This article deals with the prose literature that existed in Japan in the second half of the eighteenth and middle of the nineteenth centuries under the name gesaku and its artistic features. The article describes urban literature and the factors of its development in the context of the socio-political and cultural life of the country. It then gives a description of gesaku literature and a classification of its genres. On this basis, a number of genres of gesaku literature, such as shyarebon, kibyoshi, kokkeibon, ningyeobon, yomihon, and gokan, are analyzed in general and their artistic features are identified. Particular attention is paid to the artistic and ideological aspects of the works belonging to each genre, and conclusions are drawn about the essence of gesaku literature and its place in the history of Japanese literature as a whole.

townsmen literature, gesaku, literature of the Tokugawa period, sharebon, kibyoshi, kokkeibon, ninjyobon, yomihon, gokan.

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