Motoori Norinaga
21 June 1730 – 5 November 1801
Motoori Norinaga was a Japanese scholar of the Edo period and the greatest figure of the kokugaku (national learning) movement. A practicing physician in Matsusaka, he devoted his life to the study of classical Japanese literature and language, producing the monumental Kojiki-den, a complete annotated commentary on the Kojiki, and influential studies of The Tale of Genji centered on his concept of mono no aware.
Lived at the same time
Well-documented people whose lives overlapped with Motoori Norinaga.
- Louis Antoine de Bougainville (1729–1811) Overlapped 71 years →
- Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) Overlapped 71 years →
- Henry Cavendish (1731–1810) Overlapped 70 years →
- Joseph Haydn (1732–1809) Overlapped 69 years →
- Qianlong Emperor (1711–1799) Overlapped 69 years →
- Maria Gaetana Agnesi (1718–1799) Overlapped 69 years →
Life events
Norinaga was born into the Ozu merchant family in Matsusaka, Ise province (now Mie prefecture), Japan.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgHis father died when Norinaga was a boy, and the family's cotton business declined, leading his mother to steer him away from commerce toward learning.
In 1752 his mother sent him to Kyoto, where he trained as a physician and studied Chinese and Japanese classics, adopting the old family name Motoori.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgHe returned home in 1757 and practiced as a pediatric physician, lecturing on Japanese classics such as The Tale of Genji in his spare time.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgTheir single meeting in 1763, remembered as 'the night in Matsusaka', led Mabuchi to accept Norinaga as a student and encourage his study of the Kojiki.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgIn works on The Tale of Genji he argued that the essence of Japanese literature lay in mono no aware, a sensitivity to the pathos of things, rather than in moral didacticism.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgBeginning around 1764, he composed his 44-volume annotated commentary on the Kojiki, deciphering its archaic language and completing the work in 1798.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgHis fame as a scholar brought invitations from feudal lords, including lectures for Tokugawa Harusada, daimyo of Kishū, in the 1790s.
Motoori Norinaga died in Matsusaka at the age of 71, leaving hundreds of students who carried on the kokugaku movement.
Source: en.wikipedia.org