Verifying the Authorship of Saikaku Ihara’s Arashi ha Mujyō Monogatari in Early Modern Japanese Literature: A Quantitative Approach

This study focuses on Arashi ha Mujyō Monogatari (“The Tale of Transient Popular Kabuki Actor Arashi’s Life”; 1688), a novel from the early modern Japanese literature, written by Saikaku Ihara (1642–93). It is a first work of a Kabuki actor’s life in Japan (Kabuki is a traditional stage arts performed exclusively by male actors with the accompaniment of live music and songs). Then we will examine the “authorship problem” in Saikaku’s works using the tools of quantitative analysis. Saikaku was a national author whose novels were published in 17th century. Saikaku’s works are known for their significance for developing Japanese contemporary novels. One recent hypothesis has stated that he wrote twenty-four novels, however, it remained unclear which works were really written by Saikaku except Kōshoku ichidai otoko (“The Life of an Amorous Man”; 1682), Shōen Ōkagami (“The Great Mirror of Female Beauty”; 1684), Kōshoku ichidai onna (“The Life of an Amorous Woman”; 1686), Kōshoku gonin onna (“Love Stories about Five Women”; 1686). Although the study of his works has continued, these fundamental doubts about his authorship remain. Meanwhile, the potential of quantitative analysis of textual data and the related field of the digital humanities have also dramatically advanced. However, quantitative analysis of Japanese classical works has been behind. It has been a problem due to complications regarding development of morphological analysis software and also delayed digitalization of Japanese classical works.