

the complete review - literary studies

The Tale of Genji

Translation, Canonization,

and World Literature



by

Michael Emmerich



general information | our review | links | about the author

Translation, Canonization, and World Literature

With 122 illustrations

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Our Assessment:



B+ : detailed and thorough; interesting and well-presented case-study

See our review for fuller assessment.

The complete review 's Review :

Murasaki Shikibu's eleventh-century novel, Genji monogatari (源氏物語) -- The Tale of Genji --, is, of course, the Japanese classic. On any shortlist of canonical world-literature texts, the obvious foundational text of Japanese literature, and of similar national importance as, say, Shakespeare is to English literature, or Goethe to the German. Except that, as Michael Emmerich argues in his slightly confusingly identically titled study, the path that has led to its current prëeminent rank wasn't nearly as obvious or as straightforward as it now might seem. Genji monogatari [as I will refer to the text from now on, to differentiate it from the title of Emmerich's book] always had a place in Japanese literature, and it continued to be read and studied, but until relatively recently its reputation and significance were nowhere near the level they are now (in part also because no one seems to have thought about literary texts that way in Japan until more recent times).

The original, 'real' Genji monogatari, written in classical Japanese, remains relatively inaccessible to contemporary readers -- maybe somewhere between the original Beowulf and The Canterbury Tales, to try to compare what it's like for English-speaking readers. The Genji monogatari -texts that are published and read in Japan are, in fact, translations -- modern versions for the contemporary reader (and Emmerich counts: "over ninety partial or complete modern-Japanese translations" published between 1888 and the present). And, as Emmerich argues, the 'original' text:

is not really being "received" all that much even in Japan. Vastly more important than "the text" and its reception are its replacements: translations [...] that are read instead of the (unknown and unknowable) original.

[Hiragana (and the similar katakana, generally used for the transcription of foreign words) resembles the alphabet, and with its 48 characters (plus easily understood functional/diacritical-mark variations) hiragana allows any word to be, essentially 'spelled out'; hence it is much easier to read than texts that involve kanji (based on the Chinese characters), of which there are thousands -- indeed, it is not unusual for at least some kanji in texts to be glossed with hiragana for easier understanding.]

In its new guise as a typeset book, however, the Inaka Genji had become less an elegant, sophisticated, and material replacement than a textual rewriting of Genji monogatari that no longer functioned very well as a replacement because it no longer possessed the qualities that originally had made it so attractive and entertaining as a gōkan.

I have encountered any number of people who praise Genji monogatari. But only two of the writers I associate with actually read the work (even setting aside the question of whether they understood or enjoyed it)

I don't think Genji monogatari itself is all that great a work. [...] No one would praise Genji monogatari if you wrote it today.

The continuing presence of Waley in this endless whirl of discourse, and the almost total erasure of Suematsu, indicates once again that when we talk about Genji, we are always calling on certain images of the tale and excluding others.

The German translation is notable for its cover, which may well be the ugliest and most disturbing artwork ever created on a Genji theme.

- M.A.Orthofer, 17 March 2014

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About the Author :

Michael Emmerich, born in 1975, has translated numerous works from the Japanese. He teaches at UCLA.

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