G. G. Rowley - Yosano Akiko and The Tale of Genji

Yosano Akiko and The Tale of Genji

Akiko on a Certain Day, from the early years of the Taish period. Courtesy of Chikuma Shob Publishing Co., Ltd.

Yosano Akiko and The Tale of Genji

G. G. Rowley

Ann Arbor 2000
Center for Japanese Studies
The University of Michigan

Open access edition funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities/Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Humanities Open Book Program.

Copyright 2000 The Regents of the University of Michigan

Published by the Center for Japanese Studies, The University of Michigan

202 S Thayer St., Ann Arbor, MI 48104-1608

Michigan Monograph Series in Japanese Studies

Number 28

PERMISSIONS

Material for chapter three draws upon an article Literary Canon and National Identity: The Tale of Genji in Meiji Japan, Japan Forum 9.1 (1997): 1-15 and is reprinted here with permission of the British Association for Japanese Studies and Routledge.

Material for chapter six first appeared in an article Textual Malfeasance in Yosano Akikos Shinyaku Genji monogatari Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 58.1 (June 1998): 201-19 and is reprinted here with permission of the editors.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Rowley, Gillian Gaye, 1960

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

p. cm. (Michigan monograph series in Japanese studies no. 28)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 0-939512-98-X (cloth : alk. paper)

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

2. Murasaki Shikibu, b. 978? Genji monogatari. I. Murasaki Shikibu,

b. 978? Genji monogatari. II. Title. III. Series.

PL819.O8R68 2000

895.6144dc21

99-089978

This book was set in Janson Text

Jacket design by Seiko Semones

This publication meets the ANSI/NISO Standards for Permanence of Paper for Publications and Documents in Libraries and Archives (Z39.48-1992).

Printed in the United States of America

ISBN 978-0-939512-98-0 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-0-472-03832-9 (paper)
ISBN 978-0-472-12805-1 (ebook)
ISBN 978-0-472-90200-2 (open access)

The text of this book is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

To my parents

Kenneth and Nancy Rowley

Akiko at about Age Sixty. Courtesy of Chikuma Shob Publishing Co., Ltd.

Contents

I have been helped by many friends and scholars, in some cases for many years, in the preparation of this study. It is a pleasure, at long last, to be able to thank them. My first debt is to the Cambridge Commonwealth Trust for the scholarship that enabled me to spend three years studying at Newnham College and in the Faculty of Oriental Studies of the University of Cambridge. A Japan Foundation Dissertation Fellowship made possible a period of research in Tokyo. At that time Professor Kumasaka Atsuko, who had supervised my work on Akiko when I was an M.A. student at Japan Womens University, welcomed me back to her seminar. Professor Itsumi Kumi graciously invited me to attend her classes on Akiko at Aoyama Gakuin Womens Junior College. Professor Itsumis dauntless energy, of a sort that invites comparison with Akikos own, continues to be both infectious and inspiring. My debt to her many publications on Akiko will be evident in the footnotes to this study. Professor Ichikawa Chihiro has for many years been an unstinting source of learned guidance, fruitful discussion, and practical assistance. Without her generous gift of textually reliable editions of Akikos Shinyaku Genji monogatari and Shin-shinyaku Genji monogatari, chapters five, six, and eight could not have been written. Professor Ichikawa also introduced me to the group of scholars who used to meet monthly to read The Tale of Genji under the guidance of the late Professor Teramoto Naohiko. It was a privilege to attend these meetings, and I am greatly indebted to Professor Teramoto for his patient advice on a number of difficult points.

I am grateful to Professor Edwin A. Cranston of the Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations at Harvard University, who has encouraged me from the outset of my study of Akiko. I would also like to thank Professor Ken K. Ito of the University of Michigan and Professor Janet A. Walker of Rutgers University for their support at different stages of this project. In Cambridge, the learning and counsel of Dr. Carmen Blacker, Professor Richard Bowring, Dr. Peter Kornicki, Mr. Koyama Noboru, Dr. Stephen Large, and Dr. Mark Morris were invaluable. I am also grateful to Dr. James McMullen and Dr. Brian Powell of the University of Oxford for their careful reading of an earlier version of this study.

For warm hospitality during many visits over the years I am indebted to Professor W. J. Boot and the other members of the Centre for Japanese and Korean Studies at the University of Leiden. Professor Adriana Boscaro of the Department of East Asian Studies, University Ca Foscari, Venice, looked after me during three months of writing in the autumn of 1991, and I am grateful for her continued encouragement. Friends Julia Borossa, Charlotte Klonk, Nicola Liscutin, Gail Marshall, and Margaret Mehl have been unstinting in their support and I thank them for their generosity. Thanks also to Douglas Anthony, Janet Richards, Rosemary Smith, Mark Teeuwen, and my other colleagues in the Japanese Studies Centre of the University of Wales, Cardiff, for enabling me to take a semester of study-leave in 1995, and for their consideration during the final months of writing. Charles Boyle gave me much needed help with Japanese word processing technology, for which I am most grateful.

Mrs. Kawai Noriyo and the late Dr. Kawai Toshiro of Gifu first looked after me in Japan with rare sympathy and forbearance. This book is also for them. All the mistakes and infelicities of thought and style are, of course, my own.

The following abbreviations are used for multivolume series:

References in the text:

The text of The Tale of Genji cited is the six-volume Genji monogatari, edited by Abe Akio, Akiyama Ken, and Imai Gene, vols. 12-17 of Nihon koten bungaku zensh (NKBZ), published by Shgakukan, 1970-76. Each quotation is identified by volume and page number, followed by the corresponding page number of the English translation by Edward G. Seidensticker, The Tale of Genji, 2 vols. (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1976). They are given in the following form: (4:345; S 662). Unless otherwise identified, however, all translations are my own.

References to the collected works of Yosano Akiko are to Teihon Yosano Akiko zensh (TYAZ)