What is the floating world?

The Victoria and Albert Museum in London has an excellent collection of Ukiyo-e woodblock prints.  Ukiyo-e means 'Pictures of the Floating World'.  This is how the V&A explains this genre:

What is the floating world?

Living only for the moment, turning our attention to the pleasures of the moon, the snow, the cherry blossoms and maples, singing songs, drinking wine, and diverting ourselves in just floating, floating, caring not a whit for the poverty staring us in the face, refusing to be disheartened, like a gourd floating along with the river current; this is what we call the floating world.

From A Tale of the Floating World, by Asai Ryui, about 1665 (trans. Richard Lane)