The Prose of Our Land: Ban Kōkei, Translation, and National Language Consciousness in Eighteenth-Century Japan

Abstract:Today, Ban Kōkei 伴蒿蹊 (1733–1806) is mostly known as the author of a collection of biographies, which became one of the best-selling books of Japan’s late eighteenth century. However, he also devoted much of his career to developing the expressive potential of Japanese prose writing. This article locates Kōkei’s promotion of language reform within the context of contemporaneous developments in translation from classical into vernacular Japanese and explains the role of translation in Kōkei’s attempts to develop Japanese prose writing nearly one hundred years before the better-known national language advocacy of the “Unification of the Spoken and Written Languages” (Genbun itchi 言文一致) movement of the Meiji period (1868–1912). Considered alongside canonical figures like Motoori Norinaga and Ogyū Sorai, Kōkei’s lesser-known work is evidence of a nascent “national” language consciousness among Japanese intellectuals prior to the Meiji period.