The was a genre and type of early modern

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

ese

novel A novel is an extended work of narrative fiction usually written in prose and published as a book. The word derives from the for 'new', 'news', or 'short story (of something new)', itself from the , a singular noun use of the neuter plural of ...

. It came into being late in the

Edo period The , also known as the , is the period between 1600 or 1603 and 1868 in the history of Japan, when the country was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and some 300 regional ''daimyo'', or feudal lords. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengok ...

during the 19th century. As a genre, it depicted the comical behavior occurring in commoners' daily lives. The ''kokkeibon'' genre is the successor of the '' dangibon'' genre. Jippensha Ikku's ''

Tōkaidōchū Hizakurige , abbreviated as ''Hizakurige'' () and known in translation as ''Shank's mare, Shank's Mare'', is a comic picaresque novel (kokkeibon) written by Jippensha Ikku (十返舎一九, 1765–1831) about the misadventures of two travelers on the Tōka ...

'' (1802–1822) is identified as the first representative novel. A less strict definition includes the ''dangibon'' as an "early ''kokkeibon''". ''Kokkeibon'' generally consists of dialogue among the main characters and includes illustrations. The genre was most popular between 1804 and 1830, and is best represented by the works of Jippensha Ikku and Shikitei Sanba.

References

* * Edo-period works Gesaku Japanese literature {{Japan-lit-stub

See also

References