Murasaki Shikibu (c. 973 - c. 1014) was a Japanese writer, poet and lady-in-waiting at the imperial court during the Heian period. She is the author of The Tale of Genji, a long prose narrative frequently described as the world's first novel and one of the central works of Japanese literature. [1] She also left a court diary and a collection of poems, which together provide much of what is known of her life. [2]
Name and background
Her personal name is not recorded. "Murasaki Shikibu" is a sobriquet: Shikibu refers to the Bureau of Ceremonial, where her father held office, while Murasaki is the name of a principal character in her tale and also the Japanese word for the colour purple. [1]
She was born about 973 in the capital, Heian-kyo, the modern Kyoto, into a minor branch of the powerful Fujiwara clan. Her father, Fujiwara no Tametoki, was a provincial governor and a scholar of Chinese literature. Her mother died when she was young, and she was raised in her father's household, an unusual arrangement in a period when children were commonly brought up by the mother's family. [2]
Education and marriage
Murasaki learned classical Chinese, the language of scholarship and government and normally reserved for men, by listening while her brother was taught. Her diary records her father's remark that it was a misfortune she had not been born a boy, and also her own care to conceal the extent of her learning at court. [3]
In about 998 she married Fujiwara no Nobutaka, a distant kinsman considerably older than herself, and bore a daughter who later became known as the poet Daini no Sanmi. Nobutaka died in 1001, and it was probably in her widowhood that she began writing the work that would make her name. [2]
Court service and The Tale of Genji
Around 1005 she was summoned to serve as lady-in-waiting to Empress Shoshi, consort of Emperor Ichijo and daughter of the dominant statesman Fujiwara no Michinaga. Court patronage gave her access to paper, a costly commodity, and to the readership among whom her chapters circulated. [1]
The Tale of Genji runs to fifty-four chapters and follows Hikaru Genji, the son of an emperor by a low-ranking consort, through his loves, exile and return, before continuing into the generation that follows him. Written in vernacular Japanese using the kana script rather than Chinese, it is notable for its psychological detail, its hundreds of interwoven poems and its acute sense of the passing of things. [4]
Diary and later life
Her Diary of Lady Murasaki covers roughly the years 1008 to 1010 and describes court ceremonies, the birth of the empress's sons, and her own discomfort at the rivalries and frivolity of palace life. It includes pointed comments on other writers of the period, among them Sei Shonagon. A collection of about 128 of her poems also survives. [3]
The date of her death is uncertain; it is generally placed around 1014, though some scholars argue for a later date. [1]
Legacy
The Tale of Genji has been continuously read, annotated and illustrated in Japan for a thousand years, inspiring painted handscrolls, Noh drama, woodblock prints and modern adaptations. Arthur Waley's English translation, published between 1925 and 1933, introduced the work to Western readers, and later versions by Edward Seidensticker and Royall Tyler followed. [4] Murasaki Shikibu is among the most honoured figures in Japanese cultural history. [2]
