Anxieties of Authorship, Critique of Readership: Mishima Yukio’s Modern Noh Play Genji kuyō

Mishima Yukio's dramatic suicide half a century ago ensured that his name would forever be associated with a certain fanatic imperialism, and largely fulfilled his own wish that he would die as a military man. And yet, he was until the end foremost a literary artist, concerned with the critical reception of his written works and preoccupied with his lasting reputation as an author. This paper examines Mishima’s portrayal of the celebrity writer, as well as the potentials and limitations of literature as presented in his oft-neglected modern noh play Genji kuyō (Devotional offering for Genji, 1962). It positions the play within the long history of prayers for Genji monogatari (The Tale of Genji, ca. 1008) that began in the twelfth century in response to the perceived ambiguous morality of the author Murasaki Shikibu (d. ca. 1014). Mishima's Genji kuyō provides a pointed criticism of readers, as well as anxieties regarding a writer's life and literary recognition. Though Mishima himself famously disowned it after its initial publication, Genji kuyō offers critical insights regarding the writing and reading of literature.

Women's fan writing and transformative works in eleventh-century Japan

This exploration of the literary cultures of eleventh-century Japan analyzes the ways in which the writing and reading practices of the period resemble those of modern transformative fan communities. Studying the defining fictional text of this era, The Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu (ca. 1021), within the framework of fan studies demonstrates how existing so-called canonical material was transformed into a vehicle for female-centric reimaginings of dominant narratives. The circumstances of the work's authorship and its initial reception are examined via the author's own diary and The Sarashina Diary (ca. 1059), a memoir written by an early reader of the Genji, providing insight into both individual fan identity and the extensive female-led fan communities of the period.

The Cat in Kokon chomon-jû. Three Anecdotes Taken from the Work Compiled by Tachibana no Narisue and Translated from Japanese into French

La figure du chat fait son apparition dans la littérature japonaise au ixe siècle, mais son image évoluera de manière inattendue à l’époque médiévale. Des témoignages littéraires du xie et du xiie siècle, tels que les Notes de chevet de Sei Shônagon et Le Dit du Genji de Murasaki Shikibu, montraient clairement l’intérêt porté aux chats par les dames de cour. Pourtant, à partir du xiiie siècle, le félidé fera au contraire l’objet d’une forme de « diabolisation », et c’est cette dimension plus inquiétante du chat que nous aimerions évoquer ici, à travers trois exemples tirés du Kokon chomon-jû, vaste recueil de contes et légendes. Cette œuvre méconnue en Europe est attribuée à Tachibana no Narisue et achevée en 1254.

O Conto de Genji, de Virginia Woolf

Em 1925, na revista Vogue, a escritora inglesa Virginia Woolf escreveu uma resenha empolgada pela tradução do orientalista Arthur Waley para “O Conto de Genji”, atribuído à escritora e poeta Murasaki Shikibu, considerado um dos primeiros romances japoneses, escrito no começo do século XI. Mesmo que curto, o texto dá conta da prática de crítica literária promovida pela autora na época, aliando a pesquisa na autoria de mulheres e o sentimento do que chamava de leitor/a comum diante de um texto literário, sem amarras acadêmicas.

The Epistemology of Space in The Tale of Genji

Although The Tale of Genji is today the quintessentially Japanese national classic, its engagement with China shapes the tale on virtually every page. This essay argues that Murasaki Shikibu was keenly interested in philosophical questions of how humans experience space and that China played a pivotal role in formulating and engaging these questions. As a Heian woman she had no access to the world of Chinese-style poetry composition or the Confucian Academy, but she deploys China as a marker of spatial or temporal difference that inspires her probing of fundamental questions: How can spaces convey moods and structure human experience? How can a woman narrate inaccessible male spaces? This essay shows how philosophical questions about the experience and description of space drive the tale’s plot and character portrayal and how this “epistemology of space” is predicated on the manifold presences of China at the heart of the Genji’s brilliant narrative art and psychological depth.