Paper short abstract:

This paper will apply the major techniques and methods of narratology to the analysis ofThe Tale of the Heike and the interpretation of the phenomena peculiar to literary text representing the genre of katarimono.

Paper long abstract:

Shinobu Orikuchi, a Japanese ethnologist, linguist, and folklorist once referred to The Tale of The Heikeas sekkyō-bushi(a genre of storytelling, or katarimono,that was popular from the late 15thcentury through the Azuchi-Momoyama period (1568-1600)).However, The Tale of the Heikelacks the honjimonoelement (the part of the story which describes how the hero becomes a God or Buddha after enduring all the trials and tribulations) which is considered to be an important feature of the sekkyō-bushi genre.Besides, the literary styles of the two genres differ greatly. At the same time, the "narrative styles" of both genres demonstrate some similarities. For example, one such similarity is that it is difficult to separate the narrator of the events from the voicesof the story's characters. This kind of inseparability of the narrator and characters' voices in a narrative can be interpreted as the product of the dramatic imagination of its creators or explained as a phenomenon caused by the Japanese poetic and rhetoricaldevices or other specific features of the Japanese language.

This paper does not attempt to analyze the process of the production of narrative text. Focusing on "the narrative style," namely the performativeaspects of The Tale of the Heike's narrative text, the paper will apply the major techniquesand methods of narratology to the analysis of The Tale of the Heike and the interpretationof the phenomena peculiar to literary text representing the genre of katarimono.