Much of “The Tale of Genji,” the eleventh-century Japanese masterpiece often called the world’s first novel, is about the art of seduction. Not that any sexual act is ever mentioned; very little in Murasaki Shikibu’s prose is plainly stated. Things are suggested, alluded to, often nebulously. What counts in the seduction scenes is the art, the poetry. Quite literally so: the proper approach to a desired lady was through poems, written on scented paper of the finest quality, delivered by an elegantly dressed go-between of appropriate social rank. More poems would be exchanged as soon as the approach bore fruit. A “morning after” poem was an essential part of etiquette.

One reason that physical contact between men and women is hardly ever described in “Genji” is that courtly lovers almost never saw one another clearly, and certainly not naked; full nudity is rare even in traditional Japanese erotic art. Women of the upper class sat hidden in murky rooms, behind curtains, screens, and sliding doors. For a respectable woman to be seen in daylight, especially standing up, instead of reclining in an interior, under many layers of clothing, would have been provocative beyond belief. Women were shielded by curtains even when they spoke to male members of their own family. A male suitor could be driven wild by the sight of a woman’s sleeve spilling out from underneath a shade, or by the mere sound of silk rustling behind a lacquer screen.

Despite all these obstacles, people must have managed somehow. Indeed, “The Tale of Genji”—now available in a new translation by Dennis Washburn (Norton)—makes clear that the noble gentlemen and ladies in the Heian period (794-1185) were often remarkably promiscuous. Highborn men, like the fictional Prince Genji, the priapic hero of Murasaki’s episodic tale, were expected to have several wives and many concubines. Genji, also known as the Shining Prince, marries his first wife when he is twelve, immediately following his coming-of-age ceremony. Casual affairs with court attendants and ladies-in-waiting were one of the perks of an aristocrat’s life. So were other, more discreet forms of adultery. Genji, when still very young, has a passionate affair with his father’s mistress. Much later, Genji’s son, the high-minded Yugiri, grows infatuated with one of Genji’s wives. And both father and son lust after Tamakazura, a young girl whom Genji has adopted as his daughter.

Little wonder that even emperors were not always sure who their real fathers were. This was a particular sore point in the militantly imperialist nineteen-thirties, when the novelist Junichiro Tanizaki wrote a modern Japanese translation of “Genji.” As a result, he excised references to an emperor who was thought to be in the direct imperial bloodline but was actually the product of Genji’s illicit affair with his father’s mistress.

The main thing required of a noble gentleman was a sense of style. Seducing another man’s wife could be forgiven; a bad poem, clumsy handwriting, or the wrong perfume could not. Ivan Morris, the great scholar of Japanese culture, wrote in his book “The World of the Shining Prince” that, despite the influence of Buddhism, “Heian society was on the whole governed by style rather than by any moral principles, and good looks tended to take the place of virtue.”

I’m not sure this is exactly right. Because of the Buddhist belief in rebirth, beauty, in all its forms, was seen as a sign of virtue in a former existence. To have lovely handwriting, or a talent for poetry, was a mark of good character, in a former life as well as in the present one. A priest in “Genji” describes a young woman as follows: “She really is quite beautiful, isn’t she! No doubt she was born with such features as a reward for good deeds performed in a previous life.” Prince Genji himself is described as cutting “such an attractive figure that the other men felt a desire to see him as a woman. He was so beautiful that pairing him with the very finest of the ladies at the court would fail to do him justice.”

It was, as all this suggests, a rather effete culture. The aristocratic ideal of male beauty—highly perfumed, moon-faced, smooth-skinned, extravagantly dressed—was close to the feminine ideal. A distinct air of decadence during the peak of the Heian period also suggests the approaching end of a regime, a world, in Genji’s words, “where everything seems to be in a state of decline.”

Less than two hundred years later, the self-obsessed nobility of the Heian court, distracted by the rituals and refinements of palace politics, oblivious of the world outside the capital, and mostly bored out of their minds, were overwhelmed by more vigorous provincial clans, notably the samurai, with their warrior codes and martial ideals. But in Genji’s time, the early eleventh century, the imperial capital (today’s Kyoto) still held sway; anyone unlucky enough to live in the provinces was considered too uncouth to be taken seriously.

The sense of style was intimately linked to a sense of hierarchy. Everything, from the right of way on a public road to the permissible colors of one’s garments or the chance to be a nobleman’s wife (instead of a mere concubine), was subject to one’s place in the pecking order. And this, too, was linked to karma: high rank was a virtue earned by good behavior in a previous life. In such ways do ruling classes justify their privilege.

The politics that permeate the novel show that sexual relations were not just part of an elaborate libertine game but also a matter of ruthless practical strategy. Heian politics were really marriage politics. Formally, Japan was ruled by emperors, but real power was exercised, in large part, behind the scenes by the Fujiwara clan. This depended on daughters of the Fujiwara family marrying imperial princes, some of whom would one day be emperors. The Fujiwaras were thus able to exert control over the throne and to rule the country, or at least those parts of the country within reach of the imperial capital.

Lady Murasaki—not her real name; her sobriquet was the name of Genji’s great love—was born into a minor branch of the Fujiwara clan. Her father was a provincial governor, who, unusually for the time, passed on his deep knowledge of Chinese literature to his bookish daughter. Normally, only men wrote in Chinese, as a sign of superior status, while women confined themselves to Japanese. This explains why the first writers of literary prose in Japanese were highborn women, as were their readers. The famous “Pillow Book,” a collection of musings by the court lady Sei Shonagon, was written at more or less the same time as “The Tale of Genji.”

Not much is known about Murasaki’s life. Her father’s position was neither grand nor secure enough to put her into the highest circles. She married late; her husband was a much older man, and Murasaki was probably not his most privileged wife. The story goes that she began writing her novel after he died. Although her middling rank would have excluded her from court circles, her literary reputation gave her an entrée into the empress’s salon, where she often felt out of place. A sense of being on the fringes of society, as has been the case with so many writers since, sharpened her observations. Murasaki watched the sexual maneuverings, the social plots, the marital politics, the swirl of slights and flatteries that went on around her, with the keen, sometimes sardonic, and always worldly eyes of a medieval Jane Austen. Her Buddhist view of life’s fleeting nature and the vanity of human affairs added a dash of melancholy to her ornate aristocratic prose.