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How the ladies of eleventh Century China had enough freedom to write the Very First novel.
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Landmarks of World Literature (New)
Murasaki Shikibu: The Tale of Genji - A Student Guide
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Murasaki Shikibu's The Tale of Genji, written in Japan in the early eleventh century, is acknowledged to be one of Japan's greatest literary achievements, and sometimes thought of as the world's first novel. This introduction to the Genji sketches its cultural background, offers detailed analysis of the text, including language and style, and ends by tracing the history of its reception through nine centuries of cultural change. This book will be useful for survey courses in Japanese and world literature.
122 pages, Paperback
First published April 28,1988
This edition
- Format
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122 pages, Paperback
- Published
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November 10, 2003 by Cambridge University Press
- ISBN
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9780521539753
- ASIN
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0521539757
- Language
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English
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I didn't really enjoy this book. I know it's a classic work (which I don't usually enjoy, actually) of Japanese literature that is recognized for shining a light into the lives of nobles. I didn't like the treatment of women in this book. By today's standards, this book is not good to women. There's even a part in here where men gossip about their failed love lives. One man regales his companions about a story of a woman who wasn't affectionate enough when he was feigning disinterest to catch her eye, so he ignored her harder and she died of what he thought was a broken heart. The next woman he talked about showed too much interest in him and he dumped her. The treatment of women didn't really improve throughout. This is a classic work I could have been happy to live without and am glad that the version I read was extremely abridged.
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A good, thorough, workaday introduction to what you need to know to start reading Genji fruitfully.
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