The Great Mirror of Male Love - Literary Analysis Essay

Introduction

The great mirror of male love is an accumulation consisting of 40 short narratives written by Ihara Saikaku to explain edo culture. Saikaku described the practice of unisexual romantic relations between adult males and young men in the 17th century in Japan. It is the longest of Ihara Saikaku's work and the very most adored. It was published in Osaka and Kyoto in the seventeenth-century to be specific the year 1687, and distributed in Edo shortly afterward. The title itself shows that the author, Ihara Saikaku, is comparing sexual relationships between males to sexual relations between a male and a female just as one compares oneself to an image of oneself in the mirror.

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Saikaku was a known and well-respected writer of his time majoring in homosexual literature. The author wrote, "The mirror of male love" to bring to light how enjoyable and fulfilling male love maybe, even to some extent more than the usual love and relationship between males and females. In medieval Japan in seventeenth-century male love was practiced but only by a few most who were the Japanese warriors( the samurais) and some Buddha clergymen. Even so, the people involved in male love were afraid to come out in the open through the Japanese culture embraced the culture. Saikaku encourages the male partners in the male love relationship to be proud and not shy off since even his Kabuki actors who played the character roles in his stories were ashamed to act the homosexual roles.

The twenty stories that saikaku wrote first are collectively called the samurai. In the samurai, the stories explain the culture of boy love. At the same time, the 2nd fraction of the publication shifts its concentration to kabuki performers who also valued boy love, where young men serve as male prostitutes in the Japanese districts, which are Kyoto, Osaka, and Tokyo(then known as Edo).

Saikaku's short essay aggregation grouped as samurai, wakashu, and kabuki wakashu; each fraction could almost make sense. Saikaku did not make a lot of effort in integrating the two parts, but he concentrated on the first chapter, "Love: The Contest Between Two Forces," where he tried to introduce his entire book.

The story “the great mirror of male love” takes the reader back to the 17th century in a historical period in Japan, where the males used to do romance with either ladies or gentlemen. In the stories, Ihara Saikaku explains that in Japan, people used to value love between a man and another man. A Japanese man mostly appreciated love with an adolescent boy who they referred to as wakashu, more than a female.

Siakaku, wrote the story called “Nanshoku okagami," where he explained two types of men. The first group is men who disregard women's love and value male love. The other group of men is the ones who value and love women. Fellow men belittle those men who love women. In most of the relationships, the younger boys took the submission role.

In one of his stories, Saikaku tells us about a small brave boy who was a son of a Samurai. The boy had was korin. Korin's father had died, and he was left with his mother. Once the king heard of the brave boy, he demanded to meet him, and the boy was brought. Korin was very handsome, and when the Lord saw him, he fell in love instantly.

Korin saved the Lord's life once, but the Lord was not thankful. Once he realized korin had another lover, he killed him in public. Korin's lover could not bear having the pain of losing his loved one, and he decided to commit suicide after revenging against the Lord. The story teaches us about the sacrifice that true lovers make. Korin was loving enough to make the sacrifice of giving his love for the sake of the man he loved. From the story, we also learn to do good and avoid evil deeds, for they might be revenged or rewarded.

Popular literature in seventeenth-century Japan did not dismiss homosexuality relations as immoral, abnormal, or perverse. Instead, it incorporated it as how one would look for any sexual love as a literary theme. In an environment, Saikaku did not need strategies of masking and signaling the homosexuality theme in one's context, as seen with a famous writer such as Shakespeare in some of his books and poems.

Sexual relations between men and younger men or lads discussed as a matter of sex specialty. It was just another way human proved their sophistication and culture. As a result, books on sexual in Japan did not develop a culture of hiding their sexual theme, and Saikaku indeed was not left out in proving their bravely in writing explicit material.

The image of male love majored in samurai and Buddhist clergymen. Saikaku's book encourages samurai wakashu to respond to the sexual desires of their older men and fulfill their duties as handsome samurai wakashu. At the time, they were the debate on with the type of love is better; the boy love or female love, but since a minority only practiced male love, the former mostly lost the debates. Even so, those who practiced male love were dimmed as specialists and cultured, while those who practiced women's love seen as uncultured and unlearned.

Saikaku’s work seeks to decriminalize homosexuality in other areas of the world through the translation of a couple of authors. To activists and supporters of sexual rights and gay movements see Japan as an example of social tolerance and inspirational. Saikaku's work offers much comfort to the activists, and it is as a reference despite being written and published centuries ago in Japan. It goes without mention that Saikaku's work is an inspiration to writers and hence the many translations of his book over the centuries.

Saikaku's work champions love among boys and seek to diminish woman love, but Saikaku recurs to women for the measure of beauty and erotic aptitude and depicts the boy characters as women more so the younger boys who played the submissive role. The boys were skilled in the act of lovemaking and to the love of a woman. What is interesting is how the characters in his book actively take their roles and positions in the relationship dutifully.

Many argue this may be so since the male love mostly majored on Samurais and Buddha clergymen. The samurais took it as a role and duty of being a warrior to submit to their seniors in whatever means even sexual. These bring about the abuse of power and sexual harassment between those in power and their subjects.

In one of Saikaku’s arguments, whether to enjoy boy actor or die with a woman one hardly knows for the sake of love, he concludes that no matter how beautiful and loving the woman may be, it is sensible to dispense the woman and instead turn to male love. He seeks to show that woman love is demanding and foolish as compared to male love, which much less demanding and intriguing. Likewise, Saikaku uses creation myths and religious traditions in both the Chinese and Japanese history to encourage and uplift boy-love.

In one of his stories in the book "The sword that survived Love's Flames," Saikaku writes of a young man who intends to bury the ashes of a dead boyfriend and also the ashes of a friend's bride in the temple. Another traveler rebukes the young man for clinging to a woman even when she is dead. In turn, the young man throws away the woman's ashes into a creek, and both the young man and the traveler laugh at what fools they are for cling to women mostly in love.

In the story "the great mirror of male love," saikaku explains the need for the leadership to be responsible for leadership. The publication describes the culture of the Japanese, which involved loving young boys.

However, Saikaku's story is considered by many people to be offensive. People criticize the work saying that the author was complaining about the single-gender relationship. The displays ma women love as a waste of money and time. Saikaku says that the work of a woman is not to be loved but to give birth. Female readers are always at war with the author.

It is a pleasure to familiarize oneself as the reader with Saikaku's work, which is eminently well-equipped to acquire knowledge and scholarly study of the sexual practices between men and boys.

Works Cited

Nishiyama, Matsunosuke. Edo culture: daily life and diversions in urban Japan, 1600-1868. University of Hawaii Press, 1997.

Vaporis, Constantine Nomikos. Tour of duty: samurai, military service in Edo, and the culture of early modern Japan. University of Hawaii Press, 2008.

Ihara, Saikaku. The great mirror of male love. Stanford University Press, 1990.