Reading The Tale of Genji: Sources from the First Millennium. ed. by Thomas Harper and Haruo Shirane (review)

Genji monogatari is a milestone in the history of Japanese literature. Written in the beginning of the eleventh century by a woman known as Murasaki Shikibu, Genji overwhelmed its predecessors by its novelty and its quality, and remained unequaled by any subsequent work in the genre. Regarded as Japan's finest work of literature, this long and complex tale has inspired thousands of texts of various genres, such as commentaries, poems, parodies, and plays. Needless to say, in the history of Genji reception, all sources are not of equal importance, and in order to give a coherent view of this vast corpus in the space of a single volume—though a thick one—drastic culling was necessary in the selection process. The volume under review is an anthology consisting of 54 of these texts, most of them translated into English for the first time. As Haruo Shirane points out in his introduction, the selected texts are "textual landmarks in the reception of The Tale of Genji over the past millennium"; they "tell us not only about how the tale was read and interpreted but also about the ever-changing cultural contexts that altered the significance of The Tale of Genji for a wide range of readers" (p. 2).

The texts, arranged thematically and chronologically into eight chapters, are preceded by an introduction that provides the historical framework and explains their importance in the history of the book's reception. Thirteen scholars translated the texts and wrote the introductions: Patrick Caddeau, Lewis Cook, Wiebke Denecke, Michael Emmerich, Thomas Harper, Michael Jamentz, Christina Laffin, James McMullen, Gaye G. Rowley, Satoko Naito, Haruo Shirane, Tomi Suzuki, and Hitomi Yoshio. Harper deserves a special mention since he translates and introduces 38 texts out of the 54, which represents more than 70 per cent of the total volume of the book.

In chapter 1, "Early Discussions of Fiction," two types of documents are translated: those in which we read what people thought about tales (monogatari) before Genji was written, and the reactions to the startling phenomenon that was Genji itself, the first tale "that depicted a known world, and did so with a compelling sense of reality that readers had never before seen" (Harper, p. 11). Seven different texts are translated here, among them, of the first type, excerpts from Kagerō nikki (Kagerō diary, ca. 974) by the mother of Michitsuna and the Dai Sai'in saki no gyoshū (Earlier collected poems of the Great Kamo Priestess, ca. 983) by Princess Senshi and, of the second type, an excerpt from Sarashina nikki (Sarashina diary, 1059) by the daughter of Sugawara no Takasue.

In chapter 2, "Genji Gossip (Plus a Bit of Good Advice)," ten different texts are translated, mostly records of what Harper calls "Genji Gossip," that is to say, discussions by people (probably women) who share their excitement about Genji monogatari. One of the most important of these texts is certainly Mumyōzōshi (A nameless book, ca. 1200) attributed to the woman known as the "daughter of Lord Shunzei (1171–1253?)," the earliest surviving record of any discussion of Genji. The chapter also contains a section of Menoto no fumi (The nursemaid's letter, ca. 1264) written by the nun Abutsu (d. 1283), one of the leading Genji experts of her time. This letter shows that a profound knowledge of Genji was necessary for a woman who wanted to have a successful career at court.

The nine documents collected in chapter 3, "Toward Canonization," reveal that waka poets, notably Fujiwara no Shunzei (1114–1204), played a key role in the canonization of Genji monogatari. His pronouncement in the Roppyakuban utaawase (Poetry contest in six hundred rounds, 1193) that "to compose poetry without having read Genji is simply inexcusable"

(p. 162) imposed Genji as an important source for poetic diction and topics. Reading Fu Hikaru...