Sei Shonagon Research Articles

Japanese Consciousness of Narrowing from the Perspective of Architecture

One of the characteristics of Japanese culture is the “consciousness of narrowing”. Sei Shonagon once wrote in “The Pillow Book” that “no matter what, small things are exquisite.” The Japanese people's awareness of the beauty of smallness is widespread and is reflected in every aspect, and it can be said that “smallness” exists everywhere in Japan. Japan is a small island country surrounded by the sea on all sides, in such a geographical environment, the Japanese people have developed a “consciousness of narrowing”. This “consciousness of narrowing” has had a profound impact on many aspects of Japanese society, and has led to the formation of a unique Japanese culture. Culturally, the Japanese art of flower arrangement and architecture also pursues subtlety and delicacy in form and structure, and favors a small and exquisite style in its aesthetic sense. Throughout the history of mankind, no matter what era, architecture has always served to protect mankind and avoid danger. Even though the style of architecture has changed with the change of time, the cultural connotation embodied in it is still preserved. Therefore, this thesis analyzes the causes and effects of the “consciousness of narrowing” on Japanese society to further understand the unique culture of the Japanese people. At the same time, by citing representative Japanese buildings and understanding the “consciousness of narrowing” embodied in them, it is hoped that the national character and aesthetic sense of the Japanese people can be further understood, and that Sino-Japanese cultural exchanges can be promoted. At the end of this thesis, we will briefly compare the differences between Japanese traditional culture and Chinese traditional culture represented by “consciousness of narrowing”, hoping to further understand Japanese culture on this basis, and to help promote cultural exchanges between China and Japan.

Garden of Paradise. Japanese Identity in Sei Shonagon’s The Pillow Book

"This text focuses on the identity of the Japanese garden as an accomplished aesthetic act, in the manner depicted in the official diary of Sei Shonagon’s, a lady living at the Japanese imperial court, around the year 1000. Nature is sieved through an aesthetics of concentric circles, in which human life turns into a painstakingly pen crafted page, strictly owing to the perfection of artistic integration in the nature. But Nature, and more specifically the garden that Sei Shonagon details with refinement in The Pillow Book, is a specific clue to the concept of Japanese identity. traditional sensitivity in their relationship to the world. With a tendency to integrate with nature or their environment and to depend on others, they favor the relationship to others, as well as that between humankind and the world, which determines their identity. It is through integration into the circumstantial dimension that human beings form themselves and become aware of themselves. It follows that collective identity is stronger and more dominant than individual identity. This human way of being constitutes an essential aspect of Japanese culture and is represented in the architecture of traditional Japanese houses. Reflection on the spatiality specific to the Japanese lifestyle can promote a deep dialogue about human identity between different cultures."

O EXEMPLO DAQUELAS MULHERES: REFLEXÕES COMPARATISTAS SOBRE A LITERATURA DE AUTORIA FEMININA

Tradicionalmente, a ideia de que a caneta se identifica com o masculino tem seu contraponto histórico na recorrência da imagem da página em branco associada ao feminino. Gubar (1981), ao analisar um conto de Karen Blixen ([1957] 1991), propõe que a criatividade feminina está associada a uma “ansiedade da autoria”. A autoria feminina é um fenômeno verificável na maneira como escritoras e tradutoras retomam os textos de mulheres que vieram antes delas, como se a trama da palavra engendrasse uma comunidade de textos, a qual, por sua vez, é comparatista e internacional, pois inclui autoras de diferentes épocas e culturas. Em O Livro de Cabeceira, filme de Peter Greenaway, de 1996, que é uma adaptação de O Livro de Travesseiro, de Sei Shônagon (séculos X–XI), reencontramos as metáforas do texto-têxtil e do corpo-página, presentes tanto como um eco do texto japonês antigo, como de questões teóricas da pós-modernidade, que o diretor encenou em muitos de seus filmes. O filme O Livro de Cabeceira pode ser lido como uma expansão das reflexões de Susan Gubar sobre a página em branco.

意欲的に古典学習に向かわせる指導の工夫 : 『枕草子』を題材にした総合単元学習の実践を通して( 音声言語の教育をどうするか)

意欲的に古典学習に向かわせる指導の工夫 : 『枕草子』を題材にした総合単元学習の実践を通して( 音声言語の教育をどうするか)

The Convex Configurations of “Sei Shonagon Chie no Ita,” Tangram, and Other Silhouette Puzzles with Seven Pieces

The Convex Configurations of “Sei Shonagon Chie no Ita,” Tangram, and Other Silhouette Puzzles with Seven Pieces

Texto e têxtil em O Livro de Travesseiro

Este texto é uma proposta de reflexão em três partes sobre o tema “roupa” em O Livro de Travesseiro, de Sei Shônagon (Japão, séculos X–XI), discutindo a importância dos fazeres relacionados ao têxtil na sociedade aristocrática japonesa da Antiguidade; as suas ressonâncias no contexto da moda no século XX; e a maneira como a metáfora escritura-corpo-vestimenta atualiza-se e amplifica-se na adaptação do livro para o cinema. No livro, texto, têxtil e memória confundem-se, formando uma metáfora complexa que é também um comentário sobre a condição feminina na Corte Imperial de Heian. A adaptação da obra para o cinema (O Livro de Cabeceira, de Peter Greenaway, 1996) conta com a colaboração do designer desconstrutivista Martin Margiela, e acrescenta novas camadas interpretativas a esse aglomerado de imagens relacionadas aos atos de escrever, tecer, ler, traduzir, adaptar e desconstruir. O caráter fragmentário da obra literária pode ainda ser lido como em diálogo com o jornalismo de moda do século XX. O ideal estético do okashi, da literatura clássica japonesa, encontra eco no conceito de pizzazz, de Diana Vreeland, assim como no esteticismo da poética modernista. A roupa como metáfora do texto e a ideia de que roupa é texto estão presentes nesses três momentos interpretativos.

Voices of East Asia: essential readings from antiquity to the present

Part I: China Book of Songs Book of Documents Book of Rites Analects Mencius Great Learning Doctrine of the Mean Daoist Texts Chinese Poetry The West Chamber Journey to the West Outlaws of the Marsh Short Stories Essays The Old Gun Part II: Japan Japanese Poetry The Pillow Book * Sei Shonagon The Tale of Genji * Murasaki Shikibu Tales of Times Now Past The Tale of the Heike Essays in Idleness Nakamitsu Lord Kikui's Wife Short Stories Jusan'ya. The Thirteenth Night Stories A Sudden Flash of Light Part III: Korea Tan'gun The Tale of Hong Kiltong Korean Poetry Song of a Faithful Wife, Ch'un-hyang Modern Korean Short Fiction

Status of Women in the Heian Period (794 –1185): A Study of the Literary Works of Murasaki Shikibu and Sei Shonagon

Status of Women in the Heian Period (794 –1185): A Study of the Literary Works of Murasaki Shikibu and Sei Shonagon

Interfaces, ressignificações e crítica da adaptação da literatura para o cinema

<p class="TradTermAbstract">Este artigo visa apresentar pesquisa desenvolvida entre 2010 e 2011, na Universidade de Brasília, com o objetivo de verificar a posição da crítica cinematográfica vigente no Brasil no tocante às adaptações da literatura para o cinema. Para tanto, foram selecionados para o <em>corpus</em> oito filmes, todos brasileiros e adaptados de obras literárias também brasileiras, e que foram produzidos entre 2005 e 2010. Após as análises das adaptações, foi feito o levantamento das críticas disponíveis na internet sobre cada um deles. Ao final, após a análise das críticas, chegamos a resultados relevantes sobre como as adaptações são avaliadas: se com base no conceito de fidelidade ao texto literário de partida ou se são observadas as ressignificações e implicações dessas adaptações ao contexto de chegada.</p>

Worlding Sei Shonagon: The pillow book in translation

Worlding Sei Shonagon: The pillow book in translation

“Every Trivial Little Thing”: Sei Shonagon and the Poetics of Insignificance

This article explores the triviality that so emphatically distinguishes Sei Shonagon's Pillow Book from other masterpieces of the Heian age (794–1186). Although the circumstances surrounding its composition were undeniably tragic, I argue that Sei's autobiographical narrative observes a directional taboo that forces it to move always toward the “trivial little thing[s]” and away from anything of real historical or political significance.

“EVERY TRIVIAL LITTLE THING”: Sei Shonagon and the Poetics of Insignificance

This article explores the triviality that so emphatically distinguishes Sei Shonagon's Pillow Book from other masterpieces of the Heian age (794–1186). Although the circumstances surrounding its composition were undeniably tragic, I argue that Sei's autobiographical narrative observes a directional taboo that forces it to move always toward the “trivial little thing[s]” and away from anything of real historical or political significance.

Just the Facts, Ma'am

Just the Facts, Ma'am Jeffrey R. Di Leo, Editor and Publisher How would you respond to the news that a piece you read in a favorite magazine contained factual inaccuracies? Would you feel any differently if you knew that these inaccuracies were aimed at providing you with a "better and truer experience"? This was the reasoning of a University of Iowa professor confronted with accusations of factual inaccuracies by his fact-checker. In 2003, an essay commissioned by Harper's from writer John D'Agata was later rejected by the magazine by reason of factual inaccuracy. The piece was later published by The Believer after seven years of revisions and arguments over its factual infelicities. "Aren't you worried about your credibility with the reader?" asked Jim Fingal, the fact-checker for The Believer. "Not really, Jim, no," said D'Agata. "I'm not running for public office. I'm trying to write something that's interesting to read." The battles between The Believer's meticulous fact-checker and the author of a lyrical but factually "free" meditation on a Las Vegas teen suicide are presented in The Lifespan of a Fact (2012). While there is also reason to question the veracity of the exchange as recorded in the book (it too prioritizes the creation of something "interesting to read" over a strict historic record), this should not be the standard by which it is judged. The Lifespan of a Fact provides a comprehensive snapshot of a demanding and often unseen aspect of the publishing process. It is valuable in its critical depiction of fact-checking as a contested space, particularly for writing that bridges the scholarly and creative worlds. Some may label this writing "creative nonfiction" or simply "nonfiction," but D'Agata snarls at these designations. He prefers a more rarified term—one with a well-established canon tracing back to antiquity: the essay. "And indeed, if we dig down into the history of essays," writes D'Agata, "we will find writers like Natalia Ginzburg and Mary McCarthy and George Orwell and Henry Thoreau and Charles Lamb and Thomas De Quincey and Daniel Defoe and Christine de Pisan and Sei Shonagon and St. Augustine and Plutarch and Seneca and Cicero and Herodotus and dozens of other masters of this form who regularly altered facts in order to get a closer understanding of what they were experiencing." Why then does Harper's need a fact-checker if Cicero did without? Because readers expect it. Magazines worth reading place a high value on factual integrity. A great deal of time, effort, and resources are put into verifying the veracity of sources and statements. Without fact-checking, publications run the risk of jeopardizing their intellectual and scholarly integrity—if not opening themselves to accusations of slander and libel. Harper's is Harper's because it takes this care. Still, as the D'Agata argument illustrates, there exist historically significant and currently vital forms of writing that are irreducible to statements of fact. Nor are they pure products of authorial invention. The essay is one of these forms. But what is it? I admire Robert Musil's thoughts on the genre because he incorporates the essay form into a way of life. In The Man without Qualities (1930), the Austrian novelist wrote that an essay is rather the unique and unalterable form assumed by a man's inner life in a decisive thought. Nothing is more foreign to it than the irresponsible and half-baked quality of thought known as subjectivity. Terms like true and false, wise and unwise, are equally inapplicable, and yet the essay is subject to laws that are no less strict for appearing to be delicate and ineffable. There have been more than a few such essayists, masters of the inner hovering life, but there would be no point in naming them. Their domain lies between religion and knowledge, between example and doctrine, between amor intellectualis and poetry; they are saints with and without religion, and sometimes they are also simply men on an adventure who have gone astray. Musil's critical question remains vital: "A man who wants the truth becomes a scholar; a man who wants...

<b>The Pillow-Book: As Notas de Sei Shonagon</b><br>DOI: 10.5007/1984-8951.2010v11n98p329

In Peter Greenaway’s 1995 movie The pillow-book one of the most important Japanese writers of all times is the main motif behind the scene: Sei Shonagon, a courtesan of the Heian Period, attached to the Empress Sadako. The protagonist of the movie, Nagiko, is seen as a contemporary Shonagon. Some of the architectural, cultural and literary aspects of the Heian Period are analyzed in brief. Forty notes of Sei Shonagon’s book Makura no Soshi (The pillow-book) are translated to Portuguese by the first time. Shonagon is taken by many as a feminist avant la lettre, due to her notes on the feminine condition.

THE SEDUCTION OF WORDS AND FLESH AND THE DESIRE OF GOD: A POSTSTRUCTURALIST READING OF JOHN 1:1, 14 AND THE PILLOW BOOK

This paper looks at John 1:1, 14 and Peter Greenaway's film The Pillow Book with the intention of reading afresh the Incarnation of the Word in the former and the Inscription of the Flesh in the latter, while focusing on the seduction of word(s) and flesh, the dynamics of speech and writing, and the desire of God, through poststructuralist theory. It investigates the relationship between text and image, and text, image, and reader, and it exposes the ocular-erotic character of reading. Connected to one of the most valuable collections of writings in Japanese literature, namely The Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon , Greenaway's film treats the 'delights of the flesh and the delights of literature' as indistinguishable from each other. This paper defends the idea that the Incarnation exposes the reciprocity of desire of God: God desires our flesh as much as we desire his Word; and it identifies the Incarnation as the hymen which both unites and separates the human and the divine, the immanent and the transcendent, the flesh and the word, the audience and the book, this world and the other, foreplay and orgasm.

Song as Cultural History: Reading Wakan Roeishu (Texts)

A MONG the many arts that the Japanese have refined to an impressive degree is anthologizing poetry. From the eighth century on, poetic collections of increasing complexity appeared with gathering speed. A special place among them is occupied by Wakan roeisha fn Aw t (or ffi r-%ki), now translated by J. Thomas Rimer and Jonathan Chaves into English as Japanese and Chinese Poems to Sing.1 Unlike most anthologies, which tend to concentrate on poetry in either Japanese (waka) or Chinese (kanshi), this is a collection of both fragments of Chinese poetry and complete waka. Its more than eight hundred poems are grouped together in thematic categories. Wakan roeisha is a curious, fascinating, and often beautiful text. Compiled sometime early in the eleventh century by Fujiwara no Kinto VSYYEM-1 (9661041), a famed aristocratic poet and connoisseur of all things elegant, it has been treasured as a collection of poetry to be chanted, as a primer for Chinese studies, as a source book for calligraphy, and even as a dictionary. And yet today it is somewhat forgotten by most lovers and students of classical Japanese literature. The collection's obscurity is all the more odd given that it is the best preserved of all the literary classics from the Heian period. We do not have contemporaneous manuscripts of Murasaki Shikibu's Tale of Genji or Sei Shonagon' s Pillow Book, nor of Kokinshi i (Collection of Poems Ancient and Modern, 905), but we do have exquisitely executed manuscripts from the eleventh century of Wakan roeisha.2 Wakan roeisha is known by many names. Sometimes written Wakan roeisho fn Thk, throughout the centuries it has been variously abbreviated to Wakan

Memoirs: From Scribblings into High Art

tle imagination to write fiction and too bad a memory to write the truth.1 I would suggest this clever bit of claptrap represents a complete misunderstanding of the genre itself, from its earliest beginnings to its current extraordinary flowering. Did Xenophon or anyone else take down the exact wording of his speeches to his armies? Almost certainly not, and yet when his hoplites shouted, Thalassa, thalassa! we readers are more thrilled than if we were reading an adventure novel. Why? Because we know the event was both true and artfully re-created to Xenophon's satisfaction. Sei Shonagon's and Sarashina's memoirs, written over a thousand years ago, are still today among the greatest achievements of Japanese literature. In Saint-Simon's Memoires Louis XTV and his court become as real or realer to

Murasaki Shikibu vs. Sei Shonagon: A classical case of envy in medi-evil Japan

L'envie, comme forme du desir, est traitee par le bouddhisme comme un peche fondamental car le desir est le principal obstacle sur le chemin de l'illumination. D'un autre cote, le bouddhisme enseigne que si la nature humaine est initialement pure, la vie humaine ne peut etre mauvaise ou bonne. Un peche personnel ou la naissance d'une envie et d'une hostilite personnelles comme dans le cas de Murasaki Shikibu et Sei Shonagon, peut prendre une dimension importante et concerner de nombreuses personnes. Chaque peche personnel est la projection d'un peche social bien que le peche social ne conduise pas necessairement au peche personnel

The Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon.

The calenderThe governmentPlacesHome provinces and neighbouring provincesThe surroundings of the capitalThe capitalClothes, houses, etc.ClothesHousesVehiclesLetters, games, musical instrumentsChronology

Anthology of Japanese Literature from the Earliest Era to the Mid-Nineteenth Century

The sweep of Japanese literature in all its great variety was made available to Western readers for the first time in this anthology. Every genre and style, from the celebrated No plays to the poetry and novels of the seventeenth century, find a place in this book. An introduction by Donald Keene places the selections in their proper historical context, allowing the readers to enjoy the book both as literature and as a guide to the cultural history of Japan. Selections include Man yoshu or Collection of Ten Thousand Leaves from the ancient period; Kokinshu or Collection of Ancient and Modern Poetry, The Tosa Diary of Ki No Tsurayuki, Yugao from Tales of Genji of Murasaki Shikibu, and The Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon from the Heian Period; The Tale of the Heike from the Kamakura Period; Plan of the No Stage, Birds of Sorrow of Seami Motokiyo, and Three Poets at Minase from the Muromachi Period; and Sections from Basho, including The Narrow Road of Oku, The Love Suicides at Sonezaki by Chikamatsu Monzaemon, and Waka and haiku of the Tokugawa Period.