The Shibukawa Edition of the 0togi Zoshi,thought to have been published in the Kyoho Period, includes many tales characterized not only by medieval themes but also by themes related to the "Onna Daigaku," that representative moral-philosophical product of the Edo Period, lt was Shibukawa (Kashiwabara) Seiemon who published the Onna Daigau Takarabako,the work generally referred to as the "Onna Daigaku" today.lt is thought, morever,that Seiemon used Kaibara Ekken's Wazoku Dojikun in compiling this work, Shibukawa was a shrewd Osaka bookseller. He published this work during the difficult Kyoho Period when censorship was strict and Confucian thought a powerful means ofcontrol under the regime of Tokugawa Muneyoshi. Shibukawa's motives were presumably curry to curry favor with Muneyoshi and to increase his profits. Accordingly the Otogi Zoshi are characteristic of the Edo Period in two ways: as a commodity, and as an instrument of feudal moral philosophy. The Otogi Zoshi's courtship of the establishment and its anti-individualistic stance ares ymbolic of the Kyoh0 literary situation. In the subsequent Horeki, Meiwa,and An'ei Periods were to produce writers who were able to produce more individualistic works.To delineate the differences in the literary situation of these periods is to pursue the subjectivity of literature in the relationship of literature to politics.
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