Session 15: Mujōkan / mono no aware VI: Tale of Heike II

Topics

❖ Performing The Tale of Heike
❖ "Spectacular" helmuts (変り兜, kawari kabuto) of the 17th and 18th centuries
❖ Swordsmanship (modern national kendō championship)
◊ Sword-making

Thoughts—read before class, revisit for tests

Fall 2012: The below notes are from 2011. What I do today in class will depart from that but how far I get through the material I have in mind is not yet clear to me. Hopefully I will come back to this page and rewrite these "thoughts" later. However, I won't be free to do so until Sunday at the earliest, I believe.

My apologies but I was fairly sick this day and relied on video material I could present. The powerpoint on performing the Heike is important as a component to the larger argument that Heike (and Genji for that matter) have inspired later artists to draw on the material in various ways but is not on-point regarding mujōkan or mono no aware. Heike has always had a history of being performed, not just read. The powerpoint on "spectacular" helmuts does not fit into the themes of our course. There is little that can be said from the point of mujōkan or mono no aware. Nevertheless, it does saw something about the pervasive presence of the arts in premodern culture, introduces some minor points having to do with premodern Japan's view of certain items, and so forth. Like the above, neither of the sword-related videos fits into the theme of the course. However, I do think Heike has its strongest impact when visualized richly and part of that visualization is based on knowledge of swords and swordsmanship. The video on sword-making is, to me, interesting in how complex, delicate and difficult technology-based products can be produced in a premodern context even when the science behind the product is not understood. This is pretty much the way all premodern technology works.

If this has been a lecture-based day, I would have probably been sorting out battles and discussing the odd fact that Buddhist temples supported their own armies. I would definitely have discussed Koremori however. His is a true mono no aware story. Most of these chapters, however, are busy with fighting in one way or another, since it is the peak of the conflict and the Taira are losing their grip but are not yet being tracked down and killed as they will in the later chapters.

Required—to be completed for today's session

✓ Read before class, in McCullough's Genji & Heike, Chapters 5-8.

Multimedia notes

❖ Heike Helmuts armor weapons and Helmuts of Momoyama are two versions of similar material. At some point these need to be merged.
❖ Heike performing Heike was presented. Please take a good look at it.
❖ Heike story panels was used as a way to discuss certain individuals and review some of the more moving (aware) moments of the story
◊ Kiyomori Yoshitsune Yoritomo was not presented Spring 2011

Links

⇢ None

Other

None.

Terms and such mentioned this day that are not otherwise in an obvious place on the web site, the powerpoints, the assigned reading, etc. (to help with capturing items mentioned, perhaps quickly, in class, not for test purposes)

None.