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.