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The Tale of Genji

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The Tale of Genji © Copyright, Princeton University Press. No part of this book may be distributed, posted, or reproduced in any form by digital or mechanical means without prior written permission of the publisher. Introduction In the year 1510, at a private residence in the capital ity began even before Murasaki had completed the city of Kyoto, two men raised their wine cups to cel- work, and by the late twelfth century it had become ebrate the completion of an extraordinary project, so widely admired that would-be poets and littera- an album of fi fty-four pairs of calligraphy and paint- teurs were advised to absorb its lessons. The Tale of ing leaves representing each chapter of Japan’s most Genji quickly became a fi xture of the Japanese liter- celebrated work of fi ction, The Tale of Genji. One of ary canon and centuries later joined the canon of the men, the patron of the album Sue (pronounced world literature. With its length (over 1,300 pages Sué) Saburō, would take it back with him to his home in the most recent English translation), complexity, province of Suō (present-day Yamaguchi Prefecture), sophisticated writing style, development of char- on the western end of Japan’s main island. Six years acter and plot, realistic representation of historical later, in 1516, the album leaves would be donated time and place, ironic distance, and subplots that to a local temple named Myōeiji, where the work’s extend thematically across the entire work, it meets traceable premodern history currently ends. In 1957 every criterion that is generally used to distinguish it came into the possession of Philip Hofer (1898– novels from other forms of literature. Although 1984), founder of the Department of Prints and steeped in the complex belief systems and moral Graphic Arts at the Houghton Rare Book Library of codes of its own era, which complicate any sim- Harvard University.1 A prolifi c collector of illustrated plistic equation of the work with modern fi ction, manuscripts, Hofer purchased the album along with the tale can be read as a monumental exploration numerous other Japanese books and scrolls, which of human nature. No matter how characters may were subsequently bequeathed to the Harvard Art triumph or what virtues they may exhibit, all ulti- Museums in 1985 (fi g. 1). This remarkable compen- mately confront hardships and grapple with their dium has survived intact for over fi ve hundred years, own fallibility, none more so than the eponymous making it the oldest complete album of Genji paint- protagonist Genji. To give voice to her characters’ ing and calligraphy in the world. internal confl icts and thought processes, Murasaki Authored in the early decades of the eleventh Shikibu took unprecedented advantage of two hall- century by the court lady Murasaki Shikibu, The marks of classical Japanese literature: the aff ective Tale of Genji is a fi fty-four-chapter work of prose and power and ironic distancing eff ect of waka poetry, 795 waka poems, centered primarily on the life of and a mode of prose narration similar to stream an imperial son, the “radiant Genji,” who is denied of consciousness and free indirect discourse in his chance to ascend the throne. The tale’s popular- Western literature. The shifting perspective of the 1 For general queries, contact [email protected] SS180121-Genji_061518.indd 1 23/6/2018 1:04 PM © Copyright, Princeton University Press. No part of this book may be distributed, posted, or reproduced in any form by digital or mechanical means without prior written permission of the publisher. Fig. 1 The Tale of Genji Album, 1510. Two volumes, remounted in 1998. Paintings by Tosa Mitsunobu (act. ca. 1462–1525), calligraphy by Kunitaka Shinnō (1456–1532), Konoe Hisamichi (1472–1544), Sanjōnishi Sanetaka (1455–1537), Jōhōji Kōjo (1453–1538), Reizei Tamehiro (1450– 1526), Son’ō Jugō (d. 1514). Overall mounting, each volume: 34.1 × 44.9 cm; 108 album leaves, 24.3 cm × 18.1 cm each. Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge. Credit: Harvard Art Museums/ Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Bequest of the Hofer Collection of the Arts of Asia, 1985.352. narrator throughout the work also makes for a beneath this earliest Genji manuscript, with its dyed reading experience surprisingly akin to that of the sheets, underdrawings, and its surface encrusted modern novel.2 At the same time, the tale’s evoc- with metal in the form of gold dust, and thin slivers ative description of the imperial court and the of cut silver and gold foil, resembles the sophis- rituals of the aristocracy caused it to be regarded tication and numinous quality of Buddhist sūtra as the embodiment of a golden age of courtly life, decoration from the same period. From the thir- especially in later eras when juxtaposed against the teenth century, we have vestiges of a more everyday nobility’s waning political authority. reading experience of Genji in the form of small, The history of Genji pictures in many ways tells thread-bound books with scenes from the tale inter- the history of the early illustrated book in Japan. spersed in their interior pages. As a rule, such books The rich tradition of Genji illustration began almost consisted of sets with each of the fi fty-four chapters four hundred years before the 1510 album came into bound separately. This facilitated the circulation of being, with the earliest known and most famous individual chapters for reading and copying, which extant example being the twelfth-century Genji was essential for creating new manuscript copies Scrolls (fi g. 2). These horizontal handscrolls, with before the age of print. Early examples are rare, alternating texts and pictures, represent the old- but one “chaplet” of Ukifune (Chapter Fifty-One) est manuscript of the Genji text and suggest how survives partially intact (fi g. 3).3 Its well-thumbed images and texts functioned symbiotically to shape pages convey the enthusiasm of some of the tale’s a reader’s cognitive experience of the work. Several earliest readers, who confessed their preoccupa- paintings in these earliest scrolls helped establish a tion with the story and who pored over their own Genji iconography that endured through the centu- cherished copies.4 Whether extravagantly illustrated ries and informed the 1510 album as well, which even scrolls or thread-bound books, both formats tend to a simple comparison of fi gure 2 with the album’s reproduce The Tale of Genji either in its entirety or painting for Chapter Forty-Five (p. 200) makes clear. in lengthy excerpted passages that approximate the The extravagant treatment of the paper decoration full story. 2 | The Tale of Genji For general queries, contact [email protected] SS180121-Genji_061518.indd 2 23/6/2018 1:04 PM © Copyright, Princeton University Press. No part of this book may be distributed, posted, or reproduced in any form by digital or mechanical means without prior written permission of the publisher. Fig. 2 The Divine Princess at Uji Bridge (Hashihime), Chapter Forty-Five, Illustrated Handscrolls of the Tale of Genji (Genji monogatari emaki). Late Heian period, early twelfth century. Painting: colors, ink, and shell white on paper; calligraphy: gold and silver foil and dust on dyed paper, height 22 cm. Tokugawa Museum of Art, Nagoya. In contrast, the album format uses only the laborative endeavor, involving a patron, an artist briefest excerpts from the tale, either short prose and his painting studio, six calligraphers, and at passages or one to three poems, to encapsulate the least two coordinators overseeing the project. The work in a concise manner. Albums are therefore not goal was for the selection of scenes and textual pas- digests; their short excerpts never explain the plot, sages to encapsulate the story in a compelling and characters, or setting as that genre of paratexts had meaningful way for the patron. Most examples of begun to do by the fourteenth century. That is not premodern Japanese artworks created before the to say that the producers of the Genji Album did not year 1600 lack documentation, making it hard to take full advantage of the various digests, commen- say who produced them. In the case of the Harvard taries, character charts, dictionaries, and other tools Genji Album, remarkably, the patron and most details for understanding the universe of the tale. Indeed, of the work’s production are known, having been as we shall see, the men who made the album were recorded in the diary of the courtier and one of the not only consumers, but producers of such texts. coordinators of the project, Sanjōnishi Sanetaka The album, however, works best as a supplement (1455–1537).6 And because the creators of this album to a full Genji manuscript, and for readers already did not simply have a passing interest or superfi cial knowledgeable about the tale, allows them to visu- knowledge of the Genji, but viewed their commit- alize scenes more clearly and to understand familiar ment to the work as a lifelong scholarly endeavor, passages and poems in a new light. The unique their curation of these pairs of leaves enriches our selection and coordination of Genji texts and images own understanding of the tale. in all formats, whether scroll, book, or album, are Although The Tale of Genji was originally writ- always suggestive of how contemporary audiences ten by a woman in the context of the imperial court understood the tale. The Genji Album in the Harvard of the Heian period (794–1185), and though it cen- collection off ers a particularly important point of ters on the life of an imperial prince, it enjoyed a view in this regard, both as the sole surviving album healthy readership throughout the medieval period predating 1600 and because of the group of individu- among members of the warrior class.
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