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Hi, I'm Ryan Schultz from the Ohio State University. In this short lecture, I'm going to be talking about two of the most famous works of literature in Japanese history, both written by court women during the Heian period. These works offer us great insight into both the literary culture of the day, as well as into the sequestered and hidden lives of Japanese elite women in this period.
Around the end of the 8th Century, the emperor of Japan chose a new site for his capital, away from the old city of Nara that was now seen as poorly located and overrun by political interference from Buddhist temples located in central Japan. The construction, in 794, of the new capital at Heian, in a city today known as Kyoto, ushered in the Heian period in Japanese history. Kyoto was modeled off the Chinese capital at the time, reflecting the considerable influence of China on Japanese culture in earlier centuries. However, as the Heian period progressed, Japan would begin to make many of these important things their own. Buddhism, Confucianism, poetry, art, and government—all of these things which had been imported in various forms from China—would soon be transformed by the Japanese into something uniquely their own.
The Heian period was a perfect moment for this. Then, power was concentrated into the hands of the elite Fujiwara Clan, which dominated the Imperial Court and ushered in an era of peace—peace in the capital at least—that would last until the turn of the Millennium. For Heian elites, culture was power. The quality of one's art, poetry, writing—all these things—could determine access to political influence and to wealth. However, by the standards of the day, such power was, of course, restricted to men.
From the perspective of court women, men were all officials, whether they were great or small ones. They studied philosophy, history, law, and so on, and these men did so in written Chinese. When they composed poetry, they sometimes did so using Japanese, but they often wrote it out using a special script called Kanbun that made use of complex Chinese characters to represent Japanese sounds. Women were not supposed to study Chinese; it was considered an unladylike language, owing to its use in government and politics, both of which were thought of as the exclusive domains of men. However, women were permitted to read and write Japanese in Hiragana, a native script that directly represented the sounds of Japanese without putting Chinese characters in between. Nevertheless, some women did study Chinese texts and composition, but they did so in secret. Any ranking woman who could read Chinese and who revealed so publicly risked ridicule, and ridicule was as severe a punishment as any in the sensitive halls of the Heian Court.
Though poetry was key to social life and political advancement in this period, fiction and, indeed, most prose was considered to be beneath the dignity of powerful men. It was classified as worthless fantasy. Consequently, prose in Japanese tended to be written using Hiragana by women, and indeed, for women. Though few women were authors, countless openly read or listened to these stories, known as monogatari, in the privacy of their quarters, behind the screens which separated them from the men of the Court. As they gained in popularity over time, men, too, soon began to openly read and enjoy these tales, as well as other writings by Japanese women. In many ways, then, it was the creative accomplishments of Japan's elite women that set the aesthetic standards of the Heian age, even as men dominated its politics.
When the sophisticated Heian Court collapsed in the face of the growing power of the provincial warrior class, their government would vanish. Heian literature, however, would survive. For historians, these works by female authors offer us the best insight into the lives of the Heian elite, men and women alike. Just as a troubled emperor might search through the histories of China to find a way to understand a plight in the countryside, so too did court women comb tales for examples of the problems that they faced when caught in painful or strange circumstances. Scenes and ideals from these works continue to be valued as part of Japanese culture today; they are studied in high school and college in the same way that Shakespeare is in the United States. At the same time, diary-style writings give us a direct look into the day-to-day life of the Japanese aristocratic class in this era.
The two greatest works of literature by female authors of Heian Japan are Murasaki Shikibu's Tale of Genji and Sei Shonagon's Pillow Book. We'll look at each of these authors and their works in turn.
Murasaki Shikibu was born around 973 into the middle-level aristocracy of Heian Japan. As a member of a minor branch of the powerful Fujiwara family, her real name is unknown. The given names of daughters were not written down in family genealogies; thus, Murasaki Shikibu is just a nickname based on the name of her tale's fictional heroine, Murasaki, and the title of a post once held by her father, Shikibu. In 998 she married; in 999 she bore a daughter; and in 1001 she was widowed. Around 1006, she was called to serve the Empress Akiko on account of her talent for writing women's fiction, evidence of which had clearly reached the highest levels of the Court. The last record mentioning her is dated 1013; likely she died in the following year. Such is the extent of the life of this remarkable woman that was recorded. Fortunately, her writings survived; most famous among them is the Tale of Genji, probably written around 1008. It is the oldest novel from any culture that is still recognized today as a major masterpiece of literature. At 54 chapters and well over a thousand pages in translation, it is also a monumental work by any standard. Though scholars believe parts of the work may have been added by later authors, possibly Murasaki's daughter, reading and understanding this work requires one to plunge into the intricacies of Japanese court life and elite politics. Here we will spend only some time coming to grips with the most important plot points so that we can clearly see the key themes of the work.
A major ambition of any ranking man in Kyoto was to present a daughter to the emperor. Because of this aspiration, the emperor had a range of recognized relationships with women, less because of pure sexual inquisitiveness on his part and more because he was required to make his prestige widely accessible to the upper aristocracy. In the culture of Heian Japan, that meant accepting their daughters as consorts below his single Empress. The emperor had many of these consorts, and below them several intimates. These imperial women were not in any sense equal; the Empress dominated the consorts who towered above the intimates, women who had no chance of ever being promoted to Empress on account of a lack of political support for their families.
Hikaru Genji, the hero of Murasaki Shikibu's tale and the constant point of reference for the sometimes meandering plot, was the son of the emperor by an intimate whose father had died. Consequently, Genji's mother had no political support beyond the emperor's personal devotion to her, which was extremely strong. Owing to this, the emperor wished to appoint Genji as his heir, but he knew that the powerful factions within the court would never stand for it. He decided instead to remove Genji entirely from the imperial family by giving him a surname. Japanese emperors and their heirs do not have a surname. In this way, Genji could serve the realm as a senior government official, even if he could not be the heir. He was given the name Minamoto, a name based on another reading of one of the characters in Genji. He is thus both technically a commoner but also a person of clearly royal birth, making him an exceptionally interesting and wide-ranging character in the fiction.
The chapters of Murasaki's tale follow Genji's growth from being thrust into the world as a child towards adulthood. The tale also devotes considerable detail to the lives, feelings, and fates of the women who come into contact with Genji, reflecting the interest of Murasaki Shikibu's primarily female audience. By the end of the first chapter, Genji is married to a woman named Aoi, but he is too young to be really affected much by the marriage. In his adolescence, he comes to adore instead the future Empress Fujitsubo, who is said to closely resemble his mother, who he hardly knew. In time, Genji will secretly make love to Fujitsubo, and their son will succeed to the throne as the next Emperor. Nevertheless, Fujitsubo could never truly be his own. Genji longs for a special love, which he finds in her niece, a girl who looks just like her aunt, Fujitsubo. This is Murasaki, then about 10 years old. Genji brings her up personally, and then when she is of age, he marries her. Murasaki is the true great love of his life, and her death in the second half of the book nearly destroys him. But in the meantime, Genji comes to know well many other women. His life and his many sexual encounters thus reflect the polyamorous standards of the Heian aristocracy. Yet, even by the standards of the time, however, Genji is quite the playboy. He is handsome, charming, and eloquent; he is a master of poetry, and he possesses immense natural gifts in speaking and politics. As he enters into the world of the officialdom, he becomes quite the adventurer. For example, Genji is unable to resist making love to one of the daughters of his chief political enemy, an adventure that ends in disaster for him when he is discovered. He is forced to flee from the capital in disgrace, leaving his love Murasaki behind.
Near the site of the modern city of Kobe, on the shore of the Inland Sea of Japan, Genji suffers and languishes in the wilds, far from the refinement of the Heian capital. There he is discovered by an eccentric and wealthy provincial elite who invites him to a place called Akashi, where he fathers another child. Genji returns from exile in triumph, a man of power and maturity at last. Though he remains susceptible to feminine charm, he does not consummate any new affairs after this point. He builds a magnificent mansion of four complexes, each housing a lady important to him, and he is appointed as honorary retired Emperor. Genji towers over his world, but this world is broken by the death of Murasaki while Genji is in his early 50s. In grief, he ultimately retires to a temple and dies only a year or two later, a shell of his former self. The tale continues even after his death, introducing new characters, but it is the figure of Genji that has attracted the most interest from scholars and readers alike. In all, the story includes a cast of more than 400 characters, characters which Murasaki kept careful track of as she wrote. They have virtually no mistakes in their age nor in the consistency of their beliefs and personalities, and yet her tale ends abruptly, literally in mid-sentence. No doubt Murasaki intended to continue to write and entertain her audiences until she could no longer hold a brush.
The other famous work we'll be considering was written by Murasaki Shikibu's great rival, a woman known to us as Sei Shonagon. She was the daughter of a provincial official famous for his poetry and scholarship, and her line included many notable literary figures. As with Murasaki, we do not know her given name. Sei comes from a part of her family name, and Shonagon refers to the government post of lesser counselor, a title that was held by a male relative. We know almost nothing of her personal life either, save that she had an active literary rivalry with Murasaki Shikibu. In 993, Shonagon entered the service of the Empress Sadako, the oldest daughter of a leading Fujiwara Clan member. Like Murasaki, she was chosen for her skills as a poet and as a writer. She could be counted on to create an atmosphere of sophistication and elegance at court, and remember, sophistication and elegance were bedrocks of political power in the Heian period. Her most famous work, known as the Pillow Book, was a product of her years in the court. The title refers to a practice of keeping a diary in a wooden pillow with a drawer. The Pillow Book was kept private until 996, at which point it began to circulate in the Heian Court after it was accidentally revealed.
Unlike the novel-like structure of the Tale of Genji, the Pillow Book is likely to confuse any contemporary reader. It is jumbled and even perplexing in places, written in a mixed order that follows a Heian style of writing known as zuihitsu, or miscellany. It contains lists on topics such as things of beauty, awful things, and the flowers of trees. Sei Shonagon muses in her book on the seasons, on everyday life in the court, on the ebb and flow of power, and on her personal feelings as an elite woman of Heian Japan. The Pillow Book is not to be read as a single thought but in bits and pieces, just as it was written. Though it can hardly be summarized in the way that the Tale of Genji can, Sei Shonagon's Pillow Book contains similar themes; observations on the beauty of the world dominate its stories, along with a sentimentality for the transience of good and beautiful things, which it seems must always pass away. For historians, it offers a more direct look at court life than the fictional approach of the Tale of Genji. Since the Pillow Book is based on diary-style observations, in all, the Tale of Genji and the Pillow Book offer us two different ways to understand the lives of women and other Japanese elites in the sophisticated, emotional, and sensitive days at the height of the Heian period. As both literary masterpieces and historical documents, these works offer us a way to understand a society tremendously different from our own, and they can transport readers to a world like no other.