Tada-Nanrei was a writer of “ukiyo-zōshi” illustrated books in the Edo Period. As he was also a devout Shintoist, little attention is paid to his relation to Kogidō, the Confucian school in Kyoto, because of their difference in religious faith. In his journal
Shoken-chō, however, Itō-Tōgai, one of the school’s members, says that he introduced Nanrei to his acquaintances as his own pupil. Indeed some characters in his stories were modelled after Suyama-Nantō, Kagawa-Shūan, Hori-Nanko, Sawada-Issai, and other Confucian scholars. The critical view Tōgai’s brother Baiu had about Yamazaki-Ansai in his collection of essays
Kenmon-dansō was also reflected in Nanrei’s literary and prosaic writings. Biographical research is thus indispensable in studying Nanrei’s works. By identifying the actual models and then grasping the readership whom the author must have born in his mind in writing them, we can make more correct interpretations of his texts.
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