Evolutions of Ethical Paradigms and Popular Fiction: The Case of Late Edo Tales of Vengeance

Résumé En

Tales of vengeance were a popular Edo literary genre published in great numbers from the end of the eighteenth century. From the outset, tales of vengeance (katakiuchi mono) were informed by the neo-Confucian orthodoxy promoted by the military government in the immediate aftermath of the Kansei Reforms (1787-1793), and constituted ideological productions marked by consistent structures and dramatis personae with specific functions. With the passage of time, the intellectual paradigms—moral rules and sets of ideas governing everyday life—that underpinned these tales shifted. The present article explores the interaction between this broader ethical context and the tales of vengeance, arguing that the evolution of ethical paradigms from the immediate aftermath of the Kansei Reforms to the last part of the Edo period drove alterations to the tales. The article sheds new light on the possibilities for philological and structural analysis to reveal fundamental structures and transformations in literature. The application of structuralism and morphological analysis to late Edo tales of vengeance provides us with information on the ideas, worries, and beliefs relevant to the people of the late Edo period. Changes over time—in the morphology of the tales, their structure, and their range of characters—reveal that their transformations reflect changes in reality. The article demonstrates the potential structuralism offers for the study of literature more broadly.