Solitary Thoughts: A Translation of Tadano Makuzu’s Hitori Kangae (Part 2)Tadano Makuzu
Translated by Janet R. Goodwin, Bettina Gramlich-Oka, Elizabeth A. Leicester, Yuki Terazawa and Anne Walthall
MN 56:2 (2001) pp. 173–95
In 1817 Tadano Makuzu 只野 真葛 (1763-1825) composed Hitori kangae 独考 (Solitary Thoughts), an essay in which she expressed her often unconventional views on issues ranging from the sources of the economic problems of the warrior class to relations between men and women. A translation of the first two of the three sections of the essay appeared in the previous issue. Below we have translated the third.
As noted in the introduction to the translation published in the previous issue, in Hitori kangae Makuzu often diverges from the logic of exposition expected by a modern reader. In the third section she similarly does not so much pick up new issues as return to and elaborate on points mentioned in the previous two sections. By following Makuzu as she pursues her own distinctive train of thought, the reader will find both a window into the mind of a remarkable woman and a valuable commentary on various developments in late Edo society and culture.
