Yosano Akiko and the Tale of Genji / G.G. Rowley.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Rowley, G. G., 1960- author.

Contributor:

Michigan Publishing (University of Michigan), publisher.

Series:

Michigan monograph series in Japanese studies ; no. 28.

Michigan monograph series in Japanese studies ; number 28

Language:

English

Japanese

Subjects (All):

Yosano, Akiko, 1878-1942--Criticism and interpretation.

Yosano, Akiko.

Murasaki Shikibu, 978?- Genji monogatari.

Murasaki Shikibu.

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations

Edition:

Open access edition

Place of Publication:

Ann Arbor, MI : University of Michigan Press, 2022.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

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.

Contents:

Intro

Contents

Acknowledgements

Abbreviations

Preface to the Open Access Edition

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

Chapter One. The Tale of Genji: Women's Romance, Men's Classic

Chapter Two. Secret Joy: Akiko's Childhood Reading

Chapter Three. The Tale of Genji in the Meiji Period

Chapter Four. A Murasaki Shikibu for the Meiji Period

Chapter Five. The Shin'yaku Genji monogatari

Chapter Six. A Genji of Her Own: Textual Malfeasance in Shin'yaku Genji monogatari

Chapter Seven. Akiko's Last Genjis

Chapter Eight. The Tale of Genji: "My Whole Life's Work"

Epilogue

Appendix A. Akiko's Publications on the Japanese Classics

Appendix B. Selected Translations

List of Characters

Bibliography

Index.

Notes:

Title from eBook information screen..

Includes bibliographical references (pages 214-228) and index.

Description based on information from the publisher.

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

ISBN:

9780472903078

0472903071

OCLC:

1348608094