Reading the Lines: Edo period nyohitsu and the construction of meaning through script form

Abstract

This thesis explores nyohitsu 女筆 ‘woman’s brush’, a style of writing used in letters and taught through books taking the same name which were published in the Edo period, with its heyday between 1650 and 1750. Highly cursive and kana-dominant, it drew on Heian and medieval aristocratic writing practices, and its materiality, with eye-catching chirashigaki 散らし書き scattered mises-en-page and renmen 連綿connection, is distinctive, yet under-explored. Edo period print media tend to position nyohitsu as a form for use in female homosocial correspondence, and it has been thought to express femininity; with its elegant language and graceful calligraphic forms users could position themselves as cultivated and refined. The thesis problematises the strong association with women suggested by nyohitsu manuals. Taking an interdisciplinary approach, the thesis uses indexicality to arrive at a far more nuanced and complex description of what nyohitsu does in written communication. Indexicality proposes that meanings are not fixed, but contextual: depending on who wrote it, to whom, and in what situation, nyohitsu could express many, even conflicting meanings. In particular, analysis shows that it was particularly suitable for communicating warmth, sincerity and other affective stances. It could construct relationships as friendly and intimate, and both women and men could use it in appropriate circumstances, including in love letters. The courtesan, the archetypal nyohitsu practitioner and locus classicus of ‘love’, is also considered, and her script examined to elucidate what made her letters so desirable to collectors and connoisseurs. The thesis proposes nyohitsu as a flexible resource, with visual and linguistic aspects. In the hands of a skilled user, it could be used to construct complex meanings in personal correspondence and in narrative literature. It is found to be a form of writing that highlights typography’s poverty of means, a deficiency that post-typographic technology struggles to transcend.