- Convenor:
-
Akihiko Niimi
(Waseda University)
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- Chair:
-
Rebekah Clements
(ICREA Autonomous University of Barcelona)
- Discussant:
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Gaye Rowley
(Waseda University)
- Format:
- Panel
- Section:
- Pre-modern Literature
Short Abstract
Given recent material and methodological advances, textual scholarship on the Pillow Book, the Tale of Genji, and the Tale of Sagoromo is on the verge of breaking new ground. The goal of our panel is to present this research, and to consider its possible implications.
Long Abstract
By almost any criteria, the Pillow Book, the Tale of Genji, and the Tale of Sagoromo rank safely among the most representative works of Heian-period prose literature in Japanese. By and large, at least, this is certainly what ongoing trends in research would suggest, where we see new studies treating these works almost constantly. Yet there is one crucial exception: remarkably sparse in all this march of scholarship are studies of these works’ actual texts. Research on historical textual philology, in other words, has simply not kept pace.
At first glance, given the importance of the works in question, such lagging progress in a core field might seem inexplicable, but a plausible cause is not in fact far to seek. In the case of all three texts, the 1950s saw the publication of certain pathbreaking philological landmarks: Tanaka Jūtarō’s Collated Pillow Book (1953), Ikeda Kikan’s Tale of Genji Variorum (1953), and Mitani Eiichi and Nakata Takanao’s foundational studies on the textual transmission of the Tale of Sagoromo. The sheer scale of these interventions discouraged comprehensive engagement, and amidst a general recognition of their contributions, over time a whole host of their orthodoxies were allowed to crystallize, and have proven difficult to dislodge.
It is also the case, however, that in a major theoretical break, modern textual criticism has largely disengaged from the core tenet of this earlier postwar wave, which sought above all to determine which particular textual witness was qualitatively “best” for scholarly purposes. Recent work favors rather a more neutral survey across ranges of texts, in order to ascertain their respective, individual qualities. Needless to say that such a break is downstream of the breakthrough in textual access facilitated by the publication of countless digitized texts online, many of them new or previously inaccessible. With so much to consider and revise, textual scholarship on all three of these classics is clearly on the move again, ready to break new ground. The goal of our panel is to present this research and, as philological frontiers are necessarily also interpretive frontiers, to consider its possible implications.
| Abstract in Japanese (if needed) |
Accepted papers
Paper short abstract
There survive today four textual lineages into which extant texts of the Pillow Book are categorized, but the relationships among these have proven difficult to establish. This paper argues that we should rather accept that from the beginning there have always existed multiple different texts.
Paper long abstract
There exists today general scholarly agreement that all texts of the Pillow Book known to yet survive can be categorized among four discrete textual lineages: the Teika-bon line (or “Sankan-bon”), the Den-Nōin-bon line, the Sakai-bon line, and the Maeda-ke-bon (a unique exemplar as yet without collinear cognates). Of these four, the Teika-bon has traditionally been regarded as offering the superior textual witness, and indeed most modern editions adopt it as their base text, with the predictable consequence that even most research today on the Pillow Book effectively treats the Teika-bon as default.
Particularly neglected has been the single manuscript of the Maeda-ke-bon. Despite being the oldest text of the Pillow Book, and indeed the only one surviving from the Kamakura period, for many years there existed a scholarly consensus dismissing it as a mere composite drawing from the Den-Nōin-bon and Sakai-bon lines, leading the Maeda-ke-bon’s witness to go largely ignored. With such consensus having since been disproven, however, the time is ripe for reevaluation of its value. And indeed, the time for a more general reevaluation of the Pillow Book’s texts is long overdue. The vaunted Teika-bon line, deriving ultimately from a copy in Teika’s own hand, represents after all but a single authority’s recension, and one itself dating no earlier than the Kamakura period (Antei 2/1228). For research on the Pillow Book to nonetheless continue its reliance on the Teika-bon alone can hardly be termed ideal.
At the same time, merely exchanging Teika’s text for another, perhaps for the Maeda-ke-bon, is no more ideal. All such solutions suffer fundamentally from the defect of assuming that there ever existed a single urtext, one that judicious scholarship might someday approach. As I argue, however, the truly judicious approach is rather to simply accept that, in the case of the Pillow Book, from the time of composition there have always existed multiple different texts. Proceeding from such an argument, this paper considers solutions to several connected textual problems, in particular the various ways in which these multiple “originals” might relate to the four distinct text-types that survive today.
Paper short abstract
The goal of this paper is to reconsider the standard three-fold taxonomy of Genji manuscripts by shifting the unit of variant analysis from the whole work to the individual chapter. To this end, it attempts to produce exploratory “mappings” of the witness corpus on a chapter-by-chapter basis.
Paper long abstract
A myriad of variants may color the countless texts of the Tale of Genji that survive, but textual scholarship has discovered in this chaos a surprising degree of order. Specifically, there exist two clear textual lineages, the Teika-bon and Kawachi-bon lines, and additionally a group of texts belonging clearly to neither, conventionally called the “Beppon” (Other Texts) group. Applying this taxonomy, scholarly consensus today assigns extant texts of any of the Genji’s fifty-four chapters, through observation of their characteristic variants, to one of these three groups. At the same time, it has long been clear that the degree of variation itself varies significantly from chapter to chapter, raising doubts about the feasibility of applying any single framework to a group of subtexts so diverse. Yet given the sheer difficulty of surveying such a corpus, detailed discussion of each chapter’s unique lineage-assigning criteria, and in particular their evidential basis, has remained relatively minimal since the current consensus took hold.
In recent years, however, with the mass digital provision of ever more Genji manuscripts, it has become dramatically easier to consult the text of many specific important witnesses. This has opened up new opportunities for the reassessment of consensus, above all the possibility of refining the overarching taxonomic framework itself. Future advances in our understanding of the text will require deepening our grasp of its variance as encountered in actual witnesses, whose fundamental physical unit is not the full work, but rather the individual chapter. As such, supplementing the qualitative findings of traditional philology with the findings of quantitative analysis, our pressing task is to first produce “mappings” of the witness corpus on a strictly chapter-by-chapter basis.
The goal of this paper is to reconsider the received taxonomy through the exploratory production of precisely such “mappings” for a limited number of select chapters, based on statistical analyses of massive quantities of textual data. Focusing respectively on differences between the Kawachi-bon and the Beppon in early chapters, and in later chapters on differences between the Teika-bon and the Kawachi-bon, the paper throughout surveys various outstanding problems in manuscript classification.
Paper short abstract
The substantial amount of variants found among extant texts of the Tale of Sagoromo has hindered the study of its transmission history. Surveying recent developments in the field, this paper proposes new critical approaches more appropriate to the work’s diverse corpus of textual witnesses.
Paper long abstract
Even among the oldest extant examples of the traditional tsukuri monogatari (fictional tales) genre, as an extensive work of authentic Heian vintage surviving essentially complete, the Tale of Sagoromo belongs already, bibliographically, to a truly elect company. Beyond this, the Sagoromo bears uniquely the greater distinction of being classically set alongside the Tale of Genji as its implicit peer in literary honors. Fujiwara no Teika himself, for example, paired the two works in his famous Hundred-Round Poetry Match between the Genji and the Sagoromo, attesting to the status it enjoyed not two centuries after its composition.
Nonetheless, despite this early association with the Tale of Genji, over the eight centuries following Teika, the reception of the Tale of Sagoromo has in many respects diverged sharply from that of its counterpart. Central among these is the contrasting course of its textual transmission. In particular, the Tale of Sagoromo is infamous for the sheer numerosity of variants found between its extant textual witnesses. The extent of these is so great, in fact, that certain opposing witnesses can reasonably be described as actually differing in content. Surpassing thus in their import the variation between textual witnesses of the Genji, the Sagoromo’s variants are one of its most distinguishing features, constituting much of its interest and its charm.
Yet mostly they have proven a hurdle, resistant to conventional methods for determining textual lineage. Indeed, only two major studies on the question exist, both not only fifty years outdated, but also somewhat always marred, especially by tendencies to be unforthcoming with evidence for their claims. Recently, however, growing awareness and methodological understanding of such problems is seeing this impasse successfully challenged. Most significantly, the Fukagawa manuscript itself, allegedly best witness (and base-text for the standard edition), has found its status thrown seriously into question. Notwithstanding, truly fundamental reexamination of the textual tradition remains a task unattempted. This paper offers a step towards such a new paradigm. Surveying both prior problems and recent developments, it proposes new critical approaches more appropriate to the Sagoromo’s diverse corpus of textual witnesses going forward.