Motoori Norinaga

Motoori Norinaga (1730-1801), Japanese poet, literary scholar, and thinker of the Edo period (1600-1868). Son of a merchant of Matsusaka in Ise province, Norinaga studied medicine in Kyoto from 1752, also beginning poetic and literary studies. Established as a doctor at Matsusaka by 1757, he began lecturing informally on Japanese literature, soon attracting a large following. At first devoted to the Genji monogatari (Tale of Genji) and the other masterpieces of the Heian period (798-1185), Norinaga soon turned to earlier works, developing advanced philological techniques to elucidate the difficult early written language. In 1764 he began his Kojiki den (Kojiki Commentary), a study of the early mythological history Kojiki, which was finally finished in 1798 and occupied 44 volumes. His political views, revealed in his writings on antiquity, presented Japan as an ideal community descended from the Shinto gods. Norinaga's total production totalled 90 works and 260 volumes, and brought Edo Japan's kokugaku (National Learning) movement to its peak. Though a peaceable scholar, Norinaga also spawned the nationalist ideology which inspired both the Meiji Restoration and Japan's 20th-century imperialism.