Read more
The essays in this collection engage with Murasaki Shikibu's The Tale Genji as a work of philosophical significance, analyzing the text from a wide range of perspectives. The essays touch on almost all branches of philosophy and engage with topics such as the exercise of power, the concept of space, construction of personhood, cultural and artistic practices, and gender.
List of contents
- Editor's Note
- Series Editor's Introduction
- Introduction
- Chapter 1: The Structure of Genji's Career: Myth, Politics and Pride, Royall Tyler
- Chapter 2: The Epistemology of Space in The Tale of Genji, Wiebke Denecke
- Chapter 3: Ritual, Moral Personhood, and Spirit Possession in The Tale of Genji,
- James McMullen
- Chapter 4: Flares in the Garden, Darkness in the Heart: Exteriority, Interiority and the Role
- of Poems in The Tale of Genji, Edward Kamens
- Chapter 5: Calligraphy, Aesthetics, and Character in The Tale of Genji, Tomoko Sakomura
- Chapter 6: Genji's Gardens: Negotiating Nature at the Heian Court, Ivo Smits
- Chapter 7: Rethinking Gender in The Tale of Genji, Rajyashree Pandey
- Chapter 8: Murasaki's "Mind Ground:" A Buddhist Theory of the Novel, Melissa
- McCormick
- Further Reading
- Index
About the author
James McMullen, a Fellow of the British Academy, is a specialist on the history of Confucianism in Japan. He began his teaching career at the University of Toronto and is currently a Fellow Emeritus at Pembroke and St Antony's Colleges in the University of Oxford.
Summary
The essays in this collection engage with Murasaki Shikibu's The Tale Genji as a work of philosophical significance, analyzing the text from a wide range of perspectives. The essays touch on almost all branches of philosophy and engage with topics such as the exercise of power, the concept of space, construction of personhood, cultural and artistic practices, and gender.
Additional text
This volume presents a kaleidoscope of perspectives on Genji monogatari. The degree of abstraction implicit in its mandated philosophical approach makes patterns more apparent in the text. The immense variety of those patterns and their interlocking quality are dazzling. As the lens shifts from "space" to "exteriority/interiority" to "gender," it is almost as though a different novel appears... the uniformly high level of literary quality in all the essays makes this work a pleasurable read. All in all, this work admirably fulfi lls its goal of providing a philosophical exploration of Genji monogatari.
