A Retiree’s Chat (Shin’ya meidan): The Recollections of the Kyōka Poet Hezutsu Tōsaku

Abstract

In the late 1780s, the renowned kyōka poet Hezutsu Tōsaku (1726–1789) looked back at his l ife and set about notating some of his memorable experiences and the characteristics of his age. The result was a presumably unfinished zuihitsu entitled Shin’ ya meidan (A Retiree’s Chat). In this piece Tōsaku presents sixteen anecdotes and opinions regarding, among other things, famous writers, poets, thinkers, and artists of the past, renowned kabuki actors, connoisseurs and courtesans in Yoshiwara, rural poets and authors, personal friends, astute monks, conditions in Ezo (Hokkaido), and the benefits of city life. This wealth of subjects supplies not just a rare glimpse into the biography of a late-eighteenth century comic poet but also an unusually personal account of cultural life in Edo.