the two tales, see Morita Kirō, Ueda Akinari (Tokyo: Kinokuniya Shoten, 1970), pp. 189, 190; Spring Rain, trans. Jackman, pp. 117-19.

7. NKBT 56: 247.

8. Jiden, Ibun, p. 256.

9. Letter to a Mr. Kin'ya, quoted in Takada, Akinari nempu, p. 344.

10. See Takada, Akinari nempu, p. 348.

11. Reported in Nihon Dokusho Shimbun, 30 August, 1950, p. 4. Although the copyist had purposely omitted “Suteishimaru” and “Hankai,” this was the most complete version of Harusame to be discovered up to that time. Edited by the finder, Urushiyama Matashiro, it was published as Urushiyama bon Harusame monogatari by Iwanami Bunko in 1950.

12. The Japan Foundation Newsletter 7 (Feb.-Mar. 1980); 20.

Selected Bibliography

A. Collections of Akinari's Works

Akinari ibun. Ed. Fujii Otoo. Tokyo: Shūbunkan, 1919.

B. Translations of Akinari's Works in Western Languages

Jackman, Barry. Tales of the Spring Rain. Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press, 1975.

C. Books and Articles in Japanese

Akinari. Ed. Nihon Bungaku Kenkyū Shiryō Kankōkai. Tokyo: Yūseidō, 1972.

Takada Mamoru. Ueda Akinari nempu kōsetsu. Tokyo: Meizendō Shoten, 1964.