Figures of resistance : language, poetry, and narrating in The tale of Genji and other mid-Heian texts / H. Richard Okada.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Okada, H. Richard.

Series:

e-Duke books scholarly collection.

Post-contemporary interventions.

Post-contemporary interventions

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Japanese literature--Heian period, 794-1185--History and criticism.

Japanese literature.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (402 p.)

Place of Publication:

Durham : Duke University Press, 1991.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

In this revisionist study of texts from the mid-Heian period in Japan, H. Richard Okada offers new readings of three well-known tales: The tale of the bamboo-cutter, The tale of Ise, and The tale of Genji. Okada contends that the cultural and gendered significance of these works has been distorted by previous commentaries and translations belonging to the larger patriarchal and colonialist discourse of Western civilization. He goes on to suggest that this universalist discourse, which silences the feminine aspects of these texts and subsumes their writing in misapplied Western canonical literary terms, is sanctioned and maintained by the discipline of Japanese literature. Okada develops a highly original and sophisticated reading strategy that demonstrates how readers might understand texts belonging to a different time and place without being complicit in their assimilation to categories derived from Western literary traditions. The author's reading strategy is based on the texts' own resistance to modes of analysis that employ such Western canonical terms as novel, lyric, and third-person narrative. Emphasis is also given to the distinctive cultural circles, as well as socio-political and genealogical circumstances that surrounded the emergence of the texts.

Contents:

Tales of the Bamboo Cutter: Languages of Narrating and Bamboo-Cutter Pretexts. A "Pivotal" Narrative: The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter

Waka Poetics" and Tales of lse". Constructing a Capital "Poetics," Kokin wakashu. An Early Figure of Resistance: Lady Ise. Sexual/Textual Politics and The Tale of Ise

Tales of Genji": Situating the "Feminine Hand." Narrating the Private: "Kiritsubo." Feminine Representation and Critique, "Hahakigi." A Figure of Narrating: Tamakazura. Aesthetics, Politics, and Genealogy. Substitutions and Incidental Narrating, "Wakamurasaki." The Akashi Intertexts

Epilogue: Endings, Tellings, and Retellings

Appendix: Chapters in The Tale of Genji.

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references (p. [367]-376) and index.

ISBN:

9786612904219

9781282904217

1282904213

9780822381723

0822381729

OCLC:

850214081