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- Convenors:
-
Hiroshi Yokomizo
(Tohoku University)
Carolina Negri (Ca' Foscari University of Venice)
Satoko Nakanishi (National Institute of Japanese Literature)
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- Section:
- Pre-modern Literature
- Sessions:
- Wednesday 25 August, -
Time zone: Europe/Brussels
Short Abstract:
Given Murasaki Shikibu's status as an artist, much research on the Tale of Genji has focused on her intentions. This panel instead orients itself around relationships between her and her patron, Fujiwara no Michinaga, as a framework from which to explore the text's production and circulation anew.
Long Abstract:
The fame of Murasaki Shikibu as an artist owes much, it hardly needs saying, to the international renown of the Tale of Genji as a masterpiece of world literature. Reflecting the privileged status thus accorded to her, much research on the Tale to date has found its significance in the interpretation of Murasaki's own intentions, as they surround the text throughout. In recent years, however, amidst a growing interest in the cultural sphere that produced the Genji, it has gradually become clear that for the understanding of such a work, facile interpretive schemata wherein "(average) readers" face "(transcendent artist) Murasaki Shikibu" are woefully insufficient.
This panel, in contrast, orients itself around the real-world relationships between Murasaki Shikibu and Fujiwara no Michinaga, as an alternative framework from which to explore the text's production and circulation anew. For hovering ever half-visibly in the background to the work's production lie the purposes of its patron, Fujiwara no Michinaga, making it possible to see the Tale of Genji as the textual realization of those purposes, wrought skillfully in writing through Murasaki Shikibu's abundant craft. The Genji was, after all, both created for and presented to the limited cultural sphere around Michinaga's own family clan. Indeed, given such a situation even the premises of "author" and "reader" seem in need of re-conception.
These issues are also linked to the problem of how the Genji circulated. Under what expectations of readership, ultimately, had it been created? Addressing such questions, collectively the three panelists seek to decode the relationship between the literary work of the Tale of Genji and the larger literary sphere—literary "field"—within which it came into being. Extending their investigations beyond the Tale itself, they take into account other works like the Diary of Murasaki Shikibu, and various private poetry collections. Each separately the panelists draw out the Tale of Genji's potential political aspects, amid the larger context of Fujiwara no Michinaga's patronage, revealing in detail the respective strategies of Michinaga and Murasaki that underlay the manner in which the Tale of Genji came to be written, and read.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Wednesday 25 August, 2021, -Paper short abstract:
In a close reading of Murasaki Shikibu nikki, I will discuss the qualities that Murasaki Shikibu - who is supposed to speak for her patron, Fujiwara no Michinaga - belives are admirable for women and the central role they play in Heian society by responding to the demands of a political agenda.
Paper long abstract:
In her memoir, Murasaki Shikibu describes with lively curiosity and plenty of detail ladies-in-waiting participating in cerimonies and parties. These women have particular physical attributes, wear clothes properly and publically exhibit social skills and refined culture. In the rear court where they live together rivalrous competition among them stimulates the cultivation of qualities to fit the ideal image of the aristocratic woman supported by Fujiwara no Michinaga and his entourage.
The prerogatives of the ideal woman become a central issue in Murasaki Shikibu nikki as well as in Genji monogatari, providing a thematic coherence between these two works written in the same historical period. In both texts, the analyses of female figures disclose profound insight into their virtues and destinies. They show women how to fulfill a variety of roles in society and what positive or negative effects may arise from sharing certain examples of conduct.
In a close reading of Murasaki Shikibu nikki, I will discuss the qualities that Murasaki Shikibu - who is supposed to speak for her patron, Fujiwara no Michinaga - belives are admirable for women and the central role they play in Heian society by responding to the social demands of a particular political agenda.
Paper short abstract:
In this presentation, going beyond the framework of Murasaki Shikibu the individual, I explore the problem of the Tale of Genji's circumstances of production, seeing it as part of the larger political projects centered around Fujiwara no Michinaga and his daughter Shōshi.
Paper long abstract:
In discussing the production of the Tale of Genji, it is important to look also beyond Murasaki Shikibu, never forgetting the efforts of the others on the "authorial" side of things, all of them involved with the Tale's production at various different levels: by ordering its production or drafting its text, by giving advice or spreading word, by circulating or copying manuscripts. Most of these were women whom Fujiwara no Michinaga, the patron backing the Tale of Genji's production, had recruited as ladies-in-waiting to attend upon his daughter Shōshi. Married to the reigning Emperor, Shōshi was herself Empress, but not the only one, and at any time her standing within the Rear Palace -where empresses usually dwelt—was a crucial factor in strengthening Michinaga's monopolization of power at court. Given such a situation, therefore, the degree of cooperation among the ladies-in-waiting supporting Shōshi had to be something stronger than mere group fellowship. As it happened, the group of ladies-in-waiting to which Murasaki Shikibu belonged, centered around Fujiwara no Michinaga's daughter Shōshi, produced one literary masterpiece after another, such as the Tale of Genji, the Murasaki Shikibu Diary, and the Izumi Shikibu Diary. On the level of verbal expression, in fact, there existed deep, mutual relationships to be observed among these books. Indeed, these ladies-in-waiting would seem to have been quite proactively involved in the completion, circulation, and transmission of each other's works. Yet what was the end and purpose of all this? In this presentation, going beyond the framework of Murasaki Shikibu the individual, I explore the problem of the Tale of Genji's circumstances of production, seeing it as part of the larger political projects centered around Fujiwara no Michinaga and his daughter Shōshi.
Paper short abstract:
In the "Picture Contest" chapter of the Tale of Genji, Genji's Suma diary defeats scrolls of several famous literary works, representing a victory for both Genji himself and the Tale of Genji, strategically allowing Murasaki to implicitly glorify both her work and her patron, Fujiwara no Michinaga.
Paper long abstract:
In the "Picture Contest" (E-awase) chapter of the Tale of Genji, before the imperial presence of his majesty the Reizei Emperor, rival patrons Tō no Chūjō and Hikaru Genji oversee a public art contest of sorts between various ladies of the court, who have arranged themselves into two competing factions, of the Left and of the Right. Yet this ostensibly culture-centered event—in point of historical fact entirely the invention of Murasaki Shikibu's fancy—is not to be understood here as merely an occasion for elegant sport. It is important to realize that it is portrayed, within the Tale, as an event with significant political undertones, bearing directly upon the outcome of power struggles between the imperial wives of the Reizei Emperor. Over the course of the picture contest, illustrated scrolls depicting famous literary works, such as the Tale of the Bamboo Cutter, are brought out one after another in round after round. It is significant, however, that after this ultimately inconclusive series of exchanges, it is only with the appearance of Hikaru Genji's own diary of his recent exile at Suma that a decisive verdict is reached—in his faction's favor. Yet what this represents is not merely the triumph of Hikaru Genji the character, but also the victory of the Tale of Genji itself.
The use within the Tale of Genji of allusions in this fashion, with the mention of illustrious antecedent works of literature, functions effectively not only as an expression of Murasaki Shikibu's writerly self-confidence, but also as a technique for public glorification of her imperial mistress' own household. Seen in such a light, the Tale of Genji can be called an exquisitely strategic text. For even as Murasaki Shikibu here displays, within the work itself, her work's own achievements for appreciation by a court-society audience, she also subtly effects an encomium for the surpassing cultural (and political) gifts of her ultimate patron, Fujiwara no Michinaga.