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Cipango - French Journal of Japanese Studies English Selection Cipango - French Journal of Japanese Studies English Selection 3 | 2014 On The Tale of Genji: Narrative, Poetics, Historical Context From the Kagerō no nikki to the Genji monogatari Du Kagerō no nikki au Genji monogatari Jacqueline Pigeot Electronic version URL: https://journals.openedition.org/cjs/687 DOI: 10.4000/cjs.687 ISSN: 2268-1744 Publisher INALCO Electronic reference Jacqueline Pigeot, “From the Kagerō no nikki to the Genji monogatari”, Cipango - French Journal of Japanese Studies [Online], 3 | 2014, Online since 12 October 2015, connection on 08 July 2021. URL: http://journals.openedition.org/cjs/687 ; DOI: https://doi.org/10.4000/cjs.687 This text was automatically generated on 8 July 2021. Cipango - French Journal of Japanese Studies is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. From the Kagerō no nikki to the Genji monogatari 1 From the Kagerō no nikki to the Genji monogatari Du Kagerō no nikki au Genji monogatari Jacqueline Pigeot EDITOR'S NOTE Original release : Jacqueline PIGEOT, « Du Kagerō no nikki au Genji monogatari », Cipango, Hors-série, 2008, 69-87. Jacqueline PIGEOT, « Du Kagerō no nikki au Genji monogatari », Cipango [En ligne], Hors- série | 2008, mis en ligne le 24 février 2012. URL : http://cipango.revues.org/592 ; DOI : 10.4000/cipango.592 1 The scholarly community now concurs that the Genji monogatari is indebted to the Kagerō no nikki 蜻蛉日記 (The Kagerō Diary), the first extant work in Japanese prose written by a woman.1 2 The Kagerō author, known only as “the mother of Fujiwara no Michitsuna” 藤原道綱母, and Murasaki Shikibu are separated by a generation or two: the former was born in 936 and the latter around 970. They belonged to the same social class, the midranking nobility from which provincial governors (zuryō) were drawn. Their fathers both held this office; both were learned men descended from families of poets, and both undoubtedly educated their daughters and gave them access to their libraries. 3 Michitsuna’s mother and Murasaki Shikibu were in contact with the high aristocracy to some extent. Murasaki Shikibu served the empress Shōshi 彰子 for many years. Although Michitsuna’s mother rarely came to court (perhaps only for poetry contests or the like), she was one of the wives of Fujiwara no Kaneie 藤原兼家 (929-990), a member of the prominent family then in power. Although Kaneie himself had not yet risen to power during the years of their marriage, The Kagerō Diary reveals that Michitsuna’s mother maintained closer relations with Kaneie’s brothers than he did Cipango - French Journal of Japanese Studies, 3 | 2014 From the Kagerō no nikki to the Genji monogatari 2 himself, and that she also kept up with his sisters in the imperial harem. She thus knew a good many eminent people in society. 4 The Genji monogatari and The Kagerō Diary depict, grosso modo, the same world and reflect the same social code and patterns of thinking; they are also written in the same language, one thought to have been routinely used by female aristocrats in the capital (these last two nouns being redundant). 5 That said, the two works also reflect the very different personalities of their authors and their own world views—or the world view each offers the reader according to her purpose. To use a rather facile, shopworn term, the “world” (sekai) of their works differs in several respects. I will not devote much space to the subject; but, being perhaps influenced by the gender studies so in vogue in the United States and Japan, studies which regularly scrutinize The Kagerō Diary, I shall briefly discuss what distinguishes the work with respect to what it says, or shows, of women in general and in particular. 6 Akiyama Ken isolates fifteen general statements in the Genji concerning women—their lot, their destiny, etc.—presented by and large in a sympathetic light.2 Murasaki Shikibu clearly gave serious thought to the status of women. By contrast, there is not a single general comment on this subject in The Kagerō Diary. The author is interested only in individuals, primarily herself. She ponders her own fate more than that of women in general; and although she faults Kaneie as an individual, she never perceives his acts as representative of the masculine sex. Rather, she points out that he is not like other men. 7 None of the female characters in the Genji monogatari has the strong personality or independent nature of Michitsuna’s mother as she portrays herself in the Diary. She resists Kaneie, is not afraid to argue with him, defies him, and sometimes turns him away from her gate. In many episodes the reader sees that theirs is a relationship between equals, whether they act in opposition or in concert; such relationships do not occur between women and men in the Genji. 8 Michitsuna’s mother wished to lead her own life: she was not afraid, for example, to travel alone. Independent of her relationship with Kaneie, she had considerable contact with the larger world, with other women… and with other men. Might there be a causal relationship to the relative autonomy she enjoys with others? There is, in any case, much less keigo used in The Kagerō Diary than in the Genji.3 9 Let us say in the interests of time that, while Murasaki Shikibu may be a feminist in theory, Michitsuna’s mother is a feminist in practice—but only on her own behalf. She displays no solidarity with women regarding their common state. On the contrary, she sometimes contrasts her lot with that of other women she considers more fortunate, and blames her unhappiness on Kaneie’s “outrageous” (mezurashi) nature. 10 But to return to our subject: in what way does The Kagerō Diary influence or, more precisely, contribute to the Genji monogatari? Let us begin with a preliminary question: did Murasaki Shikibu read the Diary of Michitsuna’s mother? 11 Despite the lack of conclusive evidence, the latter question is indisputable: if “everyone acknowledges that the Genji monogatari was influenced by the Kagerō nonikki,”4 then it is acknowledged that Murasaki Shikibu read it. 12 There are several arguments in favor of this view. First, Murasaki Shikibu was a distant relative of Michitsuna’s mother: her maternal grandfather, Fujiwara no Tamenobu, was Cipango - French Journal of Japanese Studies, 3 | 2014 From the Kagerō no nikki to the Genji monogatari 3 the brother of Tamemasa, who married a sister of the Kagerō author. Michitsuna’s mother had an excellent relationship with her brother-in-law: she lived with her sister while Tamemasa was making marital visits to her, and kept in contact with him well after the period covered by the Diary.5 13 In addition, Murasaki Shikibu is known to have been in the service of Shōshi, the consort of the emperor Ichijō 一条天皇. Shōshi was a granddaughter of Kaneie, the husband of the author of the Diary. 14 Finally and most significantly, Michitsuna’s mother had a reputation as a poet6 and so could not have escaped Murasaki Shikibu’s notice. Four of her poems were included in the Shūishō 拾遺抄 (Kintō’s 公任 first collection, made prior to the compilation of the Shūishū 拾遺集). Murasaki Shikibu writes in her diary that the Shūishō was one of several anthologies given by Michinaga to his daughter Shōshi. Murasaki Shikibu surely read it; and she may have learned, via the kotobagaki 詞書 (introductory note) to one of Michitsuna’s mother’s poems, of her difficult relationship with Kaneie. How could she not have wished to take a closer look, to go to the source? 15 It is highly likely that the Genji author, with so many connections to Michitsuna’s mother, managed somehow to acquire a copy of The Kagerō Diary, even though the work had not yet been widely circulated. 16 In what ways might Murasaki Shikibu have benefitted from reading the Diary? The Kagerō Diary is credited with making two substantial contributions to wabun 和文 literature. The first is the stylistic procedure of merging poetic quotations with prose in such a way that an uninformed reader may not notice the quotations.7 This would have been a novel departure from the standard procedure of setting off poetic quotations in the text; yet Murasaki Shikibu utilizes the innovation. 17 Before I give an example, the second and more important of the Kagerō contributions requires mention: its so-called “psychological analysis.” More specifically, this is the frequent incidence of interior monologue in the narrative prose; the monologues comprise either attempts to decode the real motives for a lover’s actions or words, or the discovery of one’s contradictory responses to events—contradictions that are explained if not always analyzed. Let us consider an illustrative passage in which the author of the Diary describes a visit from Kaneie. Their relations are quite strained at this point;8 he has spent the night with her. The next morning, he says, “As there are things I simply must attend to…; I’ll come soon either tomorrow or the day after.” I do not think it is really true, yet it is natural for me to hope he might have a change of heart—the thought occurs to me —what if this were to be the last time I would ever see him—then, little by little, the number of days he does not come increases. So it is coming to pass as I thought; I become even sadder than ever [second set of italics added; arishi yori mo keni mono zo kanashiki]. 18 The concluding words are taken from a poem in the Ise monogatari:9 忘るらむと/Wasuru-ran to/Because of doubt 思ふ心の/Omohu kokoro no/Lest you again うたがひに/Utagahi ni/Put me from your thoughts, ありしよりけに/Arishi yori ke ni/I feel a sadness ものぞ悲しき/Mono zo kanashiki/Unknown in the past.
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