12018-06-12T00:43:56-07:00Ronae Matriano8ed24d71e6036affdb22f6e2fd0ec83a8e515e95149432plain2019-01-30T23:22:01-08:00Ronae Matriano8ed24d71e6036affdb22f6e2fd0ec83a8e515e95Political institutions like the sankin kōtai system are mirrored by new moral and epistemological institutions as well. As a way of preventing the kind of social chaos observable during the Warring States period, the Tokugawa regime passes a series of strict laws and regulations designed at establishing a rigid hierarchy consisting of the military (samurai) on top, followed by farmers, artisans, and craftspeople, and at the bottom, merchants. Despite this hierarchy, however, you’ll notice that many of the finest works of literature from the Edo period focus on the lives of this mercantile class: people like soy sauce vendors, debt collectors, calendar sellers, etc. In official political theory, the merchant class is presented as rapacious and petty, but in reality, some of the most moving and truly popular literature of the era deals with the trials, tribulations, and everyday life of this group. Very often, this literature focuses on tensions between discourses of duty, righteousness, and honor on the one hand, and individual emotions and feelings on the other. For our readings next session, we’ll examine some examples of this literature.