Kyōka Hyaku Monogatari

Summary

The kyōka was extremely prosperous during the Tenmei era (1781–1789), and many kyōka e-hon garnished with colored illustrations were published. Yōkai were enjoyed as the subject of kyōka. The poet Ōta Nanpo imitated the techniques of Hyakumonogatari Kaidankai, where an event was held where he recited a kyōka that included around 100 kinds of yōkai; with the intent of doing it again, he collected together the kyōka, and the book was the result of collecting together only the better of the poems.

As a kyōka with a theme on 96 yōkai, it is divided and collected together based on each yōkai, and it recorded yōkai illustrations in various colored version of yōkai illustrations, and thus it also carries the characteristic of being an illustrated yōkai reference book. The yōkai within this book were humorous existences as the subject of kyōka, and were thus existences that were joked about, it can be seen that yōkai that were once main characters of ghost stories that were to be feared or awed became characters for amusement in the middle of the Edo period.

Koizumi Yakumo also possessed the book, and 48 poems of kyōka that he particularly liked were translated to English under the subject "Goblin Poetry". Later, Yakumo himself also garnished these notes with yōkai illustrations, and was later reproduced and published under the title .

Explanatory notes

References

References

1. Kojima, Usui. (February 1916). "Hiroshige bannen no kyōka ehon (jō)". Ukiyo-e.
2. (1964). "Kokusho sōmokuroku". Iwanami shoten.
3. (2000). "Yōkai gahon・kyōka hyakumonogatari". [[:ja:国書刊行会.
4. Yumoto, Kōichi. (2003). "Edo no yōkai emaki". [[Kobunsha]].
5. (2009). "Zusetsu Yōkai-ga no keifu". [[Kawade Shobō Shinsha]].