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Beyond the Tale of Genji: Murasaki Shikibu As Icon and Exemplum in Seventeenth- and Eighteenth- Century Popular Japanese Texts for Women Satoko Naito

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Beyond the Tale of Genji: Murasaki Shikibu As Icon and Exemplum in Seventeenth- and Eighteenth- Century Popular Japanese Texts for Women Satoko Naito Early Modern Women: An Interdisciplinary Journal Vol. 9, No. 1 • Fall 2014 Beyond The Tale of Genji: Murasaki Shikibu as Icon and Exemplum in Seventeenth- and Eighteenth- Century Popular Japanese Texts for Women Satoko Naito n the long, rich, and exceedingly complex history of The Tale of Genji I(Genji monogatari 源氏物語 ca. 1008), a major tendency has been to label the classic as “female.” And it is perhaps only to be expected: its author Murasaki Shikibu (紫式部 d. ca. 1014) was lady-in-waiting to an empress and wrote prose in the Japanese syllabic script kana (仮名), sometimes called the “woman’s hand” (onnade 女手). The Tale of Genji’s readership too has been naturalized female, at times discussed as if women were the exclusive audience of the tale, not least because by Murasaki’s time in the Heian period (平安 794–1185) fictional tales (monogatari 物語) had long been identified as a generic category for women.1 Indeed, although there remain early records of prominent male readers, The Tale of Genji seems to have been initially read most widely by women of the highest echelons of 1 The Three Jewels (Sanbōe 三宝絵 ca. 984) by Minamoto no Tamenori (源為憲 941?–1011) characterizes monogatari as being favored by female readers. Minamoto Tamenori, The Three Jewels: A Study and Translation of Minamoto Tamenori’s Sanbōe, trans. Edward Kamens (Ann Arbor: Center for Japanese Studies, University of Michigan, 1988), 93. The Tale of Genji itself depicts monogatari as being read primarily by women: in the “Fireflies” (Hotaru 蛍) chapter, the character Genji (源氏) teases Tamakazura (玉鬘) as being a typical woman, willfully deceived by fictional tales. Murasaki Shikibu, The Tale of Genji, trans. Royall Tyler (New York: Viking Press, 2001), 461. 47 48 EMWJ Vol. 9, No. 1 • Fall 2014 Satoko Naito court society.2 Thus the statement by twentieth-century scholar Tamagami Takuya ( 玉上琢弥) that Genji was written “by a woman, for women, about women” has considerable truth to it.3 And yet the relationship between the tale and female readership, imagined and actual, has never been simple. While one can cite texts that portray enthusiastic consumption of the tale by female readers like Sarashina Diary (Sarashina nikki 更級日記 ca. 1059) by Sugawara no Takasue’s Daughter (Takasue no musume 孝標女 b.1008) and Nameless Book (Mumyōzōshi 無名草子 ca. 1200), attributed to the “daughter” of Fujiwara no Shunzei (Shunzei no musume 俊成女), both works present a pronounced Buddhist reticence towards The Tale of Genji.4 Although the nun Abutsu (Abutsuni 阿仏尼 1225–83) advocated the Genji as a book worthy of serious study for her daughter in Letter from a Wetnurse (Menoto no fumi 乳母のふみ) also known as Home Teachings (Niwa no oshie 庭のおしへ ca. 1264), centuries later a number of instructional books or 2 The earliest records of male Genji readers are found in Murasaki Shikibu’s diary (Murasaki Shikibu nikki 紫式部日記), which suggests that Grand Councelor Fujiwara no Kintō (藤原公任 966–1041), the Regent Fujiwara no Michinaga (藤原道長 966–1027), and Emperor Ichijō (一条 980–1011; r.986–1011) were all familiar with the tale. The earliest reference to Genji in a male-authored text is not found until Records of a Clear Moon (Meigetsuki 明月記), the diary of Fujiwara no Teika (藤原定家 1162–1241). G. G. Rowley, Yosano Akiko and The Tale of Genji (Ann Arbor: Center for Japanese Studies, University of Michigan, 2000), 21. 3 Literally, “about the world of women.” Tamagami Takuya 玉上琢弥, “Onna ni yoru onna no tame no onna no sekai no monogatari (女による女のための女の世界の物語),” Kokubungaku kaishaku to kanshō 国文学解釈と鑑賞 26,6 (1961): 22–26, cited in G. G. Rowley, Yosano Akiko and The Tale of Genji, 21. 4 Shunzei no musume (ca. 1170–1250) was in fact the granddaughter of Fujiwara no Shunzei (藤原俊成 1114–1204). Sarashina nikki has been translated by Ivan Morris, As I Crossed the Bridge of Dreams (New York: Penguin Books, 1971). Mumyōzōshi has been translated in three parts by Michele Marra, “Mumyōzōshi. Introduction and Translation,” Monumenta Nipponica 39,2 (summer 1984): 115–45; “Mumyōzōshi. Part 2,” Monumenta Nipponica 39,3 (autumn 1984): 281–305; “Mumyōzōshi. Part 3,” Monumenta Nipponica 39,4 (winter 1984): 409–34. In the Sarashina nikki, Genji is depicted as antithetical to religious piety; in the Mumyōzōshi, the discussion of Genji is situated in a Buddhist context. Beyond The Tale of Genji 49 ōraimono (往来物) for women discouraged its reading.5 Familiarity with Genji was long deemed essential for the cultural and poetic edification of aristocratic women,6 but during the seventeenth century, those who opposed a wider female consumption of Genji critiqued the tale for its amorous content.7 In this essay I investigate a particular relationship between female readers and The Tale of Genji by examining select representations of its author Murasaki Shikibu during the Edo period (江戸 1603–1868) in popular vernacular prose books (kana zōshi 仮名草子) and in ōraimono intended for women. While The Tale of Genji had both defenders and detractors in these texts, Murasaki herself is frequently featured as an ideal woman worthy of celebration and emulation. Focusing on Mirror of Japanese Beauties (Honchō bijin kagami 本朝美人鑑 1687), I will discuss several popular texts that circulated during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries to examine the manner in which Murasaki is constructed as a seemingly perfect woman — one who is beautiful, intelligent, chaste, and religiously devout. The unambiguously positive characterization of the author offers a contrast to the profound moral ambiguity found in her tale. She is also presented as a historian, thereby providing a counterweight to the consistent condemnation of Genji based on its fictitious content. Even in cases where Murasaki’s work is critiqued, she herself is ultimately viewed in a positive light. I suggest that the author’s idealization as an exemplum allows for a simplistic evaluation of The Tale of Genji that celebrates the 5 For a discussion of Menoto no fumi’s references to Genji, see Saitō Akiko 斉藤昭子, “Furumau karada no politikusu: Jokunsho ni okeru ‘Genji monogatari’ to iu kanon no hōhō ふるまう身体のポリティクス：女訓書における「源氏物語」というカノンの方法,” Tekusuto e no seiaijutsu — monogatari bunseki no riron to jissen テクストへの性愛術 — 物語 分析の理論と実践, ed. Takagi Makoto 高木信 and Andō Tōru 安藤徹 (Tokyo: Shinwasha, 2000), 242–45. 6 G. G. Rowley, “The Tale of Genji: Required Reading for Aristocratic Women,” The Female as Subject: Reading and Writing in Early Modern Japan, eds. P. F. Kornicki, Mara Patessio, and G. G. Rowley (Ann Arbor: Center for Japanese Studies, University of Michigan, 2010), 39–57. 7 P. F. Kornicki, “Unsuitable Books for Women? Genji Monogatari and Ise Monogatari in Late Seventeenth-Century Japan,” Monumenta Nipponica 60,2 (summer 2005):147–93. 50 EMWJ Vol. 9, No. 1 • Fall 2014 Satoko Naito author and her tale while circumventing the details of the text — such as its characters and storylines — altogether. Edo, Genji, and Women Readers Around the middle of the seventeenth century, as commercial woodblock printing began to flourish in Japan, texts old and new were introduced to an ever-expanding reading market. It was only during this period that The Tale of Genji first became widely accessible beyond a limited aristocratic audience.8 The Illustrated Tale of Genji (Eiri Genji monogatari 絵入源氏物語 1654) of Yamamoto Shunshō (山本春正 1610–82) greatly facilitated understanding of the tale by adding punctuation, short annota- tions, and other reading guides to the original text. Digests such as Genji in Ten Chapters (Jūjō Genji 十帖源氏 1661) by Nonoguchi Ryūho (野々口 立圃 1595–1669) summarized chapters with simplified plots, waka (和歌) poems, and illustrations, making the tale available to a wide range of read- ers.9 Finally, The Tale of Genji Moon on the Lake Commentary (Genji mono- gatari Kogetsushō 源氏物語湖月抄 1673) provided excerpts from the most significant commentaries of the preceding centuries along with the entirety of Genji.10 Composed and edited by the scholar and poet Kitamura Kigin (北村季吟 1624–1705), this annotated edition quickly came to epitomize Genji scholarship in the Edo period and remained highly influential well into the twentieth century. 8 The first full-text reproductions were published in the second half of the Keichō (慶長) period (1596–1615) and typeset in 1623. Yoshida Kōichi 吉田幸一, Eiribon Genji monogatari kō jō 絵入本源氏物語孝上 (Musashimurayama: Seishōdō shoten, 1987), 1. 9 Haruo Shirane, “The Tale of Genji and the Dynamics of Cultural Production: Canonization and Popularization,” Envisioning the Tale of Genji: Media, Gender, and Cultural Production, ed. Shirane (New York: Columbia University Press, 2008), 23. Ryūho later published a shortened version of Jūjō Genji as Genji for the Young (Osana Genji おさな源 氏 1665). 10 These previous commentaries, including The River and Sea Commentary (Kakaishō 河海抄 1363) by Yotsutsuji Yoshinari (四辻善成 1326–1402) and Intimations of Flowers and Birds (Kachō yosei 花鳥余情 1472) by Ichijō Kanera (一条兼良 1402–81), cite only short passages of Genji, followed by its explication, and is centered on philology and identification of literary antecedents. Beyond The Tale of Genji 51 Kigin is also credited11 with two vernacular prose books (kana zōshi 仮名草子) that have later been labeled educational material for women (jokunmono 女訓物): Biographies of Women in Japanese (Kana retsujoden 仮名列女伝 1655),12 the first Japanese translation of the Chinese classic Categorized Biographies of Women (Ch. Lienü zhuan Jp. Retsujoden 列女 伝 1st century BCE), and Tales of Maidenflowers (Ominaeshi monogatari 女郎花物語 ca. 1661). Such jokunmono represent only one aspect of a larger phenomenon of the time: the increased number of publications specifically intended for female consumption, including primers for the general educa- tion of girls and women.13 There was a great variety in such texts, and while some were concerned with teaching proper epistolary etiquette, others included detailed instructions on hair styling and dress.
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