Tale Of Genji Research Articles

TRIẾT LÍ THẨM MĨ CỦA MĨ CẢM AWARE TRONG TRUYỆN GENJI CỦA MURASAKI SHIKIBU

Japanese culture has flourishing, diversity and unique culture in Asia. Appearance of the aesthetic system in the early period and profound effects of aesthetic conception on artistic and cultural life are typical causes connecting the national cultural identities. In which, aware aesthetic has a great influence and enduring vitality in national culture, especially in literature. The article presents the theoretical framework concerning aesthetic philosophy ingeneral and aware aesthetic in particular. From this poit onward, study focuses on philosophical aesthetic of aesthetic such as the time of life, the beauty and loneliness throughout The Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu. This paper explores concept the life and the beauty in Japanese thoughts in the Heian period.

Phenomenology, Aesthetics, and Worldbuilding in Murasaki’s The Tale of Genji and Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings

In this paper, I examine the theoretical aspects of worldbuilding in Murasaki’s and Tolkien’s imagined worlds and accentuate the role of aesthetic landscape creation through which spatio-temporal layers are negotiated. As a starting point, I refer to Thomas Ryba’s Husserl, Fantasy and Possible Worlds (1990), where he evaluates the believability of secondary worlds via Husserlian phenomenology. To shed light on Ryba’s statement that authors must be “adept at describing the qualities of characters and the world in which they live” (232) through the lens of engagement, I contend that critically acclaimed imagined worlds such as Heian Japan in The Tale of Genji (c.1000 A.D.) and Middle-earth in The Lord of the Rings (1954-1955) demonstrate two fundamental qualities: the physical environments possess aesthetic qualities and the emotional experience of the place is integrated into the fabric of worldbuilding, generating an aura of believability.

A Study on the Significances of Kaoru’s Soliloquy Poems in the Volume of Kagero in The Tale of Genji –Focusing on their Relation to the Demise of the Story–

A Study on the Significances of Kaoru’s Soliloquy Poems in the Volume of Kagero in The Tale of Genji –Focusing on their Relation to the Demise of the Story–

The Tale of Genji: A Japanese Classic Illuminated

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Murasaki Shikibu's The Tale of Genji: Philosophical Perspectives ed. by James McMullen

Reviewed by: Murasaki Shikibu's The Tale of Genji: Philosophical Perspectives ed. by James McMullen Sonja Arntzen (bio) Murasaki Shikibu's The Tale of Genji: Philosophical Perspectives. Edited by James McMullen. Oxford University Press, New York, 2019. xxii, 305 pages. $99.00, cloth; $24.95, paper. This volume, comprised of eight essays that examine different aspects of Genji monogatari from a "philosophical perspective," is the sixth in a series, "Oxford Studies in Philosophy and Literature," which ranges from the Oedipus Plays of Sophocles to Franz Kafka's The Trial. In his foreword, the series editor, Richard Eldridge, posits that a rift between philosophy and literature in the Western tradition began as early as Plato when he had Socrates "criticize the poets and attempt to displace Homer as the authoritative [End Page 184] articulator and transmitter of human experience and values" (p. vii). The aim of this series is to repair that rift. Since this volume is the fourth major work on the Genji to appear in seven years (including the new translation by Dennis Washburn),1 my first reaction was to wonder whether another volume on the tale was needed at this moment. After reading this engaging volume, however, I was inspired to reflect philosophically on the source of that reaction and recognized that such a concern is rooted in the utilitarianism that dominates North American culture. There is no compelling reason for "need" to be an important criterion when judging works of literary reflection. I give a brief overview of the eight essays and then reflect on the scholarly contribution of this volume as a whole. For the volume's first essay, which is entitled "The Structure of Genji's Career: Myth, Politics, and Pride," Royall Tyler was tasked to provide an outline of the novel. He chose to focus on Genji's political career and to reveal in detail how the plot line of the rivalry between Genji and his elder half-brother Suzaku is underpinned by a myth told in the oldest Japanese chronicles about the rivalry between two brothers: Hikohohodemi, who had the luck of the mountains, and Honosusori, who had the luck of the sea. The result is a thought-provoking analysis of the first 40 chapters of Genji monogatari. As Tyler himself admits, however, it sets "aside most of the work's best known and most admired characters, scenes, and themes" (p. 36). Notably, all the women characters vital to the narrative are sidelined. If the reading focuses on the hero, a clear, linear narrative line can be discerned, but if the reading focuses on the women characters, the structure appears episodic. In the end, this essay confirms Tyler's own assertion, that trying to grasp Genji monogatari as a whole "resembles striving to capture one picture of a landscape that changes with every hour, season, and play of light, as well as with the viewer's own mood and interests" (p. 36). The second essay, "The Epistemology of Space in The Tale of Genji" by Wiebke Denecke, employs the concept of space to recuperate the importance of the tale's engagement with China "as a geographical, political, social, textual, linguistic, literary, material, and aesthetic presence" (p. 69). She assembles an impressive array of Chinese references in the novel to show how the narrative structures space and how space is known by the characters. Denecke avoids establishing an essential duality between wa [End Page 185] (Japanese) and kan (Chinese) elements. Rather, she emphasizes a playful "'juxtaposition' of variables" along a wa/kan spectrum. In this way, she extends some of the critical territory opened up by Thomas Lamarre's Uncovering Heian Japan: An Archaeology of Sensation and Inscription (Duke University Press, 2000). In a daring conclusion, she addresses whether her own essay is "philosophical overkill" and in so doing interrogates the entire project of the present volume and even the series. Drawing an insightful analogy with the Eurocentric resistance to considering the Chinese tradition of "masters literature" as true philosophy, she argues not for "philosophy" in Genji but "philosophicality." It is a stirring polemic. The third essay, "Ritual, Moral Personhood, and Spirit Possession in The Tale of Genji" by volume editor James McMullen, examines...

"The Tale of Genji" and "A Dream of Red Mansions": An Analysis of the Images of Genji and Jia Baoyu

"The Tale of Genji" and "Dream of Red Mansions" are monuments in Japanese and Chinese literary circles. The two ideal heroes, Genji and Jia Baoyu, portrayed by Lady Murasaki and Cao Xueqin, have become two immortal classic images in the history of Japanese and Chinese literature. This article analyzes the similarities and differences in their personalities to conduct more in-depth research and explore the literary and aesthetic values of the two works.

Unreal Houses: Character, Gender, and Genealogy in the by Edith Sarra

Reviewed by: Unreal Houses: Character, Gender, and Genealogy in the by Edith Sarra Elizabeth Oyler (bio) Unreal Houses: Character, Gender, and Genealogy in the Tale of Genji. By Edith Sarra. Harvard University Asia Center, Cambridge MA, 2020. xvi, 341 pages. $68.00. It is always remarkable when a study brings a truly fresh approach to a work as studied as Genji monogatari, but Edith Sarra's Unreal Houses: Character, Gender, and Genealogy in the Tale of Genji does just that. By exploring "how the Tale of Genji constructs and is constructed by storied houses" (p. 2), Sarra traces ways the narrative gives shape to and is shaped by the grand houses being built, rebuilt, and reimaged over the course of the work, as well as "the tale's contribution to the fabrication and critique of mid-Heian social and architectural space" (p. 2). Firmly grounded in Genji scholarship, Unreal Houses proposes a powerful interpretive framework for addressing the Genji and Heian narrative more broadly. Unreal Houses' nuanced and thoughtful interpretations of housebuilding and house-holding schemes in the Genji are addressed through the narrative trajectories of three characters, one from each of the Genji's three generations: Genji, Tamakazura, and Kaoru. Vital to this consideration are the marriage plot central to Heian-era fiction (and other writing); the range of possible plots and hero and heroine types that plot can engender; and the ways the Genji complicates these schemas. These topics, as well as Genji's mansions as metaphors for his erotic and political aspirations, long have been central to Genji studies. Unreal Houses, however, shifts attention to how mansions structure space and time (both seasonal and generational) and in so doing shape the narrative. Sarra explores how the aristocratic mansion—and particularly the Rokujōin—works "as a figure of semiotic complexity that is both conspicuous and self-reflexive. … It reconstrues relationships among the women it shelters, and to the extent that it prompts, inhibits, or enhances the doings of its occupants, it is presented as exerting [End Page 523] its own agency" (p. 93). In viewing the Genji through the lens of architectural agency, Sarra brings provocative close readings to individual characters, particularly the tale's heroines. She also proposes an interpretive framework that reveals how mansions, mirroring the narrative act itself, simultaneously contain and lay bare the often devastating stresses of polygynous marriage—the lingering ghosts of past generations, the anxiety of wives in unsteady relationships to each other, and the promise of children, actual or longed for. Unreal Houses is organized into an introduction, seven chapters, and an epilogue. The first of the seven chapters outlines the marriage practices and the architectural spaces in which men and women pursue erotic and procreative business. In addition to describing the variety of house-holding arrangements associated with mid-Heian period aristocratic marriage (in which duolocal, uxorilocal, virilocal, and neolocal possibilities existed simultaneously), Sarra draws attention to the contrasting situations of life in the rear palace, with its crowd of consorts and ladies in service to the emperor living side-by-side and in competition, and the experience of the housebound woman, waiting in her own home for a visit from her husband. Sarra notes both the unease engendered by these circumstances and the possibility for architectural substitution of one for the other: the rear palace occupied the same amount of space as well as the physical boundedness of an aristocratic mansion, leaving room for an ambitious hero to conceive of an architectural structure to contain something like both. Chapters 2 and 3 focus on just such ambition in the form of the central hero, Genji, and his series of house-building projects: the restoration of the Nijōin he inherited from his mother and the installation of Murasaki there; the expansion represented by the Nijō Tōin, built to house Hanachirusato and the Akashi Lady, ultimately unsuccessfully; and finally the Rokujōin, where he assembles the household of multiple wives and a combination of real and foster lineages he has, through persuasion of his women, willed into existence. These two chapters provide a nuanced reading of Genji's early sexual relationships and his youthful attempts at building a...

Representation of Birds in the SUMA Chapter in the Tale of GENJI: from Goose to Plover Crane

Representation of Birds in the SUMA Chapter in the Tale of GENJI: from Goose to Plover Crane

Behind the Gaze of a Cat: The Tale of Genji and the Discourse on Animals

Behind the Gaze of a Cat: The Tale of Genji and the Discourse on Animals

“Free Topic Papers” Narratological Shifts in Tale of Genji’s Murasaki no Ue: An Alternative to Heteronormative Readings

“Free Topic Papers” Narratological Shifts in Tale of Genji’s Murasaki no Ue: An Alternative to Heteronormative Readings

『源氏物語』の「近江の君」という呼称 : 物語内容を内包する「明石」呼称との比較を通して

『源氏物語』の「近江の君」という呼称 : 物語内容を内包する「明石」呼称との比較を通して

Influence of Ancient Chinese Literati’s Autumn Melancholy on the Tale of Genji Considering Computer Data Analysis Technology

As the most representative work of Japanese classical literature, the Tale of Genji can be referred to as a tragedy classic. Its description of the scene of “Things” is complex and vivid. The changes of external things induce fluctuation of subjective feelings and thoughts of people. To explore the autumn, one of the seasons in the Tale of Genji, the author exects to further understand how the main character’s deep sorrow and nostalgia are shown in the volume Emperor Kiritsubo through the depiction of autumn scenery.

O Conto de Genji, de Virginia Woolf

Em 1925, na revista Vogue, a escritora inglesa Virginia Woolf escreveu uma resenha empolgada pela tradução do orientalista Arthur Waley para “O Conto de Genji”, atribuído à escritora e poeta Murasaki Shikibu, considerado um dos primeiros romances japoneses, escrito no começo do século XI. Mesmo que curto, o texto dá conta da prática de crítica literária promovida pela autora na época, aliando a pesquisa na autoria de mulheres e o sentimento do que chamava de leitor/a comum diante de um texto literário, sem amarras acadêmicas.

CONSIDERATION ON THE UNIT OF BLOCK AND DISTANCE

In this study, I clarify meaning and how to read ‘Block’. ‘Block’ is described in ‘The Tale of Genji’ of the Heian era. ‘Block’ is included in the words indicating the model of Shindenzukuri. It is generally a Chinese‐style reading now. The diary which a noble of the Heian era left is written in a kanji mainly. Therefore, It is not revealed how this kanji was read. The literary work of the Heian era is a hiragana letter. ’Block’ is written by a hiragana letter in ‘The Tale of Genji’.

Ars longa, vita brevis

Ars longa, vita brevis Walter C. Clemens Jr. Stephen Little and Virginia Moon, eds., Beyond the Line. The Art of Korean Writing. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art and New York: Prestel, 2019. John Henry Rice and Jeffrey S. Durham, Awaken: A Tibetan Buddhist Journey toward Enlightenment. Richmond: Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. Distributed by Yale University Press, 2019. John Carpenter, ed., The Tale of Genji: A Japanese Classic Illuminated. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2019. Forrest McGill, ed., The Rama Epic: Hero, Heroine, Ally, Foe. San Francisco: Asian Art Museum, 2016. Each of these works illuminates the development of a civilization through its art and writing—both its calligraphy and great stories. This review travels across four civilizations that are quite distinct, even though they all share some common features, such as the influence of Buddhism. Each book under review illustrates the tensions that occur between a quest for material gain and spiritual enlightenment. A contemporary observer will also note that shared cultural values among some countries have done little to transcend tensions born of nationalism and power politics. Each book tells us about a wide range of people and their ways of life. Each presents art and writing by top leaders, their consorts, diplomats and other officials, scholars, monks, artisans, workers, and even slaves. Each book tracks human culture from ancient times to the present. Each may provoke contemporary social scientists to step back and consider the broad context in which humans and their organizations evolve, contesting and sometimes cooperating with one another. Ars longa, vita brevis derives from a longer aphorism attributed to Hippocrates: "Life is short, and art long; the crisis fleeting; experience perilous, and decision difficult"—useful caveats for politicians, social scientists, and most everyone else. [End Page 163] In a similar vein, readers of Asian Perspective may want to ruminate on a message in the Diamond Sutra found within a pagoda in Korea's North Cholla Province (Little and Moon, p. 159). Similar to Plato's flickering shadows on a cave wall, but more colorful, this Buddhist poem reads: All conditioned phenomenaAre like a dream, an illusion, a bubble, a shadow,Like dew or a flash of lightning;Thus we shall perceive them. Beyond the Line focuses on the past two thousand years, but its first image shows rubbings of spirited petroglyphs on a cliff near Ulsan. Dating from about 5,000 BCE, the glyphs depict whales, turtles, sharks, seals, tigers, hunting scenes, and man-made tools, as well as human and shamanistic figures. Their strong and joyous movements might remind a modern observer of Picasso and Matisse. Korean calligraphy has reflected the changing face of politics and culture. For two millennia, Korean elites used ideographic Chinese characters to convey Korean words—a script known as hanja. This difficult-to-master practice was challenged by King Sejong of the Chosun dynasty who, in the mid-fifteenth century, commissioned scholars to develop a phonetic script geared to the structure and sounds of Korean speech—later called hangeul. Relatively easy to learn, the script enabled elite women and some commoners to become literate, but many officials and scholars distained a writing system easily accessible to all. Not until Christian missionaries began to establish elementary schools at the end of the nineteenth century did serious efforts to foster mass literacy using hangeul begin. The first newspaper published entirely in hangeul, entitled the Independent, appeared in 1896. While foreign missionaries promoted hangeul, some anti-Japanese patriots used traditional hanja calligraphy to reassert Korean identity. For example, Ahn Junggeun, who assassinated the Japanese resident-general Ito Hirobumi in 1909, produced nearly two hundred fiercely nationalist hanja scrolls stamped by his inked handprint during the weeks before his execution (an example of which may be seen at Little and Moon, p. 330). After Japan annexed Korea in 1910, however, the occupiers labored to deracinate Korea and Nipponize its culture. The Japanese occupiers taught hangeul to peasants to facilitate control but discouraged hangeul among Korea's educated classes, whom they forced to use Japanese in documents and literary works. This was the milieu in which the [End Page 164] Society for the Study of the Korean Language...

47: The True Story of the Vendetta of the 47 Ronin from Akō by Thomas Harper

Reviewed by: 47: The True Story of the Vendetta of the 47 Ronin from Akō by Thomas Harper Jeroen Lamers 47: The True Story of the Vendetta of the 47 Ronin from Akō. By Thomas Harper. Sedgwick, ME: Leete's Island Books, 2019. 992 pages. Softcover, $29.95. "Hear ye, hear ye!" With his long-awaited tome on the vendetta of the forty-seven ronin, or "masterless samurai," Tom Harper has written what is at one and the same time a fastidious work of historical reconstruction and a transcendent historical novel. This is history as literature and vice versa. Like very few before (and, most likely, after) him, Harper succeeds brilliantly in fully conveying what makes Japanese history so fascinating. The book's grand sweep, myriad detail, and depiction of deeply relatable human experience reflect Harper's vast knowledge about the vendetta, whose story in broad-brush terms will be known to many. The outstanding characteristic of 47 is its relentless narrative thrust. Short chapters help to keep the pace fast. The book charges forward to its gruesome denouement, giving a strong sense that there is ever more to find out in this gripping yet catastrophic story. Harper indulges us with copious, meticulous detail that he distributes judiciously throughout the book, thereby avoiding a sense of excess. He expertly initiates readers into contemporary customs, scenes, rooms, processions, travel arrangements, modes of transport, formal exchanges, festivities, emissaries, felicitations, gourmet edibles, ceremonies, rites, entertainment, displays, exchanges, the minutiae of court lore, and much more (see, for example, pp. 15–33). Harper's previous work on The Tale of Genji is echoed in the current book, and once again there is much to be admired, if not imbibed: his flowing style, the reach and depth of his vocabulary, and his deployment of flawless and evocative English names for contemporary Japanese titles, physical structures, clothing, utensils, and the like. His knowledge of the Tokugawa bureaucratic machinery and style of governance is unmatched. The whole book oozes with love for the historical record of the masterless forty-seven and, indeed, for the protagonists themselves and their warrior code. Only very occasionally does his detailed knowledge less than fully support the narrative—as in the account of the continental roots of Takebayashi Tadashichi (pp. 373–79), which struck this reviewer as interesting but slightly superfluous. In the preface, Harper introduces the reader to Ōhashi Yoshizō, a historical but little-known literary figure, raised among samurai, who lived from 1859 to probably into the 1940s and who acts as the narrative voice for the remainder of the book. Harper's decision to tell his story through Ōhashi succeeds unexpectedly well; this reviewer was skeptical at first, only to be wholly won over. Instead of adding more complexity to what was always going to be a story with many moving parts, the narrative construct brings immediacy and authenticity to the text. One could argue that the ploy leads to some loss of analytical edge. Yet for better or for worse, Harper has ostensibly painted himself out of the picture, and in return the reader enjoys a front-row seat, up close to the action. And the performance is so grand and captivating that doubts almost naturally fade into the background. [End Page 373] At regular intervals throughout the book, the narration drops hints of what lies in store—"Much worse was soon to come" (p. 231), or "We shall get to know this man better further in our tale" (p. 576). This technique evokes the atmosphere of a classical adventure novel while also helping to build tension and anticipation. The maximum effect is achieved when Harper's narrator steps forward as he delivers these hints. One such example occurs on page 432, in relation to the unknown fate of Ōishi Kuranosuke's pregnant mistress, Okaru: "I expect that Kuranosuke returned her to her father, Nimonjiya Jirōzaemon, generously rewarded I would hope; but what became of her thereafter, no one knows." Though it is perhaps not surprising given his scholarly credentials, Harper still merits note and praise for the deft command he exercises over a vast repertoire of original documents, often letters from the ronin themselves, to give...

『源氏物語』宇治十帖と「あて」 - 「あて」なる人々とその特徴 -

『源氏物語』宇治十帖と「あて」 - 「あて」なる人々とその特徴 -

Recognition of Kuzushi-ji with Deep Learning Method A Case Study of Kiritsubo Chapter in the Tale of Genji

Recognition of Kuzushi-ji with Deep Learning Method A Case Study of Kiritsubo Chapter in the Tale of Genji

The Tale of Genji: A Japanese Classic Illuminated

A comprehensive exploration of the rich visual culture inspired by the exceptional 11th-century literary masterpiece, from early screen paintings through contemporary manga With its vivid descriptions of imperial society, gardens, and architecture in early 11th-century Japan, The Tale of Genji-recognized as the world's first psychological novel-has captivated audiences around the globe and inspired artistic traditions for 1,000 years. This handsomely designed and illustrated book explores the outstanding art associated with Genji through in-depth essays and discussions of nearly 120 works. TheTale of Genji has influenced all forms of Japanese artistic expression, from intimately scaled albums and fans to boldly designed hanging scrolls and screen paintings by the most esteemed artists and calligraphers of every school and era. Scenes from the tale adorn decorative objects used in everyday life, including robes, lacquer boxes, containers for grooming tools and writing implements, incense burners, and even palanquins for transporting young brides to their new homes. The authors, both art historians and Genji scholars, discuss the tale's transmission and reception over the centuries; illuminate its place within the history of Japanese literature and calligraphy; highlight its key episodes and characters; and explore its wide-ranging influence on Japanese culture, design, and aesthetics into the modern era.

The Tale of Genji and Heian Literature: Reception History, Translations, and New Frontiers - Mapping Courtship and Kinship in Classical Japan: The Tale of Genji and Its Predecessors. By Doris G. Bargen. Honolulu: University of Hawaiʻi Press, 2015. xix, 372 pp. ISBN: 9780824851545 (cloth, also available in paper and as e-book). - The Tale of Genji: Translation, Canonization, and World

The Tale of Genji and Heian Literature: Reception History, Translations, and New Frontiers - Mapping Courtship and Kinship in Classical Japan: The Tale of Genji and Its Predecessors. By Doris G. Bargen. Honolulu: University of Hawaiʻi Press, 2015. xix, 372 pp. ISBN: 9780824851545 (cloth, also available in paper and as e-book). - The Tale of Genji: Translation, Canonization, and World