Tamenaga Shunsui I and II (為永春水) (author )

Links

Biography:

We have chosen to combine two writers into this one page, because it isn't always clear which one was being referred to: Shunsui I or II. Sometimes the known dates of a publication should make the distinction clear, but that won't always be the case. In the West, we don't have quite the same problem because names are not passed down so easily. Shakespeare is Shakespeare no matter when a book is published. Whether it is in 1623 with the First Folio or 2024, Shakespeare is always Shakespeare. However, in Japan, it isn't always such a straightforward problem. The artist Hiroshige I died in 1758, but his artistic heir, Hiroshige II, who signed with the same exact signature, was up and running in that crucial year. Scholars can't always tell which Hiroshige made which design. Dated prints after that date, should clearly indicate that those prints are by Hiroshige II. Hence the confusion.

****

Tamenaga Shunsui I (1790 – 1843)

In the Dictionnaire historique du Japon from 1993, page 47 it says: "Auteur de la fin de l'époque d'Edo qui s'illustra dans diverse genres, du "livre sentimental" (ninjōbon 人情本) au "livre relié" (gokan 合巻), en passant par le "livre à lire" (yomihon 読本). De son vrai nom Sasaki Sadataka 鷦鷯貞高, connu également sous son nom courant d'Echizen'ya Chōjirō 越前屋長次郎, il exerça de multiple métiers, prêteur de livres, conteur, avant de devinir l'un des disciples de Shikitei Samba 式亭三馬 et d'entamer sa carrière littéraire. Le parution en 1832 (Tempō, 3) de Shunshoku umegoyomi 春色梅兒譽美, "L,almanach des pruniers", lui valut une grande renommée confirmée par une production importante qui repose sur la mise en scène de la vie quotidienne des commerçants de la ville: l'œuvre de Shunsui marque ainsi l'apogée du genre ninjōbon. Mais le publication des textes appartenant à ce genre, qui demeure étranger au ton moralisateur voulu par les réformes des Tempō (Tempō no kaikaku 天保の改革), fut interdite en 1842. La maladie et le découragement achevèrent alors Shunsui."

****

According to Pedro Thiago Ramos Bassoe in his 2018 doctoral thesis at the University of California, Berkeley, on page 9: "Ninjōbon (books of sentiment), a genre of gesaku related to yomihon, similarly included only a handful of illustrations per volume, but they were so extravagant a feature of the genre that, according to Bakin, they were a main cause for its censure during the Tenpō Reforms (1830-1844). Tamenaga Shunsui created the genre of ninjōbon in the 1830’s by combining the long narrative format of yomihon with the social perspective of pleasure quarter fiction, but he distinguished his work by focusing on the emotional lives of his story’s protagonists, mostly geisha, who received an uncommonly sympathetic treatment for the time. The genre was especially popular with women, an emergent demographic of readers, who were the target audience of embedded advertisements for cosmetics, kimono, and popular restaurants (although, as attested to by Shōyō and numerous other modern writers, the genre was quite popular with men as well)."

****

Tamenaga Shunsui II (1818-86)

Somezaki Nobufusa (染崎延房: 1818-86) was born into a samurai family on Tsushima Island. He became a student of Tamenaga Shunsui I and on his death Nobufusa inherited his pen name. After the Meiji Restoration in 1868 he became a contributor to the Nishiki-e Shinbun.

He worked not only with Toyokuni III, but also with Utagawa Yoshitora.