Sakura Sōgorō between Kabuki and Kōdan: A Cross-Genre Genealogy

Set in the seventeenth century and centered on a peasant uprising led by the eponymous character, the folkloric tale of the “peasant martyr of Sakura” (Sakura giminden) has been transmitted in various forms in various jitsuroku (veritable records) and later adapted for use in several performance genres, beginning with kabuki and kōdan and then extending to jōruri and rōkyoku. In this paper, I explore the relationship between the jitsuroku and both kabuki and kōdan in circulating and readapting the tale. The kabuki play Higashiyama sakura sōshi, first staged in Edo in 1851, presented a subplot that, though not included in the various veritable records, contributed greatly to its success, which was such that it is still regarded as the canonical telling of the story. In it, the main hero returns to his village to bid a final farewell to his wife and children and to divorce the former and disown the latter in the hope that they may avoid the fate that awaits him, for he has resolved to appeal directly to the shogun on behalf of his fellow peasants – an act that, regarded as insubordination, is invariably punished with death. While this subplot appears in kōdan stories about Sakura Sōgorō as well, scholars have regarded it as an innovation by the kabuki playwright that kōdan narratives absorbed. As a matter of fact, while such kōdan were performed around the same time that the play was staged, textual versions were published only from mid-Meiji period and, therefore, fail to provide evidence of earlier circulation. Focusing on the homecoming subplot, I survey in this paper the dramatizations of the Sakura giminden story in kabuki and kōdan to establish the genealogical relationships among those genres and the jitsuroku narratives.