Paper short abstract:

In this paper, I apply contemporary research and theories on the production and consumption of fan fiction and on fandom communities to late Heian period court tale Yoru no Nezame, in order to analyze its relationship to its illustrious predecessor, The Tale of Genji.

Paper long abstract:

All across the world, fan communities, often composed predominately of women, consume, comment on and transform their favorite popular novels, TV series, movies, anime or manga, producing works of fan fiction that reinterpret and rewrite the original canon, giving it new meaning and form in the process. While fandom communities and their corpus of fan fiction are contemporary phenomena, this paper will argue that by examining their particular modes of reception, one can better understand similar reader communities and their engagement with canonical texts, despite the significant cultural and historical distance between them.

In particular, using the research on transformative fan fiction, I will examine the eleventh century monogatari or court tale Yoru no nezame attributed to Sugawara no Takasue's Daughter. I will argue, in this paper, that this court tale is a transformative work of fan fiction of the Genji monogatari, Murasaki Shikibu's early eleventh century masterpiece. By comparing two episodes in the two court tales, Genji's encounter with Utsusemi in the second chapter of Murasaki's tale and Nezame's attempt to escape the emperor's attention in the third book of Nezame respectively, I will demonstrate that Takasue's Daughter's approach to the Genji, like that of contemporary fan fiction writers, challenges and rewrites her favorite work to convey a different message and serve her own agenda. In the case of Nezame, the transformation of the canonical Genji scene into the Nezame episode is of particular value, not only to show how late eleventh century Genji readers read and understood Murasaki's tale, but also to draw attention to how they engaged with one particular aspect of the Genji: its episodes of sexual violence.

Paper short abstract:

This paper aims to analyze the canonization, popularization and politicization process of Genji monogatari in order to proof that its status of classic has not been altered by the collateral literature – commentaries, digests, translations, and adaptations – it gave birth to throughout centuries.

Paper long abstract:

This paper aims to analyze how Genji monogatari (1008ca.) reached its status of “classic” and to demonstrate how the collateral literature born with its canonization and popularization did not affect the original text, which preserves its authority.

During the Heain period Genji was an essential model for waka poetry, and its fortune also lasted in medieval times, when court culture and samurai culture – generally considered poles apart – indissolubly linked themselves thanks to the works by Fujiwara no Koreyuki (Genji shaku, 1160ca.), Fujiwara no Toshinari (Roppyakuban uta awase, 1193), and Fujiwara no Teika (Okuiri, 1233), who led the text to the apex of its canonization. Later, with the introduction of quotations from Genji in renga, the text entered the popular culture in simplified form. However, despite the popularization process, the academic substratum was still influent, and it was used by the shogunate in order to legitimate its power: this is proved by the Kakaishō (1378-1394), commissioned to Yotsutsuji Yoshinari by the shogun Ashikaga Yoshiakira, and by the fact that samurai families attempted to identify themselves as descendants of the Fujiwara clan by practicing “aristocratic” arts. This is a parallel politicization process that culminated with the theorization of mono no aware by Motoori Norinaga: this aesthetical canon was exploited in modern times to support the birth of the nationalist ideology. It is the case of Tanizaki Jun’ichirō’s translations: not only they are bound to the concept of Japanesity, but they are also an example of alteration since some chapters were changed or totally excluded.

Even now, numerous adaptations on various media are being produced – manga, movies, drama – and they modify the source depending on cultural and social needs, but everything shares indelible connections with the original Genji, whose status of “classic” stays unchanged.