Variations on yatsushi in the ukiyo-zōshi genre

Abstract

The word yatsushi is a nominalization of the ren’yōkei 連用形 of the transitive verb yatsusu (a separate nominalization yatsure exists for the intransitive counterpart in yatsuru). As the dictionaries indicate, the word’s original meaning is “being reduced to a ragged state.” And in early modern-period novels (ukiyo-zōshi 浮世草子) and theatrical works (jōruri 浄瑠璃, kabuki 歌舞伎), where we find many portrayals of the stylishly paper-suited hero, penniless from his overspending, perhaps on some courtesan (tayū 太夫), the performance of such a role was indeed termed yatsushi-gei やつし芸 (“the art of the yatsushi figure”). Beyond this, yatsushi has been seen as connected to the exiled prince narrative passed down through the course of Japanese cultural history (Takahashi Noriko 高橋則子),2 or even as the expression of a world-wide, and perhaps universal, human longing for metamorphosis (Shinohara Susumu 篠原進).3 Protagonists might lose their wealth through excess frequentation of the pleasure quarters, come down in the world, present a wretched appearance, and wallow in the most abject behavior, yet precisely this pathetic end was the state that literature desired. The stylish hero was always destined to turn out that way. Credit for the first notable yatsushi work among ukiyo-zōshi must go to Nishizawa Variations on yatsushi in the ukiyo-zōshi genre: Expansion of the Classical World and Transworld Identification1