Henry Black : on stage in Meiji Japan / Ian McArthur.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

McArthur, Ian, 1950- author.

Series:

Monash Asia series

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Kairakutei, Burakku, 1858-1923.

Kairakutei, Burakku.

Storytellers--Japan--Biography.

Storytellers.

Kabuki.

Rakugo.

Japan.

Rakugo--Biography.

Kabuki--Biography.

Japan--Social life and customs--1868-1912.

Manners and customs.

Japan--Social life and customs--1912-1945.

Japan--History--Meiji period, 1868-1912.

History.

Genre:

Biographies.

Physical Description:

xi, 274 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm.

Other Title:

On stage in Meiji Japan

Place of Publication:

Clayton, Victoria, Australia : Monash University Pub., [2013]

Summary:

Unique among foreigners in nineteenth-century Japan, Australian-born professional storyteller (rakugoka) Henry Black (1858-1923) enthralled audiences with his adaptations of novels by Charles Dickens, Mary Braddon and Fortuné de Boisgobey. These tales, later produced as books, brought notions of European modernity to many ordinary Japanese. Black also acted kabuki roles, managed an orchestra, performed magic and hypnotism, lived with bis Japanese male lover, drank heavily, and practised tea ceremony. His voice was recorded for the London Gramophone Company on the first disc-shaped recordings made in Japan. In the 1870s Black joined the pro-democracy movement, promoting equal rights and an elected assembly. His later affiliation with the San'yu guild of storytellers, under the professional name of Kairakutei Burakku, enabled him to promote the movement's aims through his stories. He became a naturalised Japanese, and was shunned by his own family. This is the first full-length English-language account of Henry Black. Translating Blacks narrated adaptations and drawing on newspapers and diary entries, Ian McArthur demonstrates Black's individual contribution to the modernisation of Meiji-era (1868-1912) Japan. Book jacket.

Contents:

Introduction : 'the first foreigner on the Japanese boards'

In the beginning

Old Japan : new Japan

The move to Tokyo

A novice on the stage

The activist years, 1878-1886

From English teacher to rakugoka

In the golden age of the narrators

Adapting European sensation fiction

Sensation fiction as modernity

Adapting Dickens : dystopia and modern life

Face creams and tooth powder

Narrating the Meiji woman

Learning from the great Danjūrō

A question of identity : the 'imported Japanese'

The uncertain years, 1895-1900

Saved by new technology

The end of an era, 1908

No different from a Japanese.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 259-268) and index.

ISBN:

9781921867507

1921867507

OCLC:

828892533