Title The Kagerō diary : a woman's autobiographical text from tenth-century Japan / translated with an introduction and notes by Sonja Arntzen

Published Ann Arbor, Michigan : University of Michigan Press, 1997

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Description 1 online resource (xv, 415 pages) : illustrations Series Michigan Monograph Series in Japanese Studies ; no. 19 Michigan monograph series in Japanese studies ; no. 19. Contents Cover -- Title -- Copyright -- Contents -- List of Illustrations -- Preface -- Introduction -- The Kagerō Diary -- Book One -- Book Two -- Book Three -- The Poetry of Michitsuna's Mother -- Bibliography -- Index -- About the Author Summary Japan is the only country in the world where women writers laid the foundations of classical literature. The Kagero Diary commands our attention as the first extant work of that rich and brilliant tradition. The author, known to posterity as Michitsuna's Mother, a member of the middle-ranking aristocracy of the Heian period (794-1185), wrote an account of 20 years of her life (from 954-74), and this autobiographical text now gives readers access to a woman's experience of a thousand years ago. The diary centers on the author's relationship with her husband, Fujiwara Kaneie, her kinsman from a more powerful and prestigious branch of the family than her own. Their marriage ended in divorce, and one of the author's intentions seems to have been to write an anti-romance, one that could be subtitled, "I married the prince but we did not live happily ever after." Yet, particularly in the first part of the diary, Michitsuna's Mother is drawn to record those events and moments when the marriage did live up to a romantic ideal fostered by the Japanese tradition of love poetry. At the same time, she also seems to seek the freedom to live and write outside the romance myth and without a husband. Since the author was by inclination and talent a poet and lived in a time when poetry was a part of everyday social intercourse, her account of her life is shaped by a lyrical consciousness. The poems she records are crystalline moments of awareness that vividly recall the past. This new translation of the Kagero Diary conveys the long, fluid sentences, the complex polyphony of voices, and the floating temporality of the original. It also pays careful attention to the poems of the text, rendering as much as possible their complex imagery and open-ended quality. The translation is accompanied by running notes on facing pages and an introduction that places the work within the context of contemporary discussions regarding feminist literature and the genre of autobiography and provides detailed historical information and a description of the stylistic qualities of the text Bibliography Includes bibliographical references (pages 405-408) and index Notes Sponsored by National Endowment for the Humanities Description based on information from the publisher In Books at JSTOR: Open Access JSTOR Subject Michitsuna no Haha, approximately 935-995 -- Diaries SUBJECT Michitsuna no Haha, -- ca. 935-995 -- Diaries Michitsuna no Haha, approximately 935-995 fast Subject Authors, Japanese -- Heian period, 794-1185 -- Diaries SOCIAL SCIENCE / General Authors, Japanese -- Heian period Genre/Form autobiographies (literary works) Diaries Autobiographies. Autobiographies. Form Electronic book Author Arntzen, Sonja, 1945- translator. Michigan Publishing (University of Michigan), issuing body. ISBN 9780472127450 0472127454 9780472901401 0472901400 0939512807 9780939512805 0939512815 9780939512812

Other Titles Kagerō nikki. English

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