Approaches to Teaching Murasaki Shikibu's the Tale of Genji (Approaches to Teaching World Literature)

The Tale of Genji (Genji monogatari). by a woman called Murasaki Shikibu, is arguably the most important work of premodern Japanese fiction. A few of its predecessors in the monogatori (narrative tale) genre survive, as do many monogatori written in its shadow, but none had such widespread influence or ever claimed as central a place in the Japanese literary tradition, and none had become as well known outside Japan This life story in prose (with hundreds of embedded poems ) of a prince, his many loves, and the affairs of his children and grandchildren has been read, savored, and studied intensively and continuously, in a variety of ways, ever since portions of the text began to circulate at the court of Emperor Ichijo, around the beginning of the eleventh century. Genji's central importance dictates its position as a core text in almost any survey of premodern Japanese literature and its assured presence in broader syllabi covering Asian literature in general.