Yosano Akiko and The Tale of Genji
Yosano Akiko (1878–1942) has long been recognized as one of the most important literary figures of prewar Japan. Her renown derives principally from the passion of her early poetry and from her contributions to 20th-century debates about women. This emphasis obscures a major part of her career, which was devoted to work on the Japanese classics and, in particular, the great Heian period text The Tale of Genji. Akiko herself felt that Genji was the bedrock upon which her entire literary career was built, and her bibliography shows a steadily increasing amount of time devoted to projects related to the tale. This study traces for the first time the full range of Akiko’s involvement with The Tale of Genji.
The Tale of Genji provided Akiko with her conception of herself as a writer and inspired many of her most significant literary projects. She, in turn, refurbished the tale as a modern novel, pioneered some of the most promising avenues of modern academic research on Genji, and, to a great extent, gave the text the prominence it now enjoys as a translated classic. Through Akiko’s work Genji became, in fact as well as in name, an exemplum of that most modern of literary genres, the novel. In delineating this important aspect of Akiko’s life and her bibliography, this study aims to show that facile descriptions of Akiko as a “poetess of passion” or “new woman” will no longer suffice.
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Yosano Akiko and The Tale of Genji
Yosano Akiko (1878–1942) has long been recognized as one of the most important literary figures of prewar Japan. Her renown derives principally from the passion of her early poetry and from her contributions to 20th-century debates about women. This emphasis obscures a major part of her career, which was devoted to work on the Japanese classics and, in particular, the great Heian period text The Tale of Genji. Akiko herself felt that Genji was the bedrock upon which her entire literary career was built, and her bibliography shows a steadily increasing amount of time devoted to projects related to the tale. This study traces for the first time the full range of Akiko’s involvement with The Tale of Genji.
The Tale of Genji provided Akiko with her conception of herself as a writer and inspired many of her most significant literary projects. She, in turn, refurbished the tale as a modern novel, pioneered some of the most promising avenues of modern academic research on Genji, and, to a great extent, gave the text the prominence it now enjoys as a translated classic. Through Akiko’s work Genji became, in fact as well as in name, an exemplum of that most modern of literary genres, the novel. In delineating this important aspect of Akiko’s life and her bibliography, this study aims to show that facile descriptions of Akiko as a “poetess of passion” or “new woman” will no longer suffice.
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Yosano Akiko and The Tale of Genji

Yosano Akiko and The Tale of Genji

by Gaye Rowley, G. Rowley
Yosano Akiko and The Tale of Genji

Yosano Akiko and The Tale of Genji

by Gaye Rowley, G. Rowley

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Overview

Yosano Akiko (1878–1942) has long been recognized as one of the most important literary figures of prewar Japan. Her renown derives principally from the passion of her early poetry and from her contributions to 20th-century debates about women. This emphasis obscures a major part of her career, which was devoted to work on the Japanese classics and, in particular, the great Heian period text The Tale of Genji. Akiko herself felt that Genji was the bedrock upon which her entire literary career was built, and her bibliography shows a steadily increasing amount of time devoted to projects related to the tale. This study traces for the first time the full range of Akiko’s involvement with The Tale of Genji.
The Tale of Genji provided Akiko with her conception of herself as a writer and inspired many of her most significant literary projects. She, in turn, refurbished the tale as a modern novel, pioneered some of the most promising avenues of modern academic research on Genji, and, to a great extent, gave the text the prominence it now enjoys as a translated classic. Through Akiko’s work Genji became, in fact as well as in name, an exemplum of that most modern of literary genres, the novel. In delineating this important aspect of Akiko’s life and her bibliography, this study aims to show that facile descriptions of Akiko as a “poetess of passion” or “new woman” will no longer suffice.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780939512980
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
Publication date: 03/17/2000
Series: Michigan Monograph Series in Japanese Studies , #28
Edition description: First Edition
Pages: 234
Product dimensions: 6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

G. G. Rowley is a lecturer in the Japanese Studies Centre, University of Wales, Cardiff. She is the translator of Masuda Sayo’s Autobiography of a Geisha.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements ix

Abbreviations xi

Preface to the Open Access Edition xii

Introduction The Tale of Genji in the Life and Work of Yosano Akiko 1

Chapter 1 The Tale of Genji: Women's Romance, Men's Classic 17

Chapter 2 Secret Joy: Akiko's Childhood Reading 36

Chapter 3 The Tale of Genji in the Meiji Period 56

Chapter 4 A Murasaki Shikibu for the Meiji Period 77

Chapter 5 The Shin 'yaku Genji monogatari 97

Chapter 6 A Genji of Her Own: Textual Malfeasance in Shin 'yaku Genji monogatari 120

Chapter 7 Akiko's Last Genjis 141

Chapter 8 The Tale of Genji: "My Whole Life's Work" 168

Epilogue 192

Appendix A Akiko's Publications on the Japanese Classics 194

Appendix B Selected Translations 198

List of Characters 205

Bibliography 214

Index 229

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