Session 12: Mujōkan / mono no aware III: Tale of Genji II

Topics

❖ Tale of Genji, chapters 5, 7, and 9

Thoughts—read before class, revisit for tests

Topics within the narrative discussed in terms of mujōkan / aware:

• Genji obtains the young Murasaki
• Safflower Lady (not assigned but introduced by me)
• Fujitsubo's secret, illicit pregnancy
• Aoi's death by Rokujō's spirit

Other narrative events noted:

• Genji and Oborozukiyo discover one another

Required—to be completed for today's session

✓ Read Tale of Genji, chapters 5, 7, 9 in McCullough's abridged edition Genji & Heike.

Multimedia notes

❖ None.

Links

⇢ None.

Other

Basics of Chapter 6, which is not assigned:

• 06 The Safflower / Suetsumuhana (Genji’s father, Kiritsubo, reigns)
• Story highlights: In the year following Genji’s procurement of young Murasaki (therefore he is now 18–19), he has a fling with a woman with a red-tipped nose, called disparagingly by him the Safflower (Suetsumuhana).

Basics of Chapter 8, which is not assigned:

• Not covered 08 Under the Cherry Blossoms / Hana no En (Genji’s father, Kiritsubo, reigns)
• Comments: In this chapter is Genji’s great error in sexual politics when he sleeps with Mistress of the Wardrobe (Oborozukiyo), a woman on whom he asserts himself when slightly drunk in the late hours of a party and trolling for love in the hallways of the Kokiden apartments. Oborozukiyo is the little sister of his great rival Lady Kokiden. They will keep up the affair secretly for now but eventually her father will discover them and this will lead to Genji’s temporary exile from the Capital.

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.