The Reading Cultures and Ethical Codes of Germany and Japan in the Eighteenth Century

Abstract

Texts whose themes are contrary to the social norms and ethical codes of their era, or which disseminate what are seen as unwholesome ideas, have been in many societies prohibited from being published or sold, or even from being read. This paper will examine such cases in Germany and Japan in the 18th century. These texts challenged the ethical norms of their societies, which were based on the authority of the Enlightenment and Christianity and of the Shogunate, respectively. In particular, Goethe's The Sorrows of Young Werther and Chikamatsu Monzaemon's Sonezaki Shinju, iconic works of the two countries in the 18th century, led to an increase in cases of the social phenomenon of suicide. Criticism of the role these texts played in inspiring these acts and of what was viewed as their unethical contents helped rather than hindered their success, and this demonstrates that the officially-sanctioned ethics of the day and the desire of ordinary readers were in a relationship of mutual tension, and that the differentiation of the two countries' reading cultures from ethical codes was progressing. The study of the widespread social phenomena related to reading books which were seen as illegitimate in Germany and Japan is an important basis for research into the relationship between the reading culture of the 18th century and the ethical codes of the day, specifically as this evolution relates to social modernization.