Japanese Culture: Identity and Tradition

大仏 (Daibutsu)

金閣寺 (Kinkakuji)

清水寺 (Kiyomizudera)

全部京都にあります。それは昔の奈良ですね。

Yamato is the highest part of the country:
The mountains are green walls;
Nestling in its hills, its terraces
lie range upon range -
How lovely is the land of Yamato
(Kojiki, Poem 30)

150 years after Chinese writing was introduced, Buddhism was.
Constitution based on the Chinese one was made in 604.
The continental culture adapted by the Japanese eagerly.

So there was this flow of culture from China

“Enthusiasm of faith and power kindled by Buddhism in Japan made every branch of art and culture blossom.”

Set about plans to build a capital in the continental style, in the north of the Yamato province.

“Peak of the Nara period was reached with the national religious hubris of Emperor Shoomu (724-749 and his daughter ... Men were made to become monks and to do crafts. This was the only way architecture and art could reach such a pitch”

Because of an outbreak of small-pox, and because of earthquakes, they set about making toudaiji. They used all the bronze in the country to build a 16.19 m high statue of the Buddha (daibutsu). It is housed in what is still is the largest wooden building in the world.

Buddhist art was everywhere
temple architecture
iconography of cult images

Japan had developed no scrip of it's own. Things were written with Chinese characters,partly with semantic and partly with phonetic meaning.

“The melodic phrasing og the language began with love poems. The old love duets of the young were called 'song hedges' (utagaki); first pet-formed quite spontenaeously, they were later transmitted as part of the cultural heritage.

Some of the first written texts were histories. The Nihon-shoki of 720 and such. These were written in Chinese.

POETIC STYLES
Waka or uta
Tanka
EARLY WORKS
Uta-gaki (old love duets)
Kojiki
Nihon-shoki
Manyo-shuu

Main article: Heian Period

The Heian period (平安時代) is the last division of the classical Japanese history that runs from 794 to 1185. The Heian period is considered the peak of the Japanese imperial court and noted for its art and especially in poetry and literature. The name heian is a word that means "peace" in Japanese.
(From Wikipedia)

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Should look at the history of the Japanese language and the role of kana in the creation of Genji. What tapestries of knowledge can be formed here?

The Heian

• 1 History
• 2 Developments in Buddhism
• 3 Heian period literature
• 4 Heian period economics
• 5 The Fujiwara Regency
• 6 The Rise of the military class

I have to do a presentation on Genji Monogatari.

Genji Monogatari, “The Tale of Genji”

An early 11^th century. Finished in it's current form in 1021.

“The tale concentrates on his romantic life and describes the customs of the aristocratic society of the time. Much is made of Genji's good looks. His most important personality trait is the loyalty he shows to all the women in his life, as he never abandons any of his wives. When he finally becomes the most powerful man in the capital, he moves into a palace and provides for each of them.” (Wikipedia).

“The novel is traditionally divided in three parts, the first two dealing with the life of Genji, and the last dealing with the early years of two of Genji's prominent descendants, Niou and Kaoru.” (Wikipedia)

Covers a series of events about the main character Genji, from his birth, lifetime and after his death also.

A large work, divided up into over 40 volumes.

400+ characters, all related to one another somehow and detailed in the book.

It's mostly chronological

Structured with a beginning, middle and end.

Coherent development of characters and events

Historical theme of Fujiwara Power, human theme of impermanence, and realistic psychological detail. Means that it is a novel.

Uses anticipation or buildup.

Repetition of situations and relationships between characters. 'Sustained imagery' helps to tie together parts of the novel that are separated by many years.

Central themes:

The nebulous, unreal quality of the world around us.

The idea that our life here is a 'bridge of dreams'. We cross from one state of existence to the next.

Death

Melancholy dominates the novel and its characters. And survivors are imbued with the gloom of the place (Uji).

Audience:

Was written to entertain court women in the 11^th century.

Court language was complicated and had difficult grammar, and people were referred to by their rank (for men) and the colour of their clothing (for women) and through other indirect ways.

They use poetry in conversations.

“Modifying or rephrasing a classic poem according to the current situation was expected behavior in Heian court life, and often served to communicate thinly veiled allusions.” <== I love this! She would only say the first few lines, and the reader was expected to know the rest. (Like saying 'A rolling stone...'

The Culture and Society that gave rise to the story:

Probably written entirely in 'kana' for the women of the court.

Next steps are
Organising the information into a more coherant list of things that I want to discuss and expanding on them.
Find that information in the readings / online.

There is a strange poignant sound to the cry of the deer that has greatly moved poets over the centuries.

The tolling of the temple bell.
Call of the wild geese
rush of the waterfall
wailing of the wind in the oak trees

Murasaki was always interested in the different effects that the same scene could have on different characters.

"How fare you by those far-off shores
(Lost no doubt in doleful thoughts)
While the never-ending rains
Swell the fierce waves that surge outside your hourse?"

and in reply

"So smoothly glide my boat
That if it were to merge into the waves
Who would there be to say he saw a ripple on the water's face?"

"Though this poor body sink into the waves,
My sinful name, alas, will not stay down,
But float up to the water's top for all to know."

There is a lot to do with the roaring of the river.

"Not even her faintesdt shadow shows upon the river's face,
Only my swelling tears that no dam will keep back."

This site looks like it could spice up the reading of the work http://www.taleofgenji.org/

The work has been used as the basis for not only study of the work itself, but also study of Heian court ceremony and music.

There are thousands of quotations of literature and history in her novel, which are important to her imagery.

Yoshino Scholars treated the novel as a work of art, whereas in Kyoto is was considered as a basis for study of history and lingustics.

But the work was written by an artist, and therefore it should be treated as a work of art, not as a source of information.

Some people think that the modern reader is too far removed to really understand what is going on, but the writer thinks that it is acctually the opposite, where we can enter the thoughts and emotions of the novel. We can understand the connexion between beauty and sorrow that is a central theme of the novel.

Calligraphy and the court heirarchy were important to Murasaki.

The language of the novel is the greatest barrier. It was written in pure Japanese, and since then Chinese words and contructions have been imported (not to mention Western ones now too). It's like an ordinary Englishman trying to comprehend Beowulf.

Because proper names are rigourously avoided, the speaker is harly ever indicated. Mutually exclusive categories that we take for granted in European languages
Past and present tense
affirmation and question
singular and plural
male and female (as identified by personal names and pronouns)
doubt and certainty
whether the sentence is pos or neg!
All thse have little relevance in Heian Japanese.

This is a reluctance to be specific, partly due to connexion between this literatice and classical Japanese poetry, which is marked by extremely laconic wording and an overwhelming reliance on imagistic suggestion.
It also results from the 'closed' nature of upper-class Heian society. Murasaki's society always preffered the allusion to the statement, the hint to the explanation. Not only in poety, but in day to day conversations, diaries. It was a small, closed society (the Heian court). The briefest hint will suffice to convey ones meaning, and any systematic exposition of one's thoughts is regarded as otiose, even boorish.
Language also becomes shorthand, and defines who are 'in'. This phenomenon can be seen in any small, closed group.

Heian authors had fewer words to work with, in particular adjectives. This can make reading obscure for people in a later age.

So translators have to be careful. Any strictly accurate translation that leaves in the obscurities makes the text unreadable, so things have to be more specific.

Did Murasaki base her work anyone in paricular?
Murasaki is the heroine of the novel, obviously herself.

Does the novel as a whole present a reasonably faithful picture of Heian society?
The people in the story present only a minature proportion of the inhabitants of tenth-century Japan. (the aristocracy) ~ a few thousand.

Heian-kyou contrasted greatly with the barbarism of the surrounding land.Glittering mansions with squalid huts. While we cannot take what is described in the literature as the 100 percent truth (as it is probably embellished) the comparison is in some ways valid.

Nothing in the novel talks about the economic system that kept this aristocracy in power, or about the politics that went on at the Heian court (the real politics).

She and her female counterparts wouldn't have had any reliable information on this anyway really. Murasaki wrote about the sides of life that she knew about.

She also writes about what it is like to be a jealous woman in a polgamous society where jealousy is the most scorned of all emotions.

"Her novel does not attempt to give a full picture of a period (few successful novelists do); but it does provide an authentic picture of a beautiful and intriguing world.


I think I know what it is that brings the tang to Sydney.

I think the main problem is that it's too close to Queensland.

I think the main problem I have with Sydney is that it's too close to Queensland.

QUESTIONS

When was it written?
What is the historical background?

1. Reading Notes
2. Lecture Notes
3. Snippets of Info
4. Related images of art