Session 11: Mujōkan / mono no aware II: Tale of Genji I

Topics

❖ Tale of Genji, chapters 1, 2, 4

Thoughts—read before class, revisit for tests

The Tale of Genji (together with the Tale of Heike) is one of the "core" texts for this class. Please read it with care. This does not mean memorize all characters and events. Instead, become familiar with the below list of key characters, think of their situations (paying attention to family trees and political circumstances), and try to fill out what their emotional life is like. Use "uchi-soto" as a tool to help you unpack meaning or find where the narrative is placing its energy and note okashi and miyabi as well. That being said, mujōkan is being introduced in this series of lectures and my basic thesis is that the mujōkan of Genji and the mujōkan of Heike are different in important ways that are telling of the changes in Japanese culture and its literary expressions. I am aligning this mujōkan fairly closely with feelings of anxiety and uncertainty about current and future situations as well as grief over loss through death or separation, so try to find these threads in the text. Genji cannot be meaningfully skimmed so plan accordingly.

Top priority characters: Murasaki, Genji, Rokujō, Aoi, Ukifune, Niou, Karou, Yūgao, Kokiden, Oborozukiyo (see next session, summary of Chapter 8, not assigned), Tamakazura

Topics within the narrative:

• The Kiritsubo Consort's bullying by the other ladies and her death.
• The initial situation of Genji (politics, his beauty)
• Aoi, Genji's wife and her position
• Genji and Fujitsubo's early love
• Yūgao's sudden death, as well as her life before her death.

Required—to be completed for today's session

✓ Review the entry on the terms page for mujōkan.

✓ Read Tale of Genji, chapters 1, 2, 4 in McCullough's abridged edition Genji & Heike. This means the "real" Genji chapters. In McCullough's abridged edition, her chapter 3 is actually Genji chapter 4 (she skips chapter 3). So, if you are reading from an unabridged version (any language), follow my chapter designations; they refer to the stable chapter numbers in all translations of Genji. I have seen a few online Chinese translations that do not match this system so watch the chapter titles carefully.

Multimedia notes

Spring 2012

◊ Two news clips, one in English voice-over, that show a pine tree that had survived the tsunami but later died due to salt water around its roots. Location: 陸前高田(Rikuzentakada）岩手県 (Iwate prefecture).
◊ One YouTube video ("Dohyo iri, Yokozuna Asasyoryu" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xV9sd_pJmUo) and one news clip related to sumo: the ceremony done in the dohyo after a sumo wrestler becomes a yokozuna and the other preparations for that performance, showing the making of a ritual cord (綯打ち, nawa-uchi).
◊ One clip from 歴史秘話ヒストリー (NHK, educational series) on towers that gives details about the 凌雲閣 (Ryōunkaku), a 12-story building in Asakusa, Tokyo from 1890-1923 and a geisha styled 洗い髪のお妻 (Araigami no O-Tsuma, "Dear 'wife' with the washed hair"—and mentioned in this context Yosano Akiko and her "Tangled Hair [みだれ髪, Midaregami]", poem collection of 1901, as well as these two poems, the first by Izumi Shikibu, the second by Fujiwara no Teika: 黒髪のみだれもしらずうちふせばまずかきやりし人ぞ恋しき and かきやりしその黒髪のすぢごとにうち臥すほどは面影ぞたつ).

Links

⇢ NOTE THIS RESOURCE, especially "current rereading of work": http://www.sonic.net/~tabine/genji/welcome0809.html

⇢ There are so many sites for Genji online. Some are quite good. Please dig around on my site as well. There might be geneaology charts there, etc.

Other

Basics of Chapter 3, which is not assigned:

• 03 The Cicada Shell / Utsusemi (Genji’s father, Kiritsubo, reigns)
• Comments: This playful chapter contrasts with the major events to occur in the next chapter.
• Story highlights: In this brief chapter, Genji continues to pursue Utsusemi but instead mistakenly sleeps with the wrong woman (sister of the Governor of Kii / Nokiba no Ogi).

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)

None.