Robert Tuck's impressive study of the intersection of politics, poetry, and print media in Japan's rapidly modernizing Meiji period challenges earlier notions of an emerging national literature. Rather than focus on debates over the role of fiction, the social space of the novel, or influence of European-inflected literary styles within the Tokyo-based literary community, Tuck aims to “offer a close, ground-level account of the interaction of poetry and print media with a view to providing greater nuance to existing models of the media-driven emergence of modern nationalism and national imaginations” (p. xxxv).

And he succeeds splendidly. With a clarity of style and persistent concision, Tuck deftly covers the range of poetic expression available to would-be literati, partisan hacks, struggling students, and aging “masters.” He begins with an exploration of Sinitic verse (kanshi) and social class, demonstrating how print capitalism allowed for the expansion of the availability and authority of Edo-period poetry manuals and lexicons intended to help poets begin to compose kanshi, allowing those of lower status to enter into a space that was largely the domain of elites. The Meiji popularity of kanshi manuals and their circulation illustrate a shift from kanshi’s “Edo trajectory as a literature of the citizenry” to becoming an “aspirational tool to gain elite status” (p. 26). These communal manuals also served as the common ground from which later, more refined poetry, such as that of Masaoka Shiki (1867–1902), might emerge. Here, it is worth noting that while Shiki is pivotal to this study, he is not the central figure per se. Due to Shiki's far-ranging influence, Tuck carefully links Shiki and his poetic ideals to various nodes of the intellectual network constructed in each chapter. Shiki's concepts of non-essentialized literariness and universal value of Japanese poetry become central to the debates and communities explored over the course of this work.

Building on the lexical and political frameworks established in the first chapter, Tuck shows how kanshi became politicized in the 1890s through the debate between proponents of the “Fragrant Style” and the Seisha school, which emphasized the “grand, martial—and above all masculine-gendered—aesthetic that served as an antidote to the allegedly weak, lascivious, and feminized fragrant style” (p. 80). Tuck provides ample evidence of “Fragrant Style” poetry (Ch. Xianglian, Jp. Kōrentai) through his top-notch translation, while situating the kanshi debate in the context of emerging reorientation of gender tropes in late nineteenth-century Japanese literary spaces.

Not stopping with the politicization of kanshi, Tuck reveals how haiku—especially the topical haiku that Shiki wrote for Nippon beginning in 1892—engaged the political realm and became the foundation for modern haiku. He notes that while Nippon is frequently referred to as “nationalistic,” it did not believe the nation to consist of the “mechanisms of state,” but rather the people who made up the national community (p. 83). Shiki composed haiku that mocked politicians and their indiscretions; his readers would compose more in reply. Rather than serving merely as a “shared sociopolitical space,” Nippon created a community united against “a shared enemy—namely the Meiji government and its representatives” (p. 105). This led to severe censorship, but also garnered unexpected fame for Shiki, who would go on to edit Shō Nippon (a literary sister publication to the general-interest Nippon) as well as Hototogisu.

The gem of this work is chapter 4, where Tuck takes up the subject of haiku reform. Rather than pointing to the aesthetic or formalistic qualities of Shiki's thought, he draws attention to “the consistent rhetoric of elite identity and social distinction that undergirded the activities not just of Shiki's Nippon Group but also of all the major groups that took up the banner of haiku reform during the 1890s” (p. 144). Tuck details how the interplay of the various groups affected national identity while defining “literature,” simultaneously establishing and destroying national communities through inclusion and exclusion.

Continuing in this vein, Tuck turns his attention in chapter 5 to the modernization of what might be considered Japan's most representative poetic form: the waka. Building on the concerns of hierarchy, gender, and status, he continues into the realm of waka reform. He details how the self-important critic Yosano Tekkan (1878–1942) and his comrades rehashed Edo-period conceptions of waka as feminized while rejecting love poetry (a revered part of the corpus of classical literature) as frivolous and dangerous for the state. Shiki, on the other hand, argued that waka should be situated within a global literary framework and should avoid vapid, well-worn tropes. Content was not the problem for the Shiki, much less the nation; it was in the execution and erudition of the composer.

Idly Scribbling Rhymers is a welcome contribution to the fields of Meiji literary studies and intellectual history. Through his excellent examples and careful examination of how gender, class, and political affiliation shaped the poetic debates of the nineteenth century, Tuck enhances our understanding of the ways in which media unites and divides, includes and excludes, forming “the mechanisms through which modern nations and nationalisms come to be” (p. 200).