Session 26: Honor & shame II: Bushidō, Ihara Saikaku's short stories of love

Topics

❖ Conceptual frameworks: bushidō (武士道, warrior ethics)
❖ Conceptual frameworks: shinjū (心中, merged hearts, lovers' suicides, suicides in pairs or more, double suicide)
❖ People: Ihara Saikaku (17th c. / Edo short fiction writer)
◊ Genre: kana-zōshi (short fiction form)
❖ Texts: Short stories of love by Ihara Saikaku

Required—to be completed for today's session

✓ Bushido diagram (bSpace, PDF)

✓ Saikaku Never Perform and Saikaku Diamond Crest. Consider reviewing two works assigned earlier: Saikaku Amorous and Saikaku Tortured. (bSpace, PDF)

✓　For those of you interested, take a look at the article on modern double suicides called Shinju psychology. (bSpace, PDF)

Multimedia notes

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Links

⇢ Karl Friday on the origins of Bushido: The Historical Foundations of Bushido
⇢ Full text: NITOBE Inazo's Bushido, Soul of Japan: An Exposition of Japanese Thought (1899) This is widely available, this is just one possible link of many. Audio book versions of this text are also available legally for free.
⇢ NHK 100分 de 名著 新渡戸稲造 『武士道』companion Web site. And the diagram in that program: blog 思考回廊

Other

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)

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