A Comparison of English Chapbooks and the Kusazōshi of Edo-period Japan : The World Turned Upside Down and Mudaiki

In this article, I compare English chapbooks and the kusazōshi, especially kibyōshi, of Edo-period Japan. Chapbooks are small booklets, printed on a single sheet or a few sheets bound into booklets. They have crude woodcut illustrations, and circulated widely in 18th and 19th-century England. The bibliographic similarities between chapbooks and kusazōshi have been noted by Leon M. Zolbrod and Laura Moretti in their books, Zolbrod’s Kusazōshi: Chapbooks of Japan and Moretti’s Recasting the Past: An Early Modern Tales of Ise for Children. In order to further this discussion, I focus on the images of characters in the works, and attempt to clarify the similarities and differences in the expression of their satirical views of their respective societies.I examine in detail the chapbook The World Turned Upside Down, or, No News, and Strange News by James Kendrew (York, c. 1820), and the kibyōshi Mudaiki by Koikawa Harumachi (Edo, 1781). I compare them in terms of the following elements: the material on which the parodies are based; the techniques used in producing caricature; and their readerships. A common feature is their use of nonsense. The stories feature familiar animals and certain groups of people, which would have been readily identified by their readers, and perhaps elicited certain prejudices. For example, Jews and rustic samurai are typical objects of satirical expression. In addition, pointed and witty satire, often involving role reversal, is employed to challenge contemporary fashions and social conditions. Although filled with nonsense, these books appealed to their urban readerships by skillfully manipulating their common understanding of the world around them. The article finally examines differences in the critical attitudes and the objects of satire of the two countries, which can be identified despite the similarity of their satirical styles. These derive from differences in the view of society of their authors and their readerships. Chapbooks retain a cutting satirical quality characteristic of broadsides and political pamphlets that played a part in criticism of the establishment during the 17th-century Puritan Revolution and Restoration. In contrast, kibyōshi were written by intellectuals of the samurai class, members of both the political and cultural establishment, who, along with their citizen readers, valued a type of humor based on literary novelty and intricate word play. I conclude that the differences in their critical attitudes are based on their social status and their distance from the objects of their satire