1. Yo Murasaki Shikibu, Genji Monosgatari
1. Author Profile
Purple Style Ministry,(973-1015 むらさ紫式部画像きしきぶ), whose original surname was Fujiwara, also known as Zizhu , was the title of a female official who served the Empress. A japanese female writer in the middle of the Heian period, she is one of the Thirty-Six Song Immortals of the Middle Ages. Famous for his creation of the Tale of Genji, he was highly regarded by high-ranking officials such as Fujiwara Michiaga, and in the second year of Hirohiro's reign (1005), he was summoned to serve emperor Ichijo Fujiwara Akiko, and served as a female official to teach Buddhism to the empress, as well as ancient Chinese books such as the Nihon Shoki and the Shirashi Anthology. In the Heian period of Japan, female officials in the palace often showed their identity in the name of their father and brother, and The eldest brother of Zizhu served as a shibu, so she was called the Fuji clan, and after the publication of the Tale of Genji, her reputation became increasingly popular, and people called it the purple shibu after the heroine Ziji.
Murasaki Shikibu Image
The Purple Style Ministry was born around 973 AD (the date of birth and death of the Purple Style Department is not accurately recorded, but it is mostly estimated that it was born around the first year of Yanyuan (979) to the fifth year of Changhe (1016) and died. Born in Japan in a middle aristocratic literati family, his father and brother were good at Chinese poetry and waka, so since childhood, he studied sinology and japanese songs with his father, who was known for Chinese literature, Chinese poetry, and wase songs, was familiar with Chinese classics, was familiar with musical rhythms and Buddhist texts, was good at musical instruments and paintings, believed in Buddhism, and was known as a talented woman. His mother called Fujiwara Nobuyuki. The family's literary influence and his own understanding made Zi Shibu very fond of classical Chinese literature, especially Bai Juyi's works. During his time at the Imperial Palace, Zi Shibu also wrote works such as "Zi ShiBu Diary" and "Zi Shi Bu Collection". The former, also known as "Purple Diary", is a diary-style literature, mainly recording the court life and what they saw and heard when serving Empress Zhangzi, such as palace ceremonies, the appearance, talent and personality of female officials in the palace; the latter is also known as "Purple Style Family Collection", which includes more than 100 waka works created by him, arranged in chronological order, describing the author's life experience throughout life. Like the Tale of Genji, the two books are full of considerable observations of people and society, and are important references for studying the author's life and the Tale of Genji.
In April 1004, Zi shibu lost his husband and widowed, and in the autumn of the same year began to write The Tale of Genji, which was written around the autumn of 1010 AD. The Purple Ministry "Purple" is taken from the main character of the Monogatari, Zi, and the "Style Department" comes from his father's brother's official position "Shibu Cheng". Zi Shibu left the harem in 1013 and died in 1014. "The Tale of Genji" is her masterpiece, describing characters and scenes, delicate strokes, elegant writing, plot twists, is considered to be one of the world's earliest novels, has a great influence on Japanese literature, known as the peak of Japanese classical literature, is the collection of two traditions of song story and legendary story. It is her great dedication to Japanese literature and world literature, and it is also her eternal historical monument.
2. The Tale of Genji
The Tale of Genji is a novel by Japanese female writer Shishibe of the Heian period ("Monogatari" is a Japanese literary genre). "The Tale of Genji" is a masterpiece of classical literature in Japan, which has had a huge impact on the development of Japanese literature, is known as the peak of Japanese aesthetics and classical literature, and is the master of the two literary traditions of Song Monogatari and Legendary Monogatari, opening the era of "material mourning" in Japan. It is generally believed that the Tale of Genji was written between 1001 and 1008, so the Tale of Genji is also known as the world's earliest long-form realistic novel. Set against the backdrop of the heyday of Japan's Heian Dynasty, The Tale of Genji describes the life experiences and love stories of the protagonist, Genji, with a total of 54 times and nearly a million words. Including four generations of emperors, more than 70 years, more than 400 people involved, of which there are also 20 or 30 people with distinctive impressions. The characters are mainly upper-level nobles, but there are also middle- and lower-class nobles, palace women, maids and commoners. Depicting the Japanese social landscape during the Heian Kyo period, through genji's political ups and downs, spiritual outlook and daily life, exposing the complexity and change of human nature, the open and secret struggle in the palace shows the intricate power struggle within the court and the gathering and dispersion of the noble door valve family, depicts the disordered relationship between men and women within the court, meticulously and truly portrays the luxurious life of the upper nobility, reflects the cultural life and social background of the Heian period, and reflects the powerless position and suffering of women at that time.
The narrative structure of "The Tale of Genji" is a beaded string of single-line development, roughly in chronological order, connected through The Genji's chronology, this vertically extended structure makes the whole text clearly prioritized and clearly organized, without a sense of complexity, showing a simple, simple beauty. While implementing the aesthetic idea of "truth", we also created the Aesthetic Idea and Aesthetic Taste of "Thing Lamentation", which is Japanese-style tragic and romantic.
2. The Literary Tone of The Tale of Genji
1. "Makoto"
The aesthetic consciousness of "truth" in ancient Japan was conceived by the local traditional cultural thinking - primitive Shinto - a simple view of the present world, the universe and life. The Japanese document "Shinto Training" says that "Shinto is based on sincerity (まこと)", and the so-called "sincerity" here is "truth", which is a composite concept that contains concepts such as "true words", "true hearts", "real people", and "real things". The Sheian Dynasty women's literature, represented by the Tale of Genji, was created from the aesthetic point of view of "truth", pursuing the truth of human nature and also expressing the experience of beauty, that is, grasping the authenticity of both human nature and beauty, and while implementing the aesthetic idea of "truth", it also created the Japanese romantic and tragic idea of "material sorrow "thing mourning". Material mourning is not the meaning of sadness, sadness, sadness, sadness, but an emotion, an atmosphere, a situation and situation, is the fusion and communication between human beings and nature, and the environment, because of the feelings, feelings, feelings, feelings, feelings, or joy, or sadness, or fear, or anger, or longing for the synthesis of various emotions. "Material sorrow" is not a negative emotion, nor is it a decadent consciousness, but a person's cognition and feeling of all life, including all things, which is given an aesthetic orientation in Japanese literature and a moral orientation in the social sense.
2. "Pathoso" (pity of things)
The so-called "もののあわれ", where "もの" is "thing, thing", "の" is a helper, equivalent to "of, of", "あわれ" is actually a compound of two Japanese exclamation words ("あ" and "われ"). In ancient Japan, the original song "Abori (ああ)" and "Yo (われ)", which was composed of two exclamations, was originally used to express the sound of exclamations when people were moved, but because "あわれ" is homophonous with the Japanese chinese character "哀", it is expressed as "哀". Mourning is a human feeling, as the expression of human true feelings, and the aesthetic spirit of "truth" is in line. However, as an aesthetic category, "mourning" has a very deep perception at the spiritual level, and has many meanings in Japan such as pity, mourning, funny, and miserable, and the interpretation of "mourning" is: "All joys, sorrows, sorrows, and sorrows have feelings that arise from the heart", which is not equivalent to "sadness" in Chinese. At the same time, "mourning" is also hidden deep in people's hearts and feelings, and the subjective feelings of self-observation and self-observation and cognition of the objective environment are magnified, and the emotional push is shifted from emotional to erotic touching feelings. In this way, it is impossible to use only "mourning" to express the feelings, tastes and aesthetic concepts of subjective and objective integration and convergence in a complete and comprehensive way, so the auxiliary word "の" is added to connect the "thing" of the objective object with the "mourning" of the subjective feeling into a phrase "material sorrow". It can be said that the gradual transformation from "mourning" to "material mourning" means that the classical aesthetics embodied and contained in ancient Japanese literature have developed from the initial passive feelings to the observation and interest of spiritual and material interpenetration and interdependence.
In Japanese Monogatari works and literary criticism, "material lament" is a pure literary concept that does not contain moral judgment, religious ethics and value theory, and the mournful feelings contained in it have been tempered by art, and it is no longer helpless and sad to have no resistance to natural and foreign repression, but has sublimated into a unique sense of beauty, a pure aesthetic consciousness that stipulates the subjectivity and self-discipline of Japanese literature and art. Japanese literature, which is deeply influenced by "material mourning", has a delicate and emotional style of language and writing, is good at expressing the plain beauty of daily life, and in the midst of bland rush and pure quality, through the ambiguous expression of Japanese, pursues the subtle experience of emotional and spiritual, and reflects the thinking of social life. In literature, love and death are eternal themes, and the love between men and women is one of the important themes that are omnipresent, but in countries around the world, there are many themes that transcend the love of men and women, such as the brilliant enlightenment ideological works of the nineteenth century in France, the huge works of the four famous works in China, mostly based on social history, supported by strict moral ethics and philosophical concepts, etc. The scene is grand, spanning time and space, showing a relatively clear emotional orientation. And the concept of "material mourning" is deeply infiltrated in Japanese literature, "love" presents an overriding important position, the aesthetic ideological structure of "material mourning" can be divided into multiple levels, but the most important thing is people's feelings and touching, highlighting the mourning of male and female love, so Monogatari writes more about male and female romance, and waka is mostly love songs. Therefore, it can be said that after Zi Shibu's "The Tale of Genji", ancient Japanese aesthetic thought has completed the evolution from "mourning" to "material mourning".
Based on the theme of "material mourning", "The Tale of Genji" runs through a broader, more complex and profound aesthetic thought than "mourning". The whole book is permeated with a strong Buddhist ethic of impermanence and fatalistic thoughts of life, using karma and atonement consciousness to form the relationship between Genji and the main characters such as Kirito, Ziji, Fujun and Jijun, and Floating Boat, and some of them hope for happiness in the next life, some are reclusive, some are world-weary, some are monastic, and there is a causal relationship with their unrequited love, and by showing the "grievances" hidden in people's hearts, they give "material mourning" the function of condemning good and evil. "The Tale of Genji" devotes a great deal of space to the portrayal of women— such as Kirito, Zi Ji, Xi Yan, and others — with good faces and empathetic temperaments, but they are all ill-fated and tragic women. Kirito Changing, Barnacles, and Zi ji can be said to have replaced each other on the stage in turn, becoming important figures that influence the development of the storyline. Kirito changing clothes is a lead that leads to the beautiful little prince, the protagonist Genji, and the thought of the Kirito Emperor for the tongju changer leads to the barnacles who were recruited into the palace because of their resemblance to kirito changers. Barnacles' alienation from the Hikari clan, their unrequited love with Genji, and Hikari's admiration for barnacles lead to the story of Shihime.com. Barnacles are a dark line, and her relationship with Genji goes from dark to bright, and then leads to the bright line of Ziji and Genji that runs through the book.
The brushstrokes of the Purple Style Department give Zi Ji a beautiful appearance of all kinds of sinking fish and falling geese and closing the moon, and also depict her desolate and dim heart. No matter how perfect she is and how tolerable, she can't change Genji's abusive feelings after all. While she was jealous and fearful, she had to pretend to be calm and tolerant, and it was not until the end of her life that she could not bear to protest to Genji: "You are old and childish, more mercurial than before!" Teach me to be alone, so painful! "In the eyes of my loved ones, although as you said, my insignificant body has enjoyed excessive happiness." Who knew that I had always had unbearable pain in my heart? In this way, his words are also good, and his voice is also mournful, reflecting the bitterness and helplessness of life. Soon after, I saw that she was withering like a falling flower in extreme depression.
In "The Tale of Genji Monogatari", Zi Shibu uses various literary and artistic techniques to create various characters, best expressing the true existence and feelings of human beings, and discovering the beauty of creating "material sorrow" in the symbiosis of human nature and nature. The feeling and touching of "material grief" arises from "perceiving material mourning", showing the joy and sorrow of people's hearts and the wind of the world, sympathy and compassion for women, especially through the depiction of the unrequited love of men and women and the misfortune of women's lost love, more vividly revealing the feelings of "material sorrow". The Purple Style Department advocates that the literature of "material sorrow" should also truly reflect the human condition, and the novel should also have the function of "knowing the world". The Tale of Genji "records in detail the important things of the world"; "Since all the stories are written about the situation and state of the human world, reading it will naturally lead to a further understanding of everything in the world, of human behavior and psychology." Although she repeatedly confesses in the book that "the authors and women are like and dare not talk about the world's major events", in fact, by showing the rise and fall of Genji's glory and disgrace and the open struggle between the nobles, it is still inevitable to involve "the world's major events", but the writing techniques mostly use side descriptions and metaphors, without making specific and clear descriptions. The Genji mentioned in Zi Shibu's diary is almost indistinguishable from the personality, appearance, words and deeds, and circumstances of Ishu and Laitong, and the historical facts about these characters have become important material for her writing. According to Japanese scholars, the chapter on Genji's exile to Suma is based on the left migration of Ishu, the eldest son of Michitaka. The Tale of Genji faithfully depicts the reality of court life and aristocratic society in the Heian period.