- by Karen Mercado @karenmercado
Well before Cervantes, this Japanese writer authored The Tale of Genji, establishing the foundations of the novel
Written at the start of the seventeenth century, Don Quixote de la Mancha by Miguel de Cervantes, is often considered to be the "first modern novel" as the work that shaped our current understanding of the literary form.
The development of several characters, its episodic form, and a subject that sets it apart from the chivalric tales of the time made Don Quixote an important benchmark for the contemporary novel.
Yet, as early as the eleventh century, a Japanese lady-in-waiting at the court of Empress Fujiwara no Shōshi invented a particular form of narration that's now been labeled as the world’s first novel. Her work was The Tale of Genji.
A mysterious name
In spite of the wealth of information available about Murasaki Shikibu, one of the pieces missing from her biography is her name.
Historians believe her pen name is a reference to the plant known in Japan as murasaki—after which one of the novel’s characters is also named. While shikibu is believed to refer to the position the author’s father held at Japan’s imperial court.
However, some people believe her real name was Fujiwara no Kaoriko, linked to a diary entry written by another imperial court lady.
Lady-in-waiting, writer and poet
Murasaki was a member of the Fujiwara family whose ancestors were notable poets. Her talent for literature soon saw her invited to become a lady in waiting for Empress Shōshi. Her biographers record that the invitation arrived when she was widowed after two years of marriage, at a time when she had also started to write her greatest work.
During her lifetime, her literary talents were only known to two other court women. They exchanged poems, and she probably kept them entertained with her novel about life at court in Japan during the Heian period.
Murasaki also wrote numerous poems and kept a diary revealing her character and general unhappiness with life at court.
A classic novel about court life and great love
The Tale of Genji tells the story of Hikaru Genji, the son of an old emperor and a concubine, excluded from the royal line of succession. Murasaki relates the young Genji’s adventures and romances over fifty-four chapters, as he attempts to build an imperial career, also offering insight into aristocratic life at that time.
Perhaps it’s the clever and detailed way in which Murasaki recreates the fashions, main concerns, and contemporary events of Japanese aristocracy at the time that made The Tale of Genji a classic of Japanese literature. Another important feature of her writing is her poetic way of describing the characters—whom we never know by name, but through their ways of dressing, or political rank.
Her novel is a great testimony to the power of a young Japanese girl’s imagination. She lets us into her character’s minds and passions, and allows us to see what life was like some ten centuries ago.
Japanese, the language of women’s literature
During the Heian period (a time in which Chinese influence over the country was strong), Japanese women didn’t have access to Chinese language education. Instead, it was reserved for male nobles and poets, so women wrote their diaries, poems, and other texts in Japanese.
Because it was seen as a woman’s language, literature written in Japanese was less revered than its Chinese counterparts. However, centuries later, it was the work written by women that survived, becoming classic Japanese literature.
Many people say that Muraski used the kana syllabaries, which derived from the hiragana and the katakana systems.
Translations
The Tale of Genji was only available to Japanese readers who could understand how things were written during the Heian period.
In 1920, Arthur Waley was the first person to translate the novel, but he took many liberties creating a version that sacrificed the characters’ contemplative spirit and added more Western characteristics.
Japanese poets and writers including Yosano Akiko and Junichiro Tanizaki translated Genji into contemporary Japanese to open the door to new readers. This helped the story reach other parts of the world, and renewed interest in the original.
New chapters
The version of Murasaki’s novel we see today is actually a thirteenth-century compilation by Japanese poet Fujiwara no Teika. He edited Murasaki’s work 200 years after her death.
Renewed interest in The Tale of Genjji led to the recent discovery of four more chapters from Teika’s version, and the finding of a fifth chapter that experts believe is an older version of the text.
Murasaki Shikibu dedicated much of her life to a novel that is usually over 1,000 pages long, and she still guards many secrets that could reveal new clues to her identity and the nature of her work.
If you enjoyed this article and want to discover the work of more groundbreaking women, explore the Female Creatives section of our blog.
English version by @studiogaunt.
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