Japan Luncheon Series
Peter Flueckiger, Assistant Professor of Japanese, Pomona College
Many Tokugawa Confucian and nativist philosophers, including Ito Jinsai, Ogyu Sorai, and Motoori Norinaga, criticized Zhu Xi's idea that poetry should be judged for its moral content, and argued that poetry should simply be read as an expression of human emotion. This talk discusses how their
criticisms were motivated not just by a concern that didacticism distorted the true nature of poetry, but also by a belief that empathy was critical to the formation of a harmonious society, and that the study of the emotions
expressed in poetry was an important means for cultivating a capacity for empathy.