L'amore nell’età odiosa. Senilità e sensualità nel Giappone del Settecento

Abstract

Edo sharebon (witty books) is a famous publishing genre in Japanese early modern literature and it is known for its mordant descriptions of love affairs among courtesans and customers of the pleasure quarters. This paper aims at analysing the characterisation of old men and women in Edo sharebon and other licentious fiction, by taking into account several representations of senility within the milieu of pleasure quarters. The presence of different characterisation patterns will be highlighted: a number of these are inherited by Japanese classical tradition and Kamigata prose, and others will be assessed as peculiar to Edo literary production.

Keywords

• Edo period
• Ihara Saikaku
• Japanese licentious fiction
• Senility and literature
• Sharebon