HIST 1708 Lecture Notes - Lecture 24: Genroku, Conspicuous Consumption
Document Summary
The rise of urban commoner culture and the crisis of the samurai class. The genroku period(1688-1703) and the emergence of commoner wealth & culture urban entertainment districts. Brothels licensed pleasure quarters(yukaku) - authorized and set up by shogunal government in early seventeenth century in the three major cities(edo, kyoto, osaka) growth of commoner education and literacy, late 17th -19th centuries. Vast expansion of schooling opportunities for non-elites. Importance placed on learning for men and women. Necessity for basic literacy/numeracy in most occupations. Growth of popular literacy culture samurai culture. Participants in commoner arts: poetry, ction writing, music, culture and pleasure quarters ex, haiku o cial (samurai/shogunal) attitudes toward commoner wealth & culture. Condemn in public: reiterate confucian values of frugality and modesty, especially for warriors.
