Session 08: Miyabi (courtly beauty)

Topics

❖ Aesthetic term: miyabi
❖ Conceptual frameworks: courtly romance (irogonomi)
◊ Test review

Thoughts—read before class, revisit for tests

The concept of miyabi is not difficult. What it trickier is remembering how extensive it is in the premodern arts, and seeing its higher formulations in yūgen, sabi and such. Today lays the groundwork. There is no reading for this day; it is all, or nearly all, visual information. I recommend attendance.

We take some time (20 minutes or so) to discuss the midterm. Other details, if available, can be found through Sidebar > Assignments & Tests.

Required—to be completed for today's session

✓ No assigned readings but attendance highly recommended.

Multimedia notes

❖ Miyabi [bSpace, PPT]
◊ read aloud from The Diary of Lady Murasaki, trans by Richard Bowring (Penguin and ePenguin)
◊ read aloud from Tales of Ise, trans by Helen McCullough (Stanford UP)
◊ film segment (Scene 23) from ICHIKAWA Kon, "The Makioka Sisters" (1983)

Links

⇢ None.

Other

None.

Terms and such mentioned this day that are not otherwise in an obvious place on the web site, the powerpoints, the assigned reading, etc. (to help with capturing items mentioned, perhaps quickly, in class, not for test purposes)

Nothing in particular.