ABSTRACT
One of the features of the period of Ieyasu was the interest in literature, mainly due to the intellectual tastes of both Ieyasu himself and the Emperor Go Yozei, though the tendency had existed from the end of the Ashikaga period and perhaps only needed peace to develop it. Asakura and Matsunaga as well as Nobunaga had been patrons of letters, even in that warlike age. It has been suggested that Ieyasu owed this taste to having been brought up in the literary family of the Imagawa, but actually his taste in letters was quite different from theirs. They were given to the Court style of literary activity in Japanese verse, classical Chinese poetry, and the older romances of Court life such as the Genji and other Monogatari, but for these Ieyasu had little use. It is observed by Shimazu Yoshihisa that when he had to attend such a verse party he got a scholar to write his share for him. What he liked were ethical and historical works, such as the Confucian classics and Chinese history (the Shi-ki of Ssu Ma chien, the Roku-to and Sanryaku or books of strategy and so on), and among Japanese texts the Engishiki and Azuma Kagami. And this, observes Tokutomi, was much to the point, for the life of Ieyasu was no poem. Neither had he any of the artistic taste of Hideyoshi. What he had was an intense craving for information of all sorts, more especially for that kind that he could put to practical use. It was what appealed to the intellect that he liked, and not what appealed to the emotions, with which Ieyasu was not at all liberally supplied. Literature that instructed in duty and how to rule an Empire. In this taste he was followed by his sons Yorinobu of Kishu and Yoshiano of Owari, and especially that great scholar Mitsukuni of Mito, his grandson, as well as his other grandson, Hoshina Masayuki of Aizu, son of Hidetada. Whether he would have been so devoted to history had he been able to foresee that the study of it would lead to the overthrow of his house is another question.
