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Ihara Saikaku

Type Figure Region Japan Time 1642–1693 Also known as Sugimura Ibei

Ihara Saikaku was a giant of Edo-period ukiyo literature, born in Osaka in 1642 and dying in 1693;…

Timeline

  1. 1642–1673Osaka · SettsuSaikaku, whose real name was Sugimura Ibei, was born into a wealthy merchant family in Osaka and inherited the family business in gold coin and textile trade. In the 1670s he amassed wealth amid Osaka's commercial boom while also coming into contact with haikai circles, laying the groundwork for his later abandonment of commerce for letters through urban experience and linguistic material.
  2. 1673–1685Osaka·Kyoto · JapanAround 1673 Saikaku squandered his fortune and turned to literature, active in haikai and fiction under the pen name Ihara Saikaku. The 1682 publication of The Life of an Amorous Man marked the peak of ukiyo-zōshi; thereafter he successively published The Second Life of an Amorous Man, Tales of Samurai Duty, and others, depicting townsman passions and samurai duty with swift brushwork.
  3. 1685–1693Osaka · JapanIn his later years Saikaku continued to produce works such as The Japanese Family Storehouse and The Worldly Way of Mind, bringing commercial ethics and townsman wisdom into his literary vision. He died in Osaka in 1693, leaving a large body of ukiyo-zōshi and haiku, becoming a symbolic writer of Edo townsman culture.

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