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Structure Of Iki Analysis

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Nguyen Tu Anh Topic: The duality in The Structure of Iki Among the ideals of Japanese aesthetics, iki is perhaps one of the most thoroughly analyzed, both as an abstract concept and a concrete expression, thanks to the influential work The Structure of Iki by Kuki Shuzo (1888 – 1941). Unlike other aesthetic ideals, which were usually reserved for the aristocrats, the warriors and the wealthy, iki originated among the urbane commoners of Edo, especially around the pleasure quarter in the eighteenth century. It is from this background, from the special relationship between the geisha and her patron that iki derives its unique characteristic – its duality. As this essay attempts to demonstrate, duality is the constant theme throughout Kuki’s analysis of iki, both in the content and the process of building the structure of this distinctive aesthetic concept. The dualities themselves in The Structure of Iki can be divided into two types: those of harmony and those of tension. We see most of the harmonious dualities in Kuki’s method of …show more content…

We can see that firstly in the intensional structure of iki, which is the combination of material and formal causes. Coquetry (bitai), the material cause, clearly emphasizes the dualistic nature of iki, which requires iki to exist in the relationship between two people of the opposite sexes (Mayeda, 2006, p.143). However, such relationship must always remain a “possible one”, which means even though both parties aim at conquering the other, that goal is actually never realized and they both maintain a certain distance from each other. As Kuki has stated in The Structure of Iki: “This dualistic possibility is the fundamental determinant for the being of coquetry, and coquetry disappears on its own accord when the opposite sexes unite totally and lose that source of tension” (Nara, 2004,

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