Tale of Genji

It is my contention that the way the phrase true heart "magokoro" is used in the Genji indicates a consistently expressed ideal relationship between men and women. In such an ideal relationship, one's thoughts and worries are not concealed from the other—indeed, they cannot be concealed. I further argue that true love in the Genji is achieved only insofar as two people can completely know each other's hearts. When two people become adept at reading each other's hearts in the Genji, they become linked in a mysterious bond which is the principal way in which characters develop and mature.

From mono no aware to mujō, from Buddhist propriety to Confucian piety, the Tale of Genji has been a source of literary and philosophical debate for centuries in Japan. In this fictionalized depiction of Heian court society, women were central figures, and the tale goes to great lengths to analyse their feelings and dissect their psychological states. In this context, this essay investigates the Tale of Genji through the prism of Buddhism and gender, focusing particularly on the circumstances surrounding court women in Heian Japan. By doing so an attempt will be made to trace the origin of specific readings of the Genji that have proliferated throughout centuries of literary analysis, thus shaping and canonizing the literary views and aesthetic perceptions of the tale. In the beginning of the essay there will be a short description of the general socio-cultural and historical context in which the Genji was written and read, paying particular attention to the prevalent Buddhist ideas that permeated the court. By highlighting the implications of gender in Heian Buddhist perspective, an attempt will be made to identify the dynamics of the relationship between the two, and the effect that they had on the way the Genji was interpreted and imagined. Parallelly, a more concrete analysis of the relevant characters and themes shall be undertaken in order to illustrate with examples the implications of the chosen themes on the general reading of the tale. Essentially I argue all throughout the text that the most relevant feature of the Genji vis-à-vis women is the aesthetics of suffering, a phenomenon that permeated the lives of the women depicted in the tale, thus influencing significantly its female readership.

The big difference between Western and Japanese ghosts is that the former possess legs whereas the latter don't. Through the analysis of various literary works, this paper argues that this fact may originate from distinct conceptualization of a dead body in each culture. In Christian culture, a deceased body instantly becomes a site of hope for resurrection, while it also inevitably becomes a site of horror, since the decomposition of a body takes time, and so is the process to establish its dead-ness. The length of this middle state of a dead body might explain why Western ghosts have such corporeality. To contrast, in Japanese Buddhist-Shintoist culture, a dead body has no significance. A body is regarded as a temporary housing of a soul, and a dead one won't be the site for hope nor horror, being a mere thing to be quickly cremated. Death is not as closely related to the body as to the smoke of cremation. Then what is the horror of Japanese ghosts? In many cases, the ghosts materialize when sexual frustration or sexual abuse occurs and female ghosts outnumber the male ones. It shows how women have been regarded as more sexual, therefore less sacred, in Japanese culture, and how it imposes on women's body its fear of sexuality by creating sexualized female ghosts.

This essay introduces a recently discovered painting depicting an episode from the Tale of Genji. The painting, which is now mounted as a hanging scroll, illustrates the “Sakaki” (“Sacred Tree”) chapter from the Tale. It was probably part of a larger set of images illustrating the Tale of Genji, of which six examples have been identified. Comparison with works by Iwasa Matabei (1578-1650), such as the “Funaki” Kyoto screens (rakuchū rakugai zu) and miscellaneous scenes from his “Kanaya” screens, demonstrates close stylistic affinities among these works, and sheds light on Matabei’s depictions of classical literary themes in a palette of brilliant pigments and gold. That the total of six Tale of Genji paintings by Matabei appear to borrow compositions from Genji images by painters of the Tosa school also has important implications for understanding Matabei’s painting career and training prior to ca. 1616, when he is thought to have left his home in Kyoto to embark on a career in Kitanoshō (Fukui). These early works by Matabei may further clarify the artist’s self-identification in 1640 as a late descendant of Tosa Mitsunobu (ca. 1434-ca. 1525).

Il presente contributo si propone di analizzare un romanzo di Setouchi Jakuchō dal titolo Ashita no niji (L'arcobaleno di domani, 2008). Appartenente al genere dei keitai shōsetsu (romanzi per cellulare), Ashita no niji ne ripropone temi e dinamiche narrative, offrendo al contempo originali spunti di riflessione legati alla creazione letteraria e agli ipotesti di riferimento.

Silenziose. Obbedienti. Nascoste nell’ombra. Questa è l’immagine che ci viene alla mente quando pensiamo alle donne del periodo Heian. Ma era davvero così?
Il periodo Heian è conosciuto anche come l’epoca d’oro della letteratura classica perché proprio in questo periodo si ha il fiorire di una letteratura femminile di altissimo pregio. Proprio grazie a questa letteratura, si può avere una visione realistica di com’era la vita dell’aristocrazia e della corte Heian, di come dovevano essere educate le donne e di quali regole bisognava seguire se si voleva avviare un rapporto con l’altro sesso.
Il mio elaborato è incentrato su di uno studio trasversale dei testi letterari al fine di determinare le condizioni di vita e la repressione emotiva delle donne aristocratiche del tempo e il loro conseguente tentativo di far sentire la propria voce. Verranno di conseguenza analizzate, tramite i testi, le armi che le donne hanno utilizzato come forma di protesta nei confronti di una repressiva società patriarcale e la forza che queste donne hanno avuto nell’affermare la propria volontà.

One of the most widely studied motifs in Heian period literature is that of 垣間見,kaimami or peeking,it is usually added,through a gap in a fence,垣,kaki. Even so,the fence as such has not received as much attention as the phenomenon it purportedly gives rise to.Peeking,glimpsing and stealing glances have been attentively looked at,extending the field to gaps in blinds, curtains and shutters,and even to occasions where the only obstacles belong to the strictures of ritual,social or psychological decorum. Here,the fence itself will be the site of interest.Different works will be scanned for appearances of this very important element,prop and metaphor, that has remained active in the literature,and in the culture,from the earliest chronicles,such as古事記,Kojiki, to the Heian period tales,among which竹取物語,Taketori Monogataro, 伊勢物語,Ise Monogatari and 源氏物語,Genji Monogatari will be looked at for particular occurrences.However,the fence is not only a literary object,it also figures materially in the culture,specifically in the complex of ritual surrounding finerary and accession ceremonies and,as the Kojiki narratives reveal,it is an unavoidable piece of architectural support for courtship and reproducuon,a guarantee of genealogical continuity, as well as a metaphor for power. This complex of meanings of the fence maintains its validity throughout,because it functions as a cultural metaphor, widely used and understood,and not dependent on specific instances of textual allusion or precedence.The fence is in a sense a very real metaphor and a very solid reality. It could be said to be one of the founding signs of Japanese culture.

Part 1 of 2
http://hdl.handle.net/11094/67493

Recent studies have yielded insights into how the eleventh century classical Japanese work, Genji monogatari, which is often regarded as the world's "first novel" was received and transmitted in Japan during the Tokugawa or early-modern period (1600-1868).  However, the role of translation has not been explored in much detail since 1932, when Fujita Tokutarô collated a list of what he called Genji “translations and adaptations” (yakubun hon’an 訳文翻案).  With some exceptions, most of these may be described as “vernacular translations.”  That is, they attempt to transfer the story and elite literary language of Genji (in whole or in part) into a narrative written in more readable, up-to-date, and widely-used forms of Tokugawa written language.  There were many translations of Genji during the period, including but not limited to the works on Fujita’s list.  The methodology varies greatly, and includes abridged translations such as digests, longer versions modelled stylistically on contemporary fiction, and works that attempted a lengthy, linguistically-accurate vernacular reflection of the text.  The vernacular Genjis are part of a much wider phenomenon of the reception of Heian (794-1185) and Kamakura (1192-1333) texts during the early-modern period that also saw printed editions, commentaries, illustration, pastiche and parody, and which is increasingly an object of study.  Though the translations of Genji are not entirely unknown to scholarship, many of them are unavailable in modern reprint, and the majority are yet to be studied in detail.
Some important questions that remain unanswered concern the ways vernacular translations were conceptualized in their day, and why translation was adopted as a strategy.  As a step towards answering these, this article examines the terminology and metaphors translators used to describe their work.    Though they employed a variety of terms to denote translation, it was largely through metaphor and literary allusion that the early-modern translators of Heian and Kamakura literature expressed their opinions.  Even Shibun ama no saezuri紫文蜑の囀 (Murasaki's Writings in the Gibberish of Fisherfolk, 1723) that contains extensive prefatory remarks about the project, clothes the notion of translation in metaphor.  Likewise, Motoori Norinaga本居宣長 (1730 -1801) in his famous vernacular translation of the Kokin wakashû 古今和歌集 (Collection of Poems, Ancient and Modern, ca.905), resorted to the image of a telescope to explain the act of translation.    It is thus to such metaphors, found in prefaces and the titles of works, that scholars must turn.  Though prefaces often contain conventional platitudes, and in some cases facetious wit, a cautious examination reveals common themes that paint a clearer picture of vernacular translation in Genji reception history.  In particular, it is possible to observe a change over time as translators exhibited a growing confidence in the value of vernacular translation.