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Tea in Japan: Essays on the History of Chanoyu
"Represents a major advance over previous publications.... Students will find this volume especially useful as an introduction to the primary sources, terminology, and dominant themes in the history of chanoyu." —Journal of Japanese Studies
"Tea in Japan illuminates in depth and detail chanoyu's cultural connections and evolution from the early Kamakura period... It is the quality of seeing the familiar and not so familiar elements of tea emerge as a dynamic saga of human invention and cultural intervention that makes this book exhilarating and the details that the authors provide that make these essays fascinating." —Journal of the Association of Teachers of Japanese
"Tea in Japan illuminates in depth and detail chanoyu's cultural connections and evolution from the early Kamakura period... It is the quality of seeing the familiar and not so familiar elements of tea emerge as a dynamic saga of human invention and cultural intervention that makes this book exhilarating and the details that the authors provide that make these essays fascinating." —Journal of the Association of Teachers of Japanese
328 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1989
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
April 18, 2024
Only for dedicated devotees of chanoyu.
The title says it all. This is a conference volume of essays on the history of the Japanese art of tea drinking, or chanoyu (which translates as "hot water for tea"). The compilation comprises seven essays by six professors (three Japanese, three Western) and three commentaries (one by a Japanese grand master of chanoyu, and two by Western professors). The volume documents a 1982 conference arranged by the University of Hawaii, with the collected essays not published until some seven years later.
The editors of the volume acknowledge a problem of duplication of material. Mere factual duplication across the essays was eliminated, while the editors retained duplication where authors had different points to discuss. That said, the volume still has a lot of repetitive historical material that becomes irksome.
Another shortcoming is the date- and name-heavy focus of the historical analysis. I have often noted that Japanese historians emphasize the lives of great men and the events of key dates. There is less attention (at least in the older generation of writers) to the broader cultural, economic, and social forces that shaped the path of history. This volume frequently takes this name/date-heavy approach, despite the broad balance of contributory Japanese and Western scholars. We read in detail about the succession of tea masters, the types of tea ware they used, the tea houses that they had built, and how these developments in "tea taste" were tracked in the various historical accounts published over the centuries.
But while the reader is immersed in details, it is more difficult to discern the more general picture of why the elaborate ritual of tea drinking developed in Japan. It was very costly, with tea ware changing hands for fortunes, so it must have met some critical social needs. Some authors suggest that it provided a forum for men to meet as equals, a valuable respite from the stultifying, hierarchical governance regime imposed on unified Japan from the sixteenth century onwards. But this message could have been explored to greater benefit. It is striking, for example, that two of the leading devotees of the tea ceremony with close links to the ruling powers ended their lives after being required to commit ritual suicide. How common was this at the time? Was it a perennial risk of courting power? Or was it a particular risk arising from the equalizing function of the tea ceremony?
There is a wealth of material in the essays. But the volume is more valuable for reference purposes than as a readable cultural history on Japan and its tea ceremony.
The title says it all. This is a conference volume of essays on the history of the Japanese art of tea drinking, or chanoyu (which translates as "hot water for tea"). The compilation comprises seven essays by six professors (three Japanese, three Western) and three commentaries (one by a Japanese grand master of chanoyu, and two by Western professors). The volume documents a 1982 conference arranged by the University of Hawaii, with the collected essays not published until some seven years later.
The editors of the volume acknowledge a problem of duplication of material. Mere factual duplication across the essays was eliminated, while the editors retained duplication where authors had different points to discuss. That said, the volume still has a lot of repetitive historical material that becomes irksome.
Another shortcoming is the date- and name-heavy focus of the historical analysis. I have often noted that Japanese historians emphasize the lives of great men and the events of key dates. There is less attention (at least in the older generation of writers) to the broader cultural, economic, and social forces that shaped the path of history. This volume frequently takes this name/date-heavy approach, despite the broad balance of contributory Japanese and Western scholars. We read in detail about the succession of tea masters, the types of tea ware they used, the tea houses that they had built, and how these developments in "tea taste" were tracked in the various historical accounts published over the centuries.
But while the reader is immersed in details, it is more difficult to discern the more general picture of why the elaborate ritual of tea drinking developed in Japan. It was very costly, with tea ware changing hands for fortunes, so it must have met some critical social needs. Some authors suggest that it provided a forum for men to meet as equals, a valuable respite from the stultifying, hierarchical governance regime imposed on unified Japan from the sixteenth century onwards. But this message could have been explored to greater benefit. It is striking, for example, that two of the leading devotees of the tea ceremony with close links to the ruling powers ended their lives after being required to commit ritual suicide. How common was this at the time? Was it a perennial risk of courting power? Or was it a particular risk arising from the equalizing function of the tea ceremony?
There is a wealth of material in the essays. But the volume is more valuable for reference purposes than as a readable cultural history on Japan and its tea ceremony.
July 16, 2024
A little more academic than some other collections of essays on chanoyu that I’ve read (and a little less current), but well worth the time of dedicated Japanese tea nerds! Kōshirō’s essay on the wabi aesthetic was super informative (and concerns an important aspect of my own aesthetic studies), and Cooper’s studies on interpretations of tea by early European visitors was unexpected.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews