La mappa come narrazione. Strategie di narrazione visiva e ibridazioni fra cartografia e letteratura di viaggio in Tōkaidō bunken ezu e Tōkaidō meisho zue

Itasaka (1993, 85) has coined the expression "topographic literature" (chishiteki kikō) in reference to a paradigm of travel literature born in Japan in the Tokugawa period (1603-1868), which innovated the Medieval canon of travel diaries. This paradigm includes a variety of genres, dealing with travel and the landscape through the accumulation of geographical information and the creative use of intertextuality. In this essay, I argue that Tokugawa-period maps, while not traditionally considered as a form of travel literature, share many of the key characteristics of "topographic literature". As a case study, I analyze the pictorial map (ezu) titled "Tōkaidō bunken ezu", published in 1690, putting it in relation to the travel guidebook "Tōkaidō meisho zue", published in 1797. I compare the two works and investigate in what terms the 'ezu' genre, with its peculiar narrative strategies, impacted the production of travel guidebooks in the late Tokugawa period. I illustrate points of contact between the two genres, in the context of a more general discussion of genre hybridity in Tokugawa-period travel literature.