Paper short abstract:

By way of an analysis of Matsura no miya monogatari (The Tale of Matsura, end 12th c.), this paper aims at demonstrating how intertextual and narrative techniques are used in order to inscribe the past into the present in a literary text of medieval Japan.

Paper long abstract:

Within Japanese literary history, the medieval period is probably the epoch that deals most intensively with questions of time. This concern reflects aesthetic worldviews and Buddhist concepts of temporality as well as the political and social environment at the time that was characterized by the gradual disempowerment of court aristocracy, spurring a sense of deterioration and nostalgia.

Literature provides different techniques to encode such temporal sensations. One of the most effective rhetorical device to inscribe temporality into a text are intertextual allusions. References to texts from the past allow to superimpose different temporal levels as well as to pay reference to literary ancestors or the past as such. Apart from poetry, allusions are notably pronounced in court tales, so-called giko monogatari (stories that imitate the classical style), as well as in medieval female diaries, in hermit travel diaries and Noh plays. In medieval court narratives, extensive allusions to earlier texts such as classical tales and poems are often used in order to express nostalgia for the court culture of the Heian period. Among court tales, Matsura no miya monogatari (The Tale of Matsura, end 12th c.) is a notably interesting research object, as it is the only piece taking place in the Nara period. In terms of content and style, it is modelled after the Heian-period narrative Utsuho monogatari (Tale of the Hollow Tree, late 10th c.), and it exemplifies an application of its author Fujiwara no Teika's poetic ideal yōen (ethereal beauty) to a narrative text. The work thus exhibits fascinating temporal complexities by way of a combination of ancient temporal setting, classic diction and contemporary emotionality. The work therefore allows probing how temporal expressions of ancient, classical, and medieval Japan are aesthetically combined. By way of an analysis of Matsura no miya monogatari I will demonstrate how intertextual and narrative techniques are used in order to inscribe the past into the present.

Paper short abstract:

Examining differing manuscripts of Genji kokagami, a famous medieval digest version of the classic work, this paper uses the perspectives of narratology and deixis to reveal premodern narrative strategies by which later readers sought to link fictional worlds with the world of actual history.

Paper long abstract:

Narratology is usually seen as an analytical technique, employed to make sense of the "technique" of literary narration. Yet narrative theory has the potential for a far broader application, extending to various dimensions of real-world speech acts of interpersonal negotiation and rhetoric, down to everyday scenes of dialogue and persuasion.

Such applications of literary thinking to the real world are not unfamiliar. As this paper will show, they also existed in medieval Japan. An illustrative case is that of the text known as Genji kokagami (The Little Mirror of the Genji), a widely-circulated digest version of the classic work. Examining various differing manuscripts of the Little Mirror, this paper uses the perspectives of narratology and conceptual deixis to reveal these premodern methods by which the fictional world was linked to the world of actual history. There exist several manuscripts of the Little Mirror that evince an understanding of the Tale of Genji as being no mere work of fiction, but rather a surviving fragment of the historical real world. One such text, the Miidera Shōgoin manuscript, includes additions which concern the religious salvation of its own direct readers. Another, the Renzō manuscript, displays an interest in esoteric Buddhist mysticism akin to that found in certain works of renga theory, and a number of older commentaries on the Ise monogatari.

These texts contain changes that, taking Murasaki Shikibu herself for a symbol of Buddhist salvation, seek to bring the world of her Tale in contact with the real world through the mediation of an overarching Buddhist cosmos. Such cases demonstrate how premodern narration could serve to connect worlds brought into existence by fiction with the real world of our experience.

Many other examples of medieval textual alteration might be cited whose worldview joined the real world to the fictional. And while such cases do reflect a Buddhist discourse, this paper will argue that they also represent something more: the strategic deployment, aimed at real readers, of narrative technique, on a level wholly different from the original fictional works themselves.

Paper short abstract:

Mugen-noh sometimes offers moments when its dual temporality is resolved. This paper analyzes this fluidity of time in noh by applying a cognitive narratological approach, paying special attention to the linguistic characteristics of Japanese and issues of gestures and language in drama.

Paper long abstract:

The structure of mugen-noh (dream play) is often compared to a box within a box, or a picture within a frame; the frame (or the outer box) stands for the dramatic present, in which a living person encounters a ghost, and the picture (or the inner box) stands for the past, which is retold and reenacted by the ghost, and is the main interest of the play. However, careful analysis reveals that quite a few dream plays offer moments in which the past and the present merge, and the narrated moment and the narrating moment become almost indistinguishable.

This uncertainty of time is brought about mainly by three causes. The first cause is the linguistic characteristics of Japanese that tends to narrate a past incident as a present one; when telling/writing a past incident, verbs often take present forms, and temporal deixis takes the narrated past moment as its anchor, instead of the narrating moment in the present. The second cause is the nature of onstage gestures, which is a locus where two different spatiotemporal spheres converge; when a past incident is reenacted by a character in the dramatic present (like a play within a play), the character's gestures "show" the temporally (and often spatially) remote offstage space on the dramatically present onstage space. The third cause is the nature of language in drama (especially "narration" in drama) that freely manipulates the audience's spatiotemporal perception of the physical onstage space.

As a result, the audience of noh witnesses not solely the ghost's retrospective telling of the past but also the ghost's "experiencing" his or her most emotionally-charged moment in the dramatic present. In one sense, it is the ultimate form of "creativity" of the dream-play structure which enables playwrights to create something new out of a well-known story, through a character's extremely subjective recollection. At the same time, this fluidity of time realized on noh stage could be viewed as a dramatization of the linguistic characteristics of Japanese itself, which, by nature, makes the retrospective telling a telling of the present.

Paper short abstract:

Drawing on examples from medieval setsuwa literature, this paper discusses time as a narratological category, which has traditionally been closely linked to other categories. By examining characteristics of setsuwa regarding time, it is shown why they are especially pertinent to time research.

Paper long abstract:

Time belongs to the few basic categories that are constitutive of narrative. While one category or dimension (including the mental dimension) may be of special relevance to a certain narrative, time certainly plays a major role in medieval setsuwa tales, regarding both story and discourse. Firstly, in setsuwa it is frequently mentioned how much time has passed between two events, which implies that specific numbers are pertinent to the story. Secondly, tales can feature different types of temporalities that coincide in one place. And famously, some setsuwa include depictions of heterochronia, otherworlds that are not only removed in space but also differ in their temporality. Thirdly, it has often been noted that Japanese narratives relate past events as something occurring in the present. Typical for this kind of narration is the formulaic phrase ima wa mukashi, which, according to this line of interpretation, does not mean "[the events are] now in the distant past" (cf. "once upon a time") but rather "now is the past," with "now" referring to the time of the listener or reader. A similar function is ascribed to the verbal suffix -keri.

Taking setsuwa literature as its starting point, this paper explores time as a narratological category and in what ways it is related to other categories of analysis. In narrative theory, time is often seen as a category guaranteeing the comparability of story and discourse, while in truth "narrated time" and "narrating time" refer to two fundamentally different concepts of time. Furthermore, time has been linked to other categories to such a degree that the question might arise whether time may even be regarded as an independent narratological category. After discussing these theoretical issues using examples from setsuwa literature, temporal characteristics of setsuwa will be described in more detail. These include, among others, the functions of chronometric information, the relationship of time and space, the implications fantastic time concepts have for the perception of time by listeners and readers, and what other means can be employed so that the time of the story equally becomes the time of the recipients.