The Tale of Genji
源氏物語
Literary work · tale · Murasaki Shikibu · early 11th century
The first great masterpiece of Japanese prose, written at the Heian court by Murasaki Shikibu, a lady-in-waiting to the imperial consort Shōshi (988–1074); her contemporaries recognized the author in its heroine, Lady Murasaki, whose name she has been known by since.1 Its fifty-four chapters follow Genji, the Shining Prince — the son of an emperor and his favourite consort, a lady too low in rank for her son to be named heir — a handsome, cultured man who kept caring for the women he loved even when he no longer loved them; the last third tells of two young men, Genji’s heirs, after his death. Its psychological exploration of its characters made it a genre of its own in Japan, with no real parallel elsewhere before the eighteenth century in Europe.2 Two themes run through it: mono no aware, “the pathos of things”, and the chain of consequences of Genji’s affair with his father’s youngest consort, whose son by him becomes emperor — repeated when his own young wife bears another man’s son.3 It was copied into illustrated editions almost at once and has inspired works of art ever since, above all the Genji monogatari emaki (Illustrated Tale of Genji) of the first half of the twelfth century.4 Mason 2005, p. 112. ↩ Ebd., p. 112. ↩ Ebd., p. 117. ↩ Ebd., pp. 112, 116. ↩ Literatur Mason 2005: Penelope E. Mason, History of Japanese Art, 2nd, Pearson Education LTD. 2005.