Sovereign domains: The structure of 'Iki'

Abstract

Kuki Shuzuō's The Structure of 'Iki' was written in the context of the widespread re-evaluation of the Edo period which took place among Japanese intellectuals in the 1920s. The reasons for its translation are outlined and striking features of its position analysed: the perversity of accepting at a meta-linguistic level of interpretation what it has refused to accept at an intra-linguistic one; its preoccupation with a deferred hetero-sexuality; the psycho-biographical background of the author. The various strengths and weaknesses of Kuki's threefold etymological, epigraphic and structural method are then examined and possible analogies in post-war structuralist thought noted. After inquiry into some possible implications of Kuki's position for the application of his method outside Japanese sources, his own philosophical tendencies in the late 1930s are examined in relation to Japanese cultural aggression in China.