Murasaki Shikibu
Murasaki Shikibu (紫 式部, Murasaki Shikibu ? c. 978? - c. 1014?) was a writer, Japanese poet and courtesan author in the XI century of the first Japanese novel: Genji Monogatari (& #34;The Novel of Genji"), a work that has also been considered the first modern novel in the world. Within a decade of its completion, Genji was already distributed throughout the provinces; and in a century it had already become a classic of Japanese literature and the object of literary criticism by scholars. Since the 13th century , her works have been illustrated by Japanese artists and well-known masters of Japanese ukiyo-e print.
Biography
Born in the mid-Heian period, she is believed to be the daughter of the modest scholar Fujiwara no Tametoki, from a family of scholarly officials of the middle nobility, though distantly related to the powerful Fujiwara family. She would have been the granddaughter of the great poet Fujiwara no Kanesuke, whose waka poetry is still popular in Japan.
Women during the Heian period were excluded from learning Chinese, the written language of the government, but Murasaki, raised in the home of her scholarly father, received an excellent education, and as a child she was already noted for her intelligence, assimilating classics of Chinese literature that even the young found difficult and gaining early fluency. Her childhood, on the other hand, was not very happy, since her mother died shortly after her birth, as well as her older sister, on whom she depended on her. Soon after she married a noble of a similar social class, Fujiwara no Nobutaka, who would also die leaving her a daughter. In this context she created her novel The Tale of Genji , realistic in nature. The work earned her considerable popularity, so the regent Fujiwara no Michinaga added her to the court of Fujiwara no Shōshi (988-1074) as a lady-in-waiting until the year 1013. The following year she died and her tomb is preserved in the ancient capital, Kyoto, scene of the adventures of its characters.
Works
She is the author of a diary, Murasaki Shikibu Nikki or Diary of Murasaki Shikibu, and of Genji monogatari, Genji's Novel, the oldest psychological novel in literature. universal and the most important of classical Japanese literature. The author experienced the splendor of the Fujiwara family in the power and decadence of the Heian era, and in a pre-existentialist way she perceived the emptiness and falsehood of the aristocratic society of her time, the same one that fed the suffering of the women of her time. Her remarkable capacity for observation made her realistically reflect all the emotions of the human being.
Genji monogatari is a very long narrative that tells the life and love adventures of the fictional prince Hikaru Genji ("Bright Prince") and those of his descendants throughout 54 chapters which occupy a total of 4200 pages. The first 41 begin with the love between the Emperor Kiritsubo and a lady of lower rank in his court, from which the protagonist, Genji, is born. He has an illicit affair with his stepmother, Lady Fujitsubo, which ends when Murasaki, the woman he has meant the most in his life, dies; Parallel to this is Genji's social rise at court and his fall from grace, followed by his exile and return. The remaining thirteen chapters (three transitional chapters and the so-called ten Uji chapters) tell the story of Genji's descendants: his son Kaoru and his grandson Prince Niou. The loves and rivalries of these characters will continue the saga of Genji without reaching the brilliance of yesteryear. However, this story is interspersed with all kinds of episodic narratives that make the work a vast fresco of the society of its time.
From the novel an existential melancholy is extracted motivated by the contrast between aristocratic refinement and the beauties of nature and the sufferings and miseries originated and imposed on the feelings of the female characters, victims of a polygamous society. The feeling of transience that Buddhist philosophy gives to the narrative, which is accentuated towards the end of the work, contributes to this feeling.
She also wrote a collection of poems that ranked her as a candidate among the so-called "Thirty-six immortals of poetry" of the time.
Legacy
Murasaki's reputation and influence have not diminished since her lifetime, when she, along with other Heian writers, was instrumental in the development of Japanese as a written language. Her writings were required reading for Heian poets. court as early as the 12th century when his work began to be studied by scholars who generated authoritative versions and criticism. Within a century of her death, she was highly regarded as a classical writer. In the 17th century, Murasaki's work became an emblem of Confucian philosophy and women were encouraged to read his books. In 1673, Kumazawa Banzan argued that her writing was valuable because of her sensitivity and depiction of emotions. She wrote in her "Discursive Commentary on Genji"; that when "human feelings are not understood, the harmony of the Five Human Relations is lost".
The "Genji novel" it was copied and illustrated in various forms already a century after Murasaki's death. The Genji Monogatari Emaki, is a scroll from the 12th century of the late Heian era, consisting of of four scrolls, 19 paintings and 20 sheets of calligraphy. The illustrations, definitely dated between 1110 and 1120, have been provisionally attributed to Fujiwara no Takachika and the calligraphy to several renowned contemporary calligraphers. The scroll is in the Gotoh Museum and the Tokugawa Museum of Art.
Female virtue was tied to literary knowledge in the 17th century, leading to a demand for artifacts inspired by Murasaki or Genji, known as genji-e. Dowry sets decorated with scenes from Genji or illustrations by Murasaki became particularly popular among noblewomen: in the XVII genji-e symbolically imbued a bride with a higher level of cultural status; by the 18th century they had come to symbolize marital success. In 1628, Tokugawa Iemitsu's daughter had a set of lacquer boxes made for her wedding; Prince Toshitada received a pair of silk screens genji-e, painted by Kanō Tan'yū as a wedding gift in 1649.
Murasaki became a popular subject for paintings and illustrations highlighting her as a virtuous woman and poet. She is often shown at her desk in the Ishimyama Temple, looking to the moon for inspiration. Tosa Mitsuoki made her the subject of hanging scrolls in the 17th century. Genji's Novel i> became a favorite subject of Japanese artists ukiyo-e ffor centuries with artists such as Hiroshige, Kiyonaga, and Utamaro illustrating various editions of the novel. While early Genji art was considered a symbol of court culture, by the mid-Edo period the mass-produced art of ukiyo-e made the illustrations accessible to the samurai classes and commoners.
In Imagining the "Genji Novel", Shirane observes that "The Genji Novel has become many things to many different audiences through many different media for a thousand years...unmatched by any other Japanese text or artifact". The work and its author became popular through its illustrations in various media: emaki (illustrated scrolls); byōbu-e (screen paintings), ukiyo -e (woodcuts); films, comic books, and in the modern period, manga. In her fictionalized account of Murasaki's life, Murasaki's Tale: A Novel, Liza Dalby has Murasaki involved in a romance during her travels. with his father to the province of Echizen.
Genji's novel is recognized as an enduring classic. McCullough writes that Murasaki "is both the quintessential representative of a unique society and a writer who speaks to universal human concerns with a timeless voice. Japan hasn't seen another genius like it'. Keene writes that "The Novel of Genji" it continues to captivate because, in the story, its characters and their concerns are universal. In the 1920s, when Waley's translation was published, reviewers compared Genji to Austen, Proust, and Shakespeare. Mulhern says of Murasaki that she is similar to Shakespeare, who represented his Elizabethan England, in that she captured the essence of the Heian court and as a novelist "perhaps he succeeded even beyond his own expectations". Like Shakespeare, his work has been the subject of much criticism and many books.
Kyoto held a year-long celebration to commemorate the 1000th anniversary of Genji in 2008, with poetry contests, visits to the Novel of Genji Museum in Uji, and Ishiyama-dera (where a life-size rendition of Murasaki was displayed on his desk), and women dressed in the traditional 12-layer Heian court costume jūnihitoe and ankle-length wigs. The author and her work inspired museum exhibits and spin-offs of the Genji manga. The design on the back of the first 2,000 yen note commemorated her and The Genji Novel. produces purple berries bearing his name.
A 'Genji Album', dated to 1510 only in the 1970s, is housed at Harvard University. The album is considered the oldest of its kind and consists of 54 paintings by Tosa Mitsunobu and 54 sheets of calligraphy on shikishi paper in five colors, written by master calligraphers. The sheets are housed in a case dating to the Edo period, with a silk frontispiece painted by Tosa Mitsuoki, dating to around 1690. The album contains Mitsuoki's authentication forms for paintings from the XVI of its ancestor.
Spanish edition
- Shikibu, Murasaki, The story of Genji. Translation Jordi Fibla. Vilaür: Atalanta Editions.
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