Hagiwara Hiromichi (萩原 広道, March 29, 1815 - January 11, 1864) was a scholar of literature, philology, and nativist studies (Kokugaku) as well as an author, translator, and poet active in late-Edo period Japan.
He adopted the name Hagiwara Hiromichi after relinquishing his status as a samurai and moving to the city of Osaka to pursue a career as a poet and scholar of literature in 1845.
According to his autobiography, Hiromichi was raised largely in the care of his mother and her family and earned the reputation of being a child prodigy by memorizing the entire Ogura Hyakunin isshu (Collection of 100 poems by 100 poets) at the age of 2.
The Meiji author and scholar Mori Ōgai includes the description of a solemn visit to Hiromichi's grave in his literary journal Shigarami zōshi (the weir; 1889–94).
He also established an enduring friendship with a fellow Okayama native, Ogata Kōan (1810-1863), who founded the nation’s preeminent school of Dutch Learning (Rangaku) and Western medical techniques in Osaka, known as Tekijuku.
Hiromichi’s interaction with Kōan and the scholars associated with Tekijuku influenced the course of his scholarship, which stands out among works of premodern criticism for its integration of ideas and techniques from both classical studies and the emerging field of Western Learning.
Hiromichi’s ingenuity and sensitivity to literary style found their ultimate expression in his efforts to make the most revered work of the classical canon, The Tale of Genji, accessible to a wider readership.
Having successfully lectured on Genji to a popular audience, he began to raise funds to publish a new edition that incorporated interpretation and revised commentary on the original text in 1851.
Undaunted by the well-established views of generations of scholars, Hiromichi chose deliberately simple language to turn the world of Genji commentary and criticism on its head.
He argued that the internal consistency of detail and the tale’s unvarnished depiction of human feeling and behavior give the reader a sense that he or she is engaged with a fictional world as real and compelling as a great theatrical production or life itself.
His immediate predecessors were deeply invested in establishing Genji’s importance in relation to Buddhism, Confucianism, and, ultimately, the superiority of Japan’s indigenous culture (see Kokugaku and Shinto).
Unlike Norinaga and his influential thesis regarding the affective, or mono no aware oriented approach to reading Genji, however, Hiromichi's interpretation ultimately rested on the internal consistency and literary style of the text, not ideological argument.
Almost immediately, the ideas Hiromichi had used to liberate Genji from the limitations of premodern ideology became a liability while those promoted by Norinaga were easily tailored to serve the needs of scholars and politicians eager to advance both nativism and nationalism.
“The Substratum Constituting Monogatari: Prose Structure and Narrative in Genji Monogatari.” Translated by Bob Tadashi Wakabayashi, Principles of Classical Japanese Literature, ed.