Recent Writings on the Ako Incident of 1701-03,

also known as the Revenge of the 47 Ronin (or "Loyal Samurai" or "Gishi")

and as "Chūshingura" after the puppet play Kanadehon Chūshingura of 1748

I. "THREE HUNDRED YEARS OF CHUSHINGURA" series in Monumenta Nipponica, 2003-06

1) Henry D. Smith II, “The Capacity of Chūshingura.” Monumenta Nipponica, 58:1 (Spring 2003), pp. 1-42.  PDF

2) Bitō Masahide, "The Akō Incident of 1701-1703." Translated by Henry D. Smith II.  Monumenta Nipponica, 58:2 (Summer 2003), pp. 149-70. PDF

3) James McMullen, "Confucian Perspectives on the Akō Revenge: Law and Moral Agency." Monumenta Nipponica, 58:3 (Autumn 2003), pp. 293-315.  PDF

4) Federico Marcon and Henry D. Smith II, “A Chūshingura Palimpsest: Young Motoori Norinaga Hears the Story of the Akō Rōnin from a Buddhist Priest.” Monumenta Nipponica, 58:4 (Winter 2003), pp. 439-65.  PDF

5) Hyōdō Hiromi and Henry D. Smith II, “Singing Tales of the Gishi: Naniwabushi and the Forty-seven Rōnin in Late Meiji Japan.”  Monumenta Nipponica, 61/4 (Winter 2006), pp. 459-508. PDF  Includes a translation by Henry D. Smith of “Parting in the Snow at Nanbuzaka” (Nanbuzaka yuki no wakare) of Tōchūken Kumoemon, pp. 509-519.  PDF

II. Other articles by Henry Smith on Chūshingura and the Akō Gishi

2004. “The Trouble with Terasaka: The Forty-Seventh Rōnin and the Chūshingura Imagination.” Nichibunken Japan Review, 14 (2004), pp. 3-65.  PDF

2006. "The Media and Politics of Japanese Popular History: The Case of the Akō Gishi." In James C. Baxter, ed., Historical Consciousness, Historiography, and Modern Japanese Values (Kyoto: International Research Center for Japanese Studies, 2006), pp. 75-97.  PDF

2008. “Chūshingura in the 1980s: Rethinking the Story of the Forty-Seven Rōnin.” In Kevin J. Wetmore, Jr., ed., Revenge Drama in European Renaissance and Japanese Theatre: From Hamlet to Madame Butterfly (Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), pp. 187-215.   PDF