Dynamics of Psycho-Historical Subject Formation in Early Modern Japanese Popular Drama

Abstract

Since Norbert Elias' work on the civilizing process, there have been numerous studies that analyze modern western societies and examine Elias' theories on the essential influences of modern state formation on the emergence of self-constrained subjects. However, little attention has been paid to the appearance of self-constrained subjects in early modern Japan. What I wish to show is that we can interpret the entrance of self-constraining subjects in popular dramatic narratives called joruri in relation to the early modern state.
The overwhelming power of the state, which obviously referred to the Tokugawa state, was the main theme in the popular Kinpira joruri of the mid-seventeenth century. Heroes enthusiastically identified themselves with their lord Raigo who embodied state power. They attacked enemies of the state and contributed to rebuilding the state order. Here we find the image of the 'father-state'-personification of the state by the patriarchal lord-which reflected the people's acceptance of state power.
In the late seventeenth century, a new genre of joruri drama, including Chikamatsu Monzaemon's pieces, became popular. In these stories, following the decline of the 'father-state, ' the heroes' morality-the legacy of their dead 'father'-became more appreciated than mere power. As the agency of this morality, kokoro, the inner world of subjects, became the central theme. Previously directed at external enemies, the subjects' aggressiveness turned onto themselves by their self-persecuting style of morality, which sometimes even led to suicidal acts.
That was the birth of the modern self-constraining subject in Japanese society. State power became so omnipresent that it began to act not only in the physical world but also in the minds of these subjects.