is an early 13th-century

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

ese text. One volume in length, it is the oldest existing Japanese text on prose

literary criticism Literary criticism (or literary studies) is the study, evaluation, and interpretation of literature. Modern literary criticism is often influenced by literary theory, which is the philosophical discussion of literature's goals and methods. Th ...

.Nihon Koten Bungaku Daijiten (1986:1798-1799) The author is unknown, but the leading candidate proposed is Shunzei's Daughter.Marra 1984 : 116. Other candidates who have been proposed include her maternal grandfather

Shunzei was a Japanese poetry, Japanese poet, courtier, and Buddhist monk of the late Heian period. He was also known as Fujiwara no Toshinari"...there is the further problem, the rendition of the name in romanized form. Teika probably referred to himsel ...

himself and the monk .Marra 1984 : 115.

Composition

One manuscript gives the title as , a reference to the name of the era in which it was written. Composition occurred between 1200 and 1202.Kubota (2007:341-342) The author is unknown. Hypotheses include

Fujiwara no Shunzei was a Japanese poet, courtier, and Buddhist monk of the late Heian period. He was also known as Fujiwara no Toshinari"...there is the further problem, the rendition of the name in romanized form. Teika probably referred to himself as Sadaie, and ...

( -1204); his granddaughter, often called " Shunzei's Daughter" ( - 1252); Jōkaku (1147-1226); and

Shikishi Naishinnō Princess Shikishi or Shokushi ( ''Shikishi/Shokushi Naishinnō'') (1149 – March 1, 1201) was a Japanese classical poet, who lived during the late Heian and early Kamakura periods. She was the third daughter of Emperor Go-Shirakawa (1127–1192 ...

(1149-1201); but strongest support is for Shunzei's daughter.

The volume is composed of four distinct sections: a preface, literary criticism, poetic criticism, and a discussion on prominent literary women. The preface introduces an 83-year-old woman on a trip. She stops to rest at a house, where she writes down the conversation of a group of women talking about literature, creating a

frame tale A frame is often a structural system that supports other components of a physical construction and/or steel frame that limits the construction's extent. Frame and FRAME may also refer to: Physical objects In building construction *Framing (con ...

excuse to write the volume. The frame tale itself has many elements from

monogatari is a literary form in traditional Japanese literature – an extended prose narrative tale comparable to the epic novel. ''Monogatari'' is closely tied to aspects of the oral tradition, and almost always relates a fictional or fictionalized st ...

of the time. The literary criticism covers 28 stories, including '' Genji Monogatari'', '' Sagoromo Monogatari'' ( ja), ''

Yoru no Nezame is a c. 11th century Japanese story. It is one of the major representative Heian period texts. It is a courtly romance and belongs to the '' tsukuri monogatari'' genre.Nihon Koten Bungaku Daijiten Henshū Iinkai (1986:1898-1900) Composition The ...

'', ''

Hamamatsu Chūnagon Monogatari , also known as , is an eleventh-century Japanese '' monogatari'' that tells about a ''chūnagon'' who discovers his father has been reborn as a Chinese prince. He visits his reincarnated father in China and falls in love with the Hoyang Consort, ...

'', and ''

Torikaebaya Monogatari , translated into English as ''The Changelings'', is a Japanese tale from the late Heian period (794 to 1185) by an unknown author, or possibly more than one author. It is four volumes in length.Kubota (2007:255) It is the tale of two siblings who ...

''. The others mostly do not exist anymore.Hayashiya (1973) For poetic criticism, it covers ''

Ise Monogatari is a Japanese ''uta monogatari'', or collection of ''waka (poetry), waka'' poems and associated narratives, dating from the Heian period. The current version collects 125 sections, with each combining poems and prose, giving a total of 209 poems i ...

'', ''

Yamato Monogatari is a collection of 173 short stories which give details about life in the imperial court in the 9th and 10th centuries. Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005)"''Yamato monogatari''"in ''Japan Encyclopedia'', p. 1047. It is an ''uta monogatari'' (a w ...

'', ''

Man'yōshū The is the oldest extant collection of Japanese (poetry in Classical Japanese), compiled sometime after AD 759 during the Nara period. The anthology is one of the most revered of Japan's poetic compilations. The compiler, or the last in ...

'', and private and

imperial Imperial is that which relates to an empire, emperor, or imperialism. Imperial or The Imperial may also refer to: Places United States * Imperial, California * Imperial, Missouri * Imperial, Nebraska * Imperial, Pennsylvania * Imperial, Texa ...

collections. The editor laments the lack of women compilers in the collections. It then goes on to discuss the ability and upbringing of a number of prominent women:

Ono no Komachi was a Japanese waka poet, one of the ''Rokkasen'' — the six best waka poets of the early Heian period. She was renowned for her unusual beauty, and ''Komachi'' is today a synonym for feminine beauty in Japan. She also counts among the Th ...

Sei Shōnagon was a Japanese author, poet, and a court lady who served the Empress Teishi (Sadako) around the year 1000 during the middle Heian period. She is the author of . Name Sei Shōnagon's actual given name is not known. It was the custom among arist ...

Izumi Shikibu was a mid-Heian period Japanese poet. She is a member of the . She was the contemporary of Murasaki Shikibu, and Akazome Emon at the court of empress Joto Mon'in. She "is considered by many to have been the greatest woman poet of the Heian p ...

Akazome Emon was a Japanese ''waka'' poet and early historian who lived in the mid-Heian period. She is a member both of the and the . Biography Akazome Emon's year of birth is unknown, but she was likely born between Tentoku 1 (957) and Kōhō 1 (964). ...

Murasaki Shikibu was a Japanese novelist, poet and lady-in-waiting at the Imperial court in the Heian period. She is best known as the author of '' The Tale of Genji,'' widely considered to be one of the world's first novels, written in Japanese between abou ...

and others. The text is particularly valuable as a resource, since it includes descriptions of a number of either completely or partially lost texts.

References

Bibliography

* * * *

Composition

Contents

See also

References

Bibliography

Further reading