Talk:The Tale of Genji

Can someone fill in the three gradual stages part? There are only two listed and they only cover 54 chapters, while 56 are listed just below.

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If the book was written in kana, why are kanji used in the chapter headings? - Montréalais 03:04, 13 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Good point. The original book was in kana with an occasional chinese character, kanjis came later. What is the source of the kanjis? I think they should be last, not first. They are interesting, but most people can't read them. Asereje 02:38, 18 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Kanji came first, then kana developed from them. The script in use at the time of Genji's writing was sort of an amalgam -- multiple kanji simplifications were used for each kana (some of which are nearly identical to modern kana).

No surviving manuscript of the Tale of Genji is written in "all kana", and I think this is more of a legend than actual fact, especially since one of the few things we know about Murasaki Shikibu is that she knew Chinese characters well. (-Chris Kern)

Mursaki wrote in kana because she was a woman writing for women, and Chinese characters was a masculine pursuit. While women could study them and write them, and Murasaki's calligraphy and writing were known to be particularly good, it was deemed feminine to be discreet. Murasaki criticized her literary rival Sei Shonagon on showing off her ability to write Chinese, calling her Chinese poems "garish" or something like that. Jealousy, one wonders. The The earliest known manuscripts for the Genji date from 400 years after Murasaki's death, and would most likely use Chinese characters.

Also the chapters are known by traditional names, but it's uncertain that these were the names Murasaki used, or even that she used any chapter names at all. I could be wrong about this last point, but it is well known that the characters in the Genji are not named. They have names of course but Heian yokibito society deemed it impolite to actually use them. This practice survives today: the emperor is never ever referred to by name (Akihito) nor will he ever. After he passes away, he will be known as the Heisei emperor, as Hirohito is known as the Showa emperor. Vincent 10:32, 17 Sep 2004 (UTC)

There is a theory that suggests the "standard names" we have now for the characters were in use even during Murasaki's life. This is due to a comment in her diary that refers to Murasaki the character. However, this is not conclusive because the character is actually called "Murasaki no Ue" or "Waka Murasaki" in the tale itself.

Commenting on the above discussion made me read the article over again. It was in need of a major rewrite. Vincent 11:59, 17 Sep 2004 (UTC)

The division into 56 chapters rather than 54 is strange; I don't believe I've ever seen it divided that way before. The author of the page for some reason divided Yuugiri into two chapters, and Kumogakure was given a number (usually even when it appears in a text of the tale the chapter is not numbered).

Perhaps someone should also give the "official" translations of the chapter titles used by Waley, Seidensticker, and Tyler. (The translations appearing in the article are rather odd.)

Speaking of that, I guess there should be a section on the English translations as well. - Chris Kern

Contents

1 World's first novel 2 Greatest work of Japanese literature? 3 Free translation 4 Illustrations

World's first novel

Currently the article implies Japanese scholars dispute the term "first", but I think the main objection that Japan scholars have is with calling Genji a "novel." The novel is a Western (and quite modern) concept. It implies certain conventions and notions that just don't apply to Genji. The classic examples people raise:

1) in Genji the protagonist dies in the middle of the book (that's if you agree Genji is the "protagonist")

2) it's extremely episodic; there isn't a clear narrative arc

3) it was also read mainly by arisocrats, whereas the Western novel emerged as a popular artform

4) in Genji poetry and prose are perfectly fused, and it was first read mainly for its poetry really

I'm sure more knowledgeable people have more nuanced things to say about this, but while I think it's okay to CALL it a novel for lack of a better word, I believe it is important to caution the reader the problems with this. -- Dec 7, 04 Alex

I reverted the deletion of the claim that many consider Genji to be the world's first novel. This is a widely-held belief and it shouldn't be expunged from the article.

• Publishers Weekly and Amazon both claim that Genji is the first (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0394735307/104-8279050-7978322?v=glance).
• Britannica claims that it's first (http://www.britannica.com/eb/article?tocId=9071039&query=Japanese%20literature).
• Web-japan.org, although admittedly not a neutral source, concurs (http://web-japan.org/kidsweb/japan/language/q1.html).
• Encarta doesn't pass judgment but does note that it "has been called" the first (http://encarta.msn.com/media_461526966/The_Tale_of_Genji.html).

So if it ain't true, it needs to be explained, at least. - Sekicho 14:13, Nov 1, 2004 (UTC)

Sorry, my mistake. We had a discussion of the Genji-is-1st-novel theory elsewhere, not here. Please see Talk:Japanese literature for why it isn't the first novel. Vincent 14:21, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)

This still needs to be at least mentioned in the article. Any student of Japanese literature has heard, at some point in their life, that Genji is the world's first novel. Whether you agree with that assertion or not, it's a very common claim and it needs to be either stated or debunked so that people understand why Genji is important. Sekicho 20:40, Nov 1, 2004 (UTC)

Exactly. When I put in the reference to it being the "first novel," I tried to make it clear that this was a disputed claim, though maybe I didn't put in enough weasel words. The point is that people who take Japanese literature classes "learn" that it is, so the article should at the least have a link to some where that people can here why it is or isn't considered to be the first novel. --Carl 05:04, 2 Nov 2004 (UTC)

False claims do not need to be mentioned. To summarize the long argument in Talk:Japanese Literature:

1. Genji isn't the world's first novel the same way Shakespeare isn't the first English playright;

2. Japanese people don't even call it a novel (shosetsu) they call it a monogatari (a tale) and it isn't the first of those.

3. It might not even be the most influential work of Japanese lit, e.g. few roman-fleuve are published today but thousands of Pillow-Book type essays are published each month in Japan.

That your Japanese lit teachers said it was so doesn't make it so. It is an opinion first published heaven knows when, probably in a 19th century memoir of Japan, and has been parrotted ever since, the same way biology textbooks always mention Lamarck when they introduce Darwin even though it's a now anachronistic and useless comparison.

To call it the first novel is a POV opinion that depends on a fuzzy definition of what a novel is, and on a subjective evaluation of whether or not the Genji fits that definition. This doesn't belong in Wikipedia. If it's to be written up at all, it could be placed under the heading "Reading the Genji today". Cheers,Vincent 13:31, 2 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I disagree. Since this is a commonly parroted "falsehood" it deserve a mention-- if only to debunk it. For example, in an article about human ribs, it would make sense to say, "Males and females have the same number of ribs, although a common wives tale purports otherwise and assigns the difference to God's taking a rib from Adam in the Biblical story of creation."

Do men and women have a different number of ribs? Hell no! Do a lot of people think they do? Sadly, yes. Is it worth mentioning, if only to disprove it? Again, yes.

You yourself admit that a number of Japanese professors continue to parrot some old 19th century book about "Genji" being the first novel. So why not stop the parroting by letting people know that it isn't?--Carl 16:17, 2 Nov 2004 (UTC)

(PS. I checked Rib: "There is a legend that male humans have one rib fewer than female humans. This is false, and originates from the Bible's description of the creation of Eve (from the rib of Adam." Go, theoretical examples that turn out to be true. :) )--Carl

<sigh> Japanese lit professors, often white people who haven't been to Japan and speak no Japanese. If a falsehood must be mentioned at all, it should not be given the prominence it gets when placed in the introductory paragraph.

I read the article again and you'll find that the first novel argument is mentioned under the "Literary context" heading, at the end. :

Murasaki was neither the first or the last writer of the Heian period, nor was the Genji the earliest example of a "monogatari". Rather, the Genji stands above other tales of the time much as Shakespeare's plays stand above other Elizabethan drama.

I think I wrote that a couple of months of ago when I reworked the article. Cheers Vincent 17:40, 2 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Okay, Vincent, you're outnumbered 2 to 1 so far. If nobody agrees with you within the next day or two, I'm going to add a more clear note stating that "while many people think Genji is the world's first novel, it really isn't" or something to that effect. If we don't explicitly debunk this, people are going to put it in. Sekicho 22:03, Nov 2, 2004 (UTC)

Off topic, but for the record, my Japanese literature professor was Japanese. However, the first time I learned about Genji was in my Japanese Art class, taught by a white man-- in Japan. I can't honestly recall where I first heard Genji called the first novel, but it got stuck in my head at some point. I think this article should make an explicit attempt to dislodge it from the heads of others. How about we have the head of the article say something like, "Though Genji is sometimes called the first novel, this claim is not generally accepted (see "Literary context" for more)." and then a link to the part of the entry where the first novel claim is debunked.--Carl 05:14, 3 Nov 2004 (UTC)

re: "It might not even be the most influential work of Japanese lit": For just one measure of the influence, look at the number of film adaptations: Genji monogatari (1951) aka "The Tale of Genji" (http://imdb.com/title/tt0043580/), Shin Genji monogatari (1961) (http://imdb.com/title/tt0256385/), Genji monogatari (1966) aka "The Tale of Genji" (http://imdb.com/title/tt0061062/) (anime), Murasaki Shikibu: Genji monogatari (1987) (http://imdb.com/title/tt0295455/) (anime), Sennen no koi - Hikaru Genji monogatari (2002) (http://imdb.com/title/tt0316566/combined), Desejado, O (1988) (http://imdb.com/title/tt0092875/combined) [Portuguese / French]. How many movies did I find with any connection to Sei Shōnagon's Makura Sōshi? One. Pillow Book, The (1996) (http://imdb.com/title/tt0114134/combined)

How many recent manga have been based on Genji? At least 5 [1] (http://www.international.ucla.edu/asia/article.asp?parentid=10674). The number of manga for the Pillow Book? None that I could find. But those are just modern examples. As Donald Keene put it in his Seeds in the Heart, "...it would not be possible to list all the other works of Japanese literature that it has inspired."

The Tale of Genji may not be the "first" anything, but like Shakespeare, Murasaki Shikibu borrowed and adapted what had been written before her time, but ended up writing something that transended them, and not only survived, but thrived for a millenium. Serious students of Japanese Literature might have other favorites (for example, Ihara Saikaku's Kōshuku Ichidai Otoku (The Life of an Amorous Man), but for the average Literature student, or even just the average person in general, The Tale of Genji may be the only Japanese literature that they know about. It is a shame that somewhere down the line someone felt that they needed to embellish the reputation of Genji by calling it the "first novel", but since this misconception is so widespread, it is best to deal with it quickly and at the top of the article. gK 05:28, 3 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Greatest work of Japanese literature?

Why was my statement in the beginning edited out? The Tale of Genji *is* widely considered to be the greatest work of Japanese literature. Not universally, but it's a widely held opinion.

Because it is an opinion, hence POV. It's also a very debatable opinion, which I think is wrong, even though Genji is a personal favourite. The best selling translation of a Japanese novel is Yoshikawa's samurai epic "Musashi". The most visible writer is Natsume Soseki because his face is on the 1000 yen bill. More people today write quick personal essays following Sei Shonagon's style, while few write romantic large scale psychological novels. Japanese lit is a rich field and it's a disservice to stick a simplistic superlative label on any one work on any one author. Vincent 11:23, 3 Nov 2004 (UTC)

However, something of that nature needs to be said even if qualified as an opinion. Currently there's nothing in the article to suggest Genji's stature in Japan -- it certainly is *one* of the pieces of literature that's commonly mentioned as Japan's greatest work of literature. It occupies a major place in the popular mindset that is different from that enjoyed by other works of literature (almost every person I talk to about it feels like they should read Genji, and no other classic has had so many anime, manga, and modern novel versions of it.) Note that the original note did not say "Genji is the greatest work of Japanese literature". It said "widely considered to be the greatest work". Feel free to reword that if you wish, but acknolwedging Genji's place in the Japanese literature canon is not just classed as "POV". If you think that, then you might want to go edit out the similar statements that are found in the articles on Bach, Beethoven, Shakespeare, Einstein, and others.

How about "It is widely considered to be one of the greatest works of Japanese literature"? I think you would be hard pressed to find someone who held the honest and reasoned opinion that Genji is not *one of* the greatest works. I think that something like this needs to be said because it's not obvious, especially to people who are not familiar with Japanese literature. Old does not necessarily mean good, and sometimes a work is considered a "classic" merely because it's the only thing that survives from a certain time period. But one of the remarkable things about the Genji is how even 1000 years later it's still held in such high opinion.

Then put under the heading "Reading the Genji today", at the beginning perhaps. It would certainly explain why we're reading the Genji 1000 years after it was written. Although, I would get rit of both "It is considered" and "the greatest". The latter is POV and the former is only pseudo-NPOV. I'd go more for something like this under "Genji today":

The Genji is still widely read in Japan and is one of the best known works of the period. Nearly all Japanese school children study the original, at least in part, and modern adaptations and reworkings are regularly published in a variety of media including film. The Genji first became popular outside Japan with Arthur Waley's translation of the 1920's and has been translated several times since.

Cheers, Vincent 07:52, 4 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Your definition of NPOV doesn't agree with Wikipedia's, to quote from the NPOV article:

Providing an overview of the common interpretations of a creative work, preferably with citations or references to notable individuals holding that interpretation, is appropriate. For instance, that Shakespeare is one of the greatest authors of the English language is a bit of knowledge that one should learn from an encyclopedia. Notice, determining how some artist or work has been received publicly or critically might require research; but that reception, unlike the idiosyncratic opinion of the Wikipedia article writer, is an opinion that really matters.

Seriously, how many (informed) people are there who don't believe that Genji is one of the greatest works of Japanese literature? I do think it's a good idea to qualify it with some specific quotes, for instance Yasunari Kawabata's statement in his Nobel Prize speech that "Genji in particular is the highest pinnacle of Japanese literature. Even down to our day there has not been a piece of fiction to compare with it.", or Fujiwara no Shunzei's statement that study of it was indispensable for anyone who wanted to compose poetry.

OK, OK, I admit it. I hate the word "greatest" and the person who wrote the Wikipedia definition of NPOV doesn't hate it. But still, I'm right ;) (Maybe. I think. I'm sure. I think. Perhaps. Somewhat. Definitely maybe. Obviously, if you think about it. A long time. Probably. Certainly. Almost. Unless I'm wrong, which I doubt. Most of the time, anyway.) So how about in the intro paragraph, adding ... and is one of the most important works within Japanese literature.? One of the most important is factual and refers to a fact (we can measure the Genji's impact on Jpn lit) while "considered one of the greatest" is factual but refers to an opinion (I feel it's the greatest).

Anyway, I'm taking this entry off my watchlist. I need a rest from it. Have fun. Cheers. Vincent 16:20, 4 Nov 2004 (UTC)

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I added two sections on debates of authorship and completeness, and I also revised the Uji section of the summary.

Free translation

Free is the right word in this case because a "free translation" is one that puts the emphasis on readability and understanding rather than literalness. [[User:GK|gK ¿?]] 14:24, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Illustrations

Hello everyone, I have added some illustrations from the Burke albuns. Please let me know if you think some more illustrations can be added or not, or maybe we can try to look for other styles (earlier period and closer to Murasaki Shikibu's time). askewmind 20:24, Feb 17, 2005 (UTC)

I like your added illustrations. I changed the caption format though. For additional illustration it would be nice to link to a wikisource page of all the illustrations we can muster. I think this is worth the time and server space. --Chinasaur 22:48, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Well, there are several works containing illustrations based on The Tale of Genji, I just happen to have the print of one from the 17th century known as the Burke Album. I could scan all the images (which is going to take some time). Askewmind 23:35, Feb 17, 2005 (UTC)

I have access to a few interesting sets of illustrations as well, but like you not a lot of free time at the moment. Might it be good enough to use a digital camera? That would save time; I'll give it a try. I didn't mean for you to go it alone though. It was more a suggestion to the community behind this article that a wikisource entry with illustrations from this would be a good project. We could coordinate with japanese WP too I'm sure. --Chinasaur 00:43, 18 Feb 2005 (UTC)

That would be fantastic! I'm new to wikipedia (only a few weeks old but I'm starting to get well into it). I dont have a prob with scanning the 52 images from the Burke Album but like I said a) it could take me a few weeks and b) not sure about the public domain status. Also... how does wikisource work? Askewmind 21:20, Feb 20, 2005 (UTC)