A Poetic Voice for Autonomy: Child Subjectivity in Premodern Japan

Abstract:This essay explores the potential for poetry to illuminate moments of initiative and resistance on the part of boy acolytes (chigo) involved in non-illicit/condoned sexual relationships with adult monks in medieval Japanese Buddhist temples. Discussing numerous poems found in various anthologies produced in Buddhist temples, some in the context of poetic exchanges, the article argues that the vision communicated in poetry suggests some chigo enjoyed a surprising degree of freedom of voice, thought, and action that is at odds with current historiography, by which measure these boys of various ages would have had no power. In addition, the monks who granted the youths this freedom expressed both anxiety and helplessness in the face of the boys' self-agency. As this suggests, some authors and compilers of such poems—including youths themselves—chose to present a realm wherein chigo maintained a remarkable autonomy within an otherwise strict, hierarchical society.