The Structure of Iki

Introduction

Kuki Shuzo spent most of the 1920s studying in Europe, among others with Rickert, Husserl and Heidegger; he drafted the essay in Paris and published it in 1930 after his return, first in the journal Shiso and then as a book. Iki is a hard-to-translate aesthetic ideal of the Edo-period pleasure quarters and of townspeople’s culture: refined, slightly coquettish, unattached. Kuki analyses it into three moments: coquetry (bitai), the proud, spirited composure of the Edo townsman (ikiji) and resignation (akirame), shaped by the Buddhist sense of impermanence. He then traces its expression in gestures, colours, patterns and architecture. Because Kuki presents iki as a specifically Japanese mode of being, the book has also been read critically in connection with cultural nationalism.

Connections

Builds on

• Being and Time1927 · Martin Heidegger