Unreal houses : character, gender, and genealogy in the Tale of Genji / Edith Sarra.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Sarra, Edith, 1955- author.

Series:

Harvard East Asian monographs ; 429.

Harvard East Asian monographs ; 429

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Murasaki Shikibu, 978?- Genji monogatari.

Murasaki Shikibu.

Dwellings in literature.

Marriage in literature.

Genealogy in literature.

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

Japanese literature.

Genji monogatari (Murasaki Shikibu).

Japanese literature--Heian period.

Genre:

Criticism, interpretation, etc.

Physical Description:

xiii, 341 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Massachusetts : Harvard University Asia Center, 2020.

Summary:

"The Tale of Genji (ca. 1008, by noblewoman Murasaki Shikibu) is known for its sophisticated renderings of fictional characters' minds and its critical perspectives on class and gender asymmetries in eleventh-century Japan. In Unreal Houses, Edith Sarra argues that in both form and content the Genji re-envisions the elite practice of polygynous marriage and the construction of mansions as expressions of familial power. She radically rethinks the Genji by focusing on the figure of the house-encompassing both fictionalized images of aristocratic mansions and representations of their inhabitants. How do key characters in the Tale of Genji "think" about houses? Through close readings of the Genji and other Heian narratives, Sarra elucidates the tale's fabrication of the social, architectural, and affective spaces of polygyny, and shows how the figure of the house contributes to the structuring of narrative sequences and the expression of relational nuances among fictional characters. Combining literary analysis with the history of gender, marriage, and the built environment, this study opens new perspectives on the architectonics of the Genji and the feminine milieu that midwifed what some have called the world's first novel"-- Provided by publisher

Contents:

Chapter 1 Aristocratic Marriage and the Real-and-Imagined Houses of Heian Court Fiction p. 21

Polygynous Marriage and Residence Patterns of the Heian Elite p. 22

Spatiality and the Imagined House p. 29

Character Typing and the Imagined Householder p. 36

The Real-and-Imagined House as Corporate Construction p. 40

Part I Polygyny Reimagined

Chapter 2 Architects of Polygyny: Genji, His Women, and Their Houses p. 51

Lethal Architecture, the Origins of the Hero, and Soothing the Dead p. 54

The Nijoin and Murasaki: The Creation of a House-bound Heroine p. 58

The Nijo Toin: Distractions and Deferrals p. 66

Why Leave the Nijoin? p. 79

Chapter 3 The Rokujoin: The House of Wishful Thinking p. 85

The Mouse that Talk Built p. 88

Orchestrating the Dollhouse: The Placement of Surrogate and Birth Mothers p. 93

To Dwell in Possibilities p. 102

A Final Year: Closure and the Problem of Genji's Self-Awareness p. 112

The Fate of the Corporate House p. 124

Part II Tamakazura's Problems of Placement

Chapter 4 A Balancing Act: Tamakazura in Genji's House p. 129

A House of Dangerous Liaisons p. 131

The Space of a Stepdaughter's Education p. 139

Chapter 5 Tamakazura's House p. 158

Tamakazura's Marriage: Secrets and Self-Presentation p. 159

The Widow as Mistress of Her Own House p. 171

Bamboo River and the Echoes of the Past p. 181

Part III Kaoru and the Undoing of the House

Chapter 6 What Kaoru Inherits: Fathers, Sons, and the Ethics of Genealogical Fiction p. 189

Genealogical Secrets: Thinking about Paternity across Generations p. 192

The Sobriety of the Second Generation p. 201

A Mamebito in Spite of Himself p. 205

Chapter 7 As One Who Dwells Provisionally p. 212

Kaoru's Weakness as a Protagonist p. 214

The Heroine Who Defeats Him p. 217

Kaoru's Marriage: A Fine and Private Place p. 222

Kaoru and the Dead p. 230

Unfinished Houses, Unresolved Tale p. 236.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780674244436

0674244435

OCLC:

1114444822