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Concealment and Revelation in the Two Worlds of Genji Monogatari

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Concealment and Revelation in the Two Worlds of Genji Monogatari CONCEALMENT AND REVELATION IN THE TWO WORLDS OP GENJI MONOGATARI AN ANALYSIS AND TRANSLATION OP THE "HANACHIRUSATO" CHAP• TER AND THE INTRODUCTORY PORTION OP THE "SUMA" CHAPTER by JEANNETTE MARIE LEDUC M.A., The University of British Columbia, 1981 A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS in THE FACULTY OP GRADUATE STUDIES Department of Asian Studies We accept this thesis as conforming to the required standard THE UNIVERSITY OP BRITISH COLUMBIA November 1981 (c) Jeannette Marie Leduc, 1981 In presenting this thesis in partial fulfilment of the requirements for an advanced degree at the University of British Columbia, I agree that the Library shall make it freely available for reference and study. I further agree that permission for extensive copying of this thesis for scholarly purposes may be granted by the Head of my Department or by his representatives. It is understood that copying or publication of this thesis for financial gain shall not be allowed without my written permission. Department of /%<3f^<^ JZ&tl^/t^ The University of British Columbia 2075 Wesbrook Place Vancouver, Canada V6T 1W5 ii ABSTRACT Genji monogatari (The Tale of Genji)is a romance consisting of fifty-four chapters. It was written during the golden age of the Heian period, around, or shortly after, 1000 A.D. by Murasaki Shikibu, a lady-in-waiting serving at the imperial court. The tale depicts the life of a hero, Prince Genji, from boyhood to manhood and old age. Following his death the story relates the rivalry between Genji's grandson, Prince Niou, and his friend, Kaoru, believed by the world to be Genji's son. The long, episodic nature of Genji, along with certain structural aspects, have led some scholars to call the tale a romance. A further justification for this assertion is that the action of Genji revolves a- round two worlds. One is the idyllic, social world in which all the characters participate. The events which occur in this world—festivals, religious rituals, games, contests, music, and poetry—comprise the external world. Underlying the external action is another world—one of inner conflict, mental suffering, and uncertainty. This hidden, subjective world forms the internal world of Genji. The action of the tale progresses when the con• cealed emotions, identities, and behaviour of individual iii characters are revealed and thus transposed into the external world. In Genji t it can be shown that the internal world is externalized through the use of conventions that may• be related to a universal concept of romance. These conventions include the use of the archetypal hero and other character types, natural symbolism and cyclical time, social rituals, and the romantic quest. In Genji the means through which the characters express their inner feelings are the waka verses interspersed throughout the text. Finally, irony, fear, and pathos in the theme of tragic descent and the absurd in the theme of comic ascent are elements of romance which per• form a vital role in revealing the internal world of Genji. Chapter One of this thesis is intended to show, within the framework of romance, that the real and con• trolling action of Genji belongs to the internal world of the story, and that the force which impels the story from the beginning to the end is the concealment and revelation of the internal world in relation to what happens extraneously. How the inner structure of Genji is organized to ensure the progress of the story, by revealing what is iv concealed at crucial moments in the narrative, can be illustrated by analysing a small portion of the Genji text. Chapter Eleven, "Hanachirusato" ("The Orange Blossoms"), has been described by one scholar as "point• less". On the contrary, a careful analysis of the text indicates that the concealed action of this deceptively simple chapter is vital to the progress of the tale. As a translation and interpretation of the text will demonstrate in Chapter Two of this thesis, "Hanachirusato" performs three important functions in Genji. First, it reveals the identity of Reikeiden as a major character type. Secondly, the inner action makes "Hanachirusato" a transitional chapter, in which the hero, Genji, emerges from boyhood to manhood. Thirdly, in this short chapter may be seen an extension of the recognition theme in Chapter Ten, "Sakaki", where Genji more clearly "sees" the consequences of his actions, and realizes his own identity mirrored in the image of Reikeiden. Although Chapter Twelve, "Suma", is a popular sec• tion in Genji, most attention has been paid to the climactic middle and ending, and little scholarship has been devoted to the less dramatic introductory portion. An exegesis and translation of this small section in Chap• ter Three of this thesis aims to show how the revelation V of things concealed works to create a sense of anticipa• tion and foreboding leading to the real and emotional storm at the end of "Suma". By explicating the function of concealment and revelation in "Hanachirusato" and in the introductory portion of "Suma", in terms of conventions derived from romance, it can be seen that these two segments are important in unifying the general romantic structure of Genji monogatari. VI CONTENTS ABSTRACT ii Chapter One Concealment and Revelation in the Two Worlds of Genji monogatari I Introduction 1 II Some Universal Concepts of Romance According to Northrop Prye 7 III The External World in Genji monogatari . 13 IV The Internal World in Genji monogatari . 22 V The Duality of Character Types in Genji monogatari 31 VI The Dual Quest in Genji monogatari ... 42 VII Natural Imagery and Cyclical Time in Genji monogatari 51 VIII Social Rituals and the Visit in Genji monogatari 60 IX Poetry as an Affective Element in Genji monogatari 67 X Irony, Absurdity, Fear, Pathos (Aware) in Genji monogatari 69 Notes 79 VII Chapter Two Concealment and Revelation in the "Hanachirusato" Chapter 100 Notes 147 Chapter Three Concealment and Revelation in the Introductory Portion of the "Suma" Chapter 156 Notes 211 Bibliography 215 VIII ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Special thanks are due to my supervisor, Professor Leon Zolbrod, for his patience, guidance and many hours of stimulating conversation. I am grateful for the assistance given "by Professor Leon Hurvitz in trans• lating parts of the Genji text. Appreciation is also extended to Mrs. Hisako Kurotaki Tiburcio for checking the transliterations of the Genji text included in this thesis. 1 CHAPTER ONE CONCEALMENT AND REVELATION IN THE TWO WORLDS OP GENJI MONOGATARI I. Introduction 1 At the end of the tenth and the beginning of the eleventh century a brilliant culture flourished at the court of Heian Japan. With the decline of the T'ang dynasty (618-907) cultural, political, and religious in• fluence from China waned, allowing Japanese art and literature to evolve independently. Court poetry, writ• ten in Chinese and in particular the waka ^Q J?/^7 verse form of thirty-one syllables had dominated Japanese lit• erature for several centuries. More recent classics, upon which the aspiring poet relied for thematic inspir• ation and guidance in learning the rules and techniques of composition, were the Kokinshu ^ (Collec• tion of Ancient and Modern Times), an imperial poetic anthology compiled around A.D.905 and Ise monogatari 1/" ^ W W (The Tales of Ise), commissioned some• time in the tenth century.2 The former contains over one thousand waka poems classified under headings such as spring, autumn, travel, and love. Many of the verses are accompanied by a brief comment about the origin, the author or the topic of the verse. The latter, Ise monogatari, has been called an uta-monogatari 5o" meaning "poetic-tales". It includes over one hundred waka verses of which many are attributed to the poet Ariwara Narihira ^ *) ~(> 5 (82 5-880), and are also found in the Kokinshtr. To each uta or "poem" is attached a monogatari , a term which in this context can best be described as a short "story" or "narrative" usually written in prose. The prose, however, is more often than not subordinate to the poetry. Toward the latter part of the Heian period (794-1185) a phenomenal change began to take place in the develop• ment of Japanese literature. While noblemen were conduct• ing the affairs of state in Chinese and painstakingly composing poetry in the Chinese manner, their female counterparts, writing spontaneously in the vernacular, were creating a new type of literature distinctly their own/ Although poetry had lost none of its impetus, prose written in Japanese gradually became a significant means of literary expression, and the emergence of two new literary genres took place. One was the nikki fl "^cL (poetic diary) and its close cousin the zuihitsu -JjT (miscellaneous essay). The nikki could be partly fic• tional or largely true and is predominantly prose inter• spersed with poetry. The most notable of these diaries include: Izumi shikibu nikki n< ^ c?P '-3 (The Diary of Izumi Shikibu) and Eager? nikki !£p| & Icl/ (The Gossamer Years).^ The most outstanding and widely read zuihitsu today is Makura no soshi (The Pillow Book), written by Sei Shonagon ^ Jfa^ 5 ,6 It contains her random impressions written in a witty and often biting prose about the people, customs, behav• iour, and rituals that comprised her daily life at the imperial court. Another type of literary writing, the one which is the subject of the remainder of this essay, was the monogatari which is thought to have been inspired, at least in part, by Ise monogatari. These monogatari were often long popular romances, in which the poetry was secondary to the prose. The greatest surviving example of this type of literature is the Genji monogatari ilh fa IS (The Tale of Genji),7 thought to have been written by Murasaki Shikibu Q (c.978-1016), a lady-in-waiting serving at the court of Emperor Ichijo.^ Essentially a romance, this monogatari is comprised of fifty-four extant chapters, the first forty-one of 4 which are chiefly concerned with the life of a romantic 10 hero, Prxnce Genji.
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