The Demimonde in Japanese Literature: Sexuality and the Literary ...

In this vein, the term “demimonde,” as I propose to use it, can be divided into three semantic categories: the demimonde as a place (for example, one of Japan's licensed quarters or Nighttown in Joyce's “Circe” chapter from Ulysses), along with the denizens who work in or frequent it; the demimonde as a genre of literature that is centered around such spaces and habitués; and finally, the demimonde as a metaphor for how spaces that are set aside for sexuality and heightened eroticism can become disseminated throughout society, resulting in, among other consequences, a perceived threat to the dominant class or cultural principals. The demimonde in this way signifies a subculture of resistance.

It should be noted that the elasticity of the term “demimonde” can lead to some confusion. Although I use it interchangeably to refer to both physical locations (brothels, cafés, dance halls, and so on) and to spaces of textuality (often conflated with a realm of pure art, pure freedom, or “pure” imagination), the demimonde/pleasure quarters can never be seen as purely physical spaces. But, neither are they purely imaginative. Rather, the relationship between physical space and literary space is mutually generative, and the two realms are linked by a performance of social and erotic relations (which are carried out, in the texts this book explores, in physical spaces as varied as the traditional karyûkai, the high-rise hotels of the film Topâzu, and the urban “jungle” inhabited by the postwar pan-pan, prostitutes who catered to the occupying forces following World War II.)

I have chosen the term “demimonde”¹⁹ as the most all-inclusive for my purposes. Not surprisingly, because Japan had officially sanctioned pleasure quarters, whereas America, England, and other English-speaking nations did not, the Japanese language has more words for such spaces than English does. These terms include yûkaku, or “night quarter”; hanamachi, or “flower town”/“flower district” (the flower euphemizing the prostitutes who inhabit the districts); and yûjomachi and keiseimachi, both roughly translating as “courtesan district” and dating back to the early seventeenth century and Yoshiwara's first incarnation. However, the Japanese term I privilege is karyûkai, literally meaning “the flower-and-willow world,” and a more contemporary coinage for