Who was this person?
A late Edo man of letters and the leading kyōka poet. While serving as a low-ranking shogunate official, he made his name young with the comic verse collection Neboke Sensei Bunshū and, as Yomo no Akara, led the Tenmei-era kyōka boom. Later he placed first in the shogunate’s scholarship examination, served ably as an official, and in later life used the name Shokusanjin.
| Name | Ōta Nanpo (大田南畝) |
|---|---|
| Born–died | 1749 – 1823 |
| Period | Edo period |
| Birthplace | Ushigome, Edo (now Shinjuku, Tokyo) |
| Also known as | Yomo no Akara, Shokusanjin, Neboke Sensei |
| Main achievements |
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He was born in Ushigome, Edo, the son of Ōta Masatomo, a foot guard who escorted the shogun on outings. His name was Fukashi and his common name Naojirō. The family were low-ranking samurai and poor, but from childhood he excelled at learning and writing. He is also known by the name Shokusanjin.
He entered the school of the noted poet Uchiyama Gatei and studied national learning, Chinese learning and Chinese poetry, reportedly borrowing money to pay for his studies. There he met Akera Kankō and Karakoromo Kisshū, later fellow kyōka poets, opening his path as a man of letters who combined learning with playfulness.
Following his father, he became an apprentice foot guard in the shogun's service. Alongside his duties he continued his studies under Matsuzaki Kankai, a Chinese scholar of the Ogyū Sorai school. The following year he published a dictionary of terms for composing Chinese poetry, showing the depth of his learning.
His accumulated comic Chinese verse was discovered by his older friend Hezutsu Tōsaku and published as Neboke Sensei Bunshū. Borrowing the form of Chinese poetry to portray the world humorously, it carried a preface by Hiraga Gennai. It was a great hit among samurai who studied Chinese poetry and sparked a vogue for comic verse in Edo.
From around the time he joined Karakoromo Kisshū's poetry gatherings, he called himself Yomo no Akara and began holding meetings centered on kyōka, which until then had been treated as throwaway verse. Through the activities of Nanpo and his friends, kyōka, once centered in Kamigata, became a craze in Edo, leading to the boom known as Tenmei kyōka.
He published the kibyōshi Uso Happyaku Manpachiden with Tsutaya Jūzaburō, who had just begun publishing in earnest. Nanpo gathered many people at events such as moon-viewing parties and mixed with townspeople, samurai and artists. Santō Kyōden, later a popular author, is said to be one of the talents Nanpo discovered around this time.
With Akera Kankō he compiled the Manzai Kyōkashū. Its title parodied the imperial anthology Senzai Wakashū, and it gathered kyōka by over 200 poets. The book was a great success, bringing Edo's kyōka boom to its peak, and Nanpo's fame rose as its central figure.
After the fall of Tanuma Okitsugu, the official Tsuchiyama Sōjirō, who had supported Nanpo, was charged and punished. When Matsudaira Sadanobu's Kansei Reforms began, Nanpo withdrew from kyōka and devoted himself to his duties. There is a story that he was suspected of writing a famous kyōka mocking the reforms, but it is uncertain.
He sat the gakumon ginmi, the scholarship examination begun by the shogunate, and passed at the top of the division for lower-ranking retainers, together with Tōyama Kagemichi, later Nagasaki magistrate. People had mocked that Nanpo, famous for kyōka, could never get ahead, but he proved his ability through learning.
He was appointed a finance official and worked in the shogunate's finance office. Later, when ordered to sort old documents piled in the office's storehouse, he selected useful records and compiled them into collections, leaving valuable sources on the finances of the Edo shogunate.
He was posted to the Osaka copper office. Taking the name Shokusanjin from the Chinese word for copper mine, he gradually began composing kyōka again. In Osaka he mixed with the naturalist Kimura Kenkadō and the national-learning scholar Ueda Akinari, and wrote about life in Kyoto and Osaka.
He was posted to the Nagasaki magistrate's office and worked on matters relating to the arrival of the Russian envoy Rezanov. His essays on what he saw in Nagasaki describe drinking coffee, regarded as one of the earliest records of coffee drinking in Japan.
He happened to witness the great disaster in which the Eitai Bridge over the Sumida River collapsed under festival crowds. Nanpo himself gathered various accounts and testimonies and compiled them into a book. In essays such as Hanjitsu Kanwa he recorded many events of the city, conveying the life of his times.
On New Year's Day he wrote a poem about having lived long and received the blessings of heaven and earth. A fall on his way to the office broke his health, and he died in the fourth month, having kept working into old age. A humorous farewell poem facing death is attributed to him, but it is uncertain.
A. A late Edo man of letters and the leading kyōka poet. While serving as a low-ranking shogunate official, he made his name young with the comic verse collection Neboke Sensei Bunshū and, as Yomo no Akara, led the Tenmei-era kyōka boom. Later he placed first in the shogunate’s scholarship examination, served ably as an official, and in later life used the name Shokusanjin.
A. Period: Edo period. Born in 1749, died in 1823.
A. Ōta Nanpo was born in Ushigome, Edo (now Shinjuku, Tokyo).
A. Comic poetry in the same 5-7-5-7-7 form as waka, describing daily life and society with humor and irony. It became hugely popular in the mid to late Edo period, and Ōta Nanpo was its central figure.
See also: Wikipedia (ja) / Wikipedia (en) / Wikipedia (fr) / Wikipedia (zh) / Wikidata
Follow this life (autoplay)Ogyū SoraiTanuma OkitsuguHiraga GennaiUeda AkinariMatsudaira SadanobuSantō KyōdenKoikawa HarumachiSakai Hōitsu
Inō TadatakaHanawa HokiichiHasegawa HeizōShiba KokanTsutaya JūzaburōUesugi YōzanDaikokuya KōdayūKitagawa Utamaro
People of the Edo period ・ People by period
Based on facts found in textbooks and biographies. Uncertain points are marked as such.