Five Women Who Gave Themselves to Love

The Japanese poet and prose writer Ihara Saikaku was recognized as a classic even during his lifetime. For his rare talent for improvisation, he was called the "master of twenty thousand verses." He became the progenitor of a new direction in prose — ukiyo-zōshi (stories about the transient world), but he became famous for koshō-monogatari (love stories). Saikaku vividly described the world of passion and pleasures and portrayed the life of contemporary Japan with all its low and high aspects so vividly that he elevated the genre of love novellas to the level of true literature. "Five Women Who Gave Themselves to Love" is a collection of stories about the fates of five women who transgress the laws of family and official Confucian morality in obedience to the call of their hearts. They consciously and willingly commit these transgressions, regardless of the fact that women caught in marital infidelity faced the death penalty. "The Tale of the Love Adventures of a Lonely Woman" is one of the author's most famous works, a candid confession from an old hermit. Having journeyed from a refined courtesan to a street seductress of men, she lived a life of love and pleasures.