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| the tale of genji royall tyler: The Tale of Genji Murasaki Shikibu, 2006-02-28 An abridged edition of the world’s first novel, in a translation that is “likely to be the definitive edition . . . for many years to come” (The Wall Street Journal) A Penguin Classic Written in the eleventh century, this exquisite portrait of courtly life in medieval Japan is widely celebrated as the world’s first novel—and is certainly one of its finest. Genji, the Shining Prince, is the son of an emperor. He is a passionate character whose tempestuous nature, family circumstances, love affairs, alliances, and shifting political fortunes form the core of this magnificent epic. Royall Tyler’s superior translation is detailed, poetic, and superbly true to the Japanese original while allowing the modern reader to appreciate it as a contemporary treasure. In this deftly abridged edition, Tyler focuses on the early chapters, which vividly evoke Genji as a young man and leave him at his first moment of triumph. This edition also includes detailed notes, glossaries, character lists, and chronologies. |
| the tale of genji royall tyler: 源氏物語 紫式部, 2007-06 |
| the tale of genji royall tyler: The Disaster of the Third Princess Royall Tyler, 2009-06-01 These seven essays by the most recent English translator of The Tale of Genji emphasize three major interpretive issues. What is the place of the hero (Hikaru Genji) in the work? What story gives the narrative underlying continuity and form? And how does the closing section of the tale (especially the ten 'Uji chapters') relate to what precedes it? Written over a period of nine years, the essays suggest fresh, thought-provoking perspectives on Japan¿s greatest literary classic. |
| the tale of genji royall tyler: The Miracles of the Kasuga Deity Royall Tyler, 2016-04-05 In this annotated translation and study of an early fourteenth-century Japanese devotional picture scroll set, Royall Tyler illuminates the complex relationships between medieval Japanese religion and politics, text, and art. The Kasuga Gongen genki (The Miracles of the Kasuga Deity) mingles text and painting on silk to tell the tale of miraculous events at the Kasuga shrine in Nara, a site favored by the dominant Fujiwara clan for centuries. The work's values are aristocratic, but the text sheds light on the syncretic nature of the era's religious practices, allowing Tyler to collapse the distinction between high and low forms of medieval Japanese religion. Tyler provides a detailed examination of the scrolls, the shrine, and their history and political role. He also elucidates the scrolls' relationship to literary genre and religious practice, including the interaction between Shintoism and Buddhism. His copious annotations describe the work's historical context, as well as its religious and cultural influences. This study is essential for scholars of religion, art historians, and cultural historians alike. |
| the tale of genji royall tyler: Japanese No Dramas , 1992-10-29 Japanese nõ theatre or the drama of 'perfected art' flourished in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries largely through the genius of the dramatist Zeami. An intricate fusion of music, dance, mask, costume and language, the dramas address many subjects, but the idea of 'form' is more central than 'meaning' and their structure is always ritualized. Selected for their literary merit, the twenty-four plays in this volume dramatize such ideas as the relationship between men and the gods, brother and sister, parent and child, lover and beloved, and the power of greed and desire. Revered in Japan as a cultural treasure, the spiritual and sensuous beauty of these works has been a profound influence for English-speaking artists including W. B. Yeats, Ezra Pound and Benjamin Britten. |
| the tale of genji royall tyler: The Tale of Genji Melissa McCormick, 2018-11-06 Written in the eleventh century by the Japanese noblewoman Murasaki Shikibu, The Tale of Genji is a masterpiece of prose and poetry that is widely considered the world's first novel. Melissa McCormick provides a unique companion to Murasaki's tale that combines discussions of all fifty-four of its chapters with paintings and calligraphy from the Genji Album (1510) in the Harvard Art Museums, the oldest dated set of Genji illustrations known to exist. In this book, the album's colorful painting and calligraphy leaves are fully reproduced for the first time, followed by McCormick's insightful essays that analyze the Genji story and the album's unique combinations of word and image. This stunning compendium also includes English translations and Japanese transcriptions of the album's calligraphy, enabling a holistic experience of the work for readers today. In an introduction to the volume, McCormick tells the fascinating stories of the individuals who created the Genji Album in the sixteenth century, from the famous court painter who executed the paintings and the aristocrats who brushed the calligraphy to the work's warrior patrons and the poet-scholars who acted as their intermediaries. Beautifully illustrated, this book serves as an invaluable guide for readers interested in The Tale of Genji, Japanese literature, and the captivating visual world of Japan's most celebrated work of fiction. |
| the tale of genji royall tyler: The Ise Stories , 2010-07-31 Ise monogatari is one of classical Japan’s most important texts. It influenced other literary court romances like The Tale of Genji and inspired artists, playwrights, and poets throughout Japanese history and to the present day. In a series of 125 loosely connected episodes, the Ise tells the story of a famous lover, Captain Ariwara no Narihira (825–880), and his romantic encounters with women throughout Japan. Each episode centers on an exchange of love poems designed to demonstrate wit, sensitivity, and courtliness. Joshua Mostow and Royall Tyler present a fresh, contemporary translation of this classic work, together with a substantial commentary for each episode. The commentary explores how the text has been read in the past and identifies not only the point of each episode, but also the full range of historical interpretations, many of which shaped the use of the Ise in later literary and visual arts. The book includes reproductions from a version of the 1608 Saga-bon printed edition of the Ise, the volume that established Ise iconography for the entire Edo period (1600–1868). |
| the tale of genji royall tyler: The Tale of Genji Murasaki Shikibu, 2002-11-26 The world’s first novel, in a translation that is “likely to be the definitive edition . . . for many years to come” (The Wall Street Journal) The inspiration behind The Metropolitan Museum of Art's The Tale of Genji: A Japanese Classic Illuminated -- Now through June 16 at The Met Fifth Avenue A Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition, with flaps and deckle-edged paper Written in the eleventh century, this exquisite portrait of courtly life in medieval Japan is widely celebrated as the world’s first novel. Genji, the Shining Prince, is the son of an emperor. He is a passionate character whose tempestuous nature, family circumstances, love affairs, alliances, and shifting political fortunes form the core of this magnificent epic. Royall Tyler’s superior translation is detailed, poetic, and superbly true to the Japanese original while allowing the modern reader to appreciate it as a contemporary treasure. Supplemented with detailed notes, glossaries, character lists, and chronologies to help the reader navigate the multigenerational narrative, this comprehensive edition presents this ancient tale in the grand style that it deserves. |
| the tale of genji royall tyler: Reading the Tale of Genji Thomas J. Harper, Haruo Shirane, 2015 A textual history of the reception, canonization, and popularization of Japan's premier literary text. |
| the tale of genji royall tyler: The Diary of Lady Murasaki Murasaki Shikibu, 1996-03-07 The Diary recorded by Lady Murasaki (c. 973-c. 1020), author of The Tale of Genji, is an intimate picture of her life as tutor and companion to the young Empress Shoshi. Told in a series of vignettes, it offers revealing glimpses of the Japanese imperial palace - the auspicious birth of a prince, rivalries between the Emperor's consorts, with sharp criticism of Murasaki's fellow ladies-in-waiting and drunken courtiers, and telling remarks about the timid Empress and her powerful father, Michinaga. The Diary is also a work of great subtlety and intense personal reflection, as Murasaki makes penetrating insights into human psychology - her pragmatic observations always balanced by an exquisite and pensive melancholy. |
| the tale of genji royall tyler: The Tale of Genji Michael Emmerich, 2013-10-01 Michael Emmerich thoroughly revises the conventional narrative of the early modern and modern history of The Tale of Genji. Exploring iterations of the work from the 1830s to the 1950s, he demonstrates how translations and the global circulation of discourse they inspired turned The Tale of Genji into a widely read classic, reframing our understanding of its significance and influence and of the processes that have canonized the text. Emmerich begins with an analysis of the lavishly produced best seller Nise Murasaki inaka Genji (A Fraudulent Murasaki's Bumpkin Genji, 1829–1842), an adaptation of Genji written and designed by Ryutei Tanehiko, with pictures by the great print artist Utagawa Kunisada. He argues that this work introduced Genji to a popular Japanese audience and created a new mode of reading. He then considers movable-type editions of Inaka Genji from 1888 to 1928, connecting trends in print technology and publishing to larger developments in national literature and showing how the one-time best seller became obsolete. The study subsequently traces Genji's reemergence as a classic on a global scale, following its acceptance into the canon of world literature before the text gained popularity in Japan. It concludes with Genji's becoming a national classic during World War II and reviews an important postwar challenge to reading the work after it attained this status. Through his sustained critique, Emmerich upends scholarship on Japan's preeminent classic while remaking theories of world literature, continuity, and community. |
| the tale of genji royall tyler: The World of the Shining Prince Ivan Morris, 2013-05-21 Ivan Morris’s definitive and widely acclaimed portrait of the ceremonious and melancholy world of ancient Japan. • A book which should delight anyone interested in Japan.” —The New York Times Book Review Using The Tale of Genji and other major literary works from Japan’s Heian period as a frame of reference, The World of the Shining Prince recreates an era when women set the cultural tone. Focusing on the world of the emperor’s court—a world deeply admired by Virginia Woolf, among others—renowned scholar of Japanese history and literature Ivan Morris explores the politics, society, religious life, and superstitions of the period. Offering readers detailed portrayals of the daily lives of courtiers, the cult of beauty they espoused, and the intricate relations between the men and women of the age, The World of the Shining Prince has been a cornerstone text on ancient Japan for half a century. |
| the tale of genji royall tyler: Pining Wind , 1978 |
| the tale of genji royall tyler: Envisioning the Tale of Genji Haruo Shirane, 2008 Bringing together scholars from across the world, Haruo Shirane presents a fascinating portrait of The Tale of Genji's reception and reproduction over the past thousand years. The essays examine the canonization of the work from the late Heian through the medieval, Edo, Meiji, Taisho, Showa, and Heisei periods, revealing its profound influence on a variety of genres and fields, including modern nation building. They also consider parody, pastiche, and re-creation of the text in various popular and mass media. Since the Genji was written by a woman for female readers, contributors also take up the issue of gender and cultural authority, looking at the novel's function as a symbol of Heian court culture and as an important tool in women's education. Throughout the volume, scholars discuss achievements in visualization, from screen painting and woodblock prints to manga and anime. Taking up such recurrent themes as cultural nostalgia, eroticism, and gender, this book is the most comprehensive history of the reception of The Tale of Genji to date, both in the country of its origin and throughout the world. |
| the tale of genji royall tyler: Figures of Resistance Richard H. Okada, 1991-10-18 In this revisionist study of texts from the mid-Heian period in Japan, H. Richard Okada offers new readings of three well-known tales: The Tale of the Bamboo-cutter, The Tale of Ise, and The Tale of Genji. Okada contends that the cultural and gendered significance of these works has been distorted by previous commentaries and translations belonging to the larger patriarchal and colonialist discourse of Western civilization. He goes on to suggest that this universalist discourse, which silences the feminine aspects of these texts and subsumes their writing in misapplied Western canonical literary terms, is sanctioned and maintained by the discipline of Japanese literature. Okada develops a highly original and sophisticated reading strategy that demonstrates how readers might understand texts belonging to a different time and place without being complicit in their assimilation to categories derived from Western literary traditions. The author’s reading stratgey is based on the texts’ own resistance to modes of analysis that employ such Western canonical terms as novel, lyric, and third-person narrative. Emphasis is also given to the distinctive cultural circles, as well as socio-political and genealogical circumstances that surrounded the emergence of the texts. Indispensable readings for specialists in literature, cultural studies, and Japanese literature and history, Figures of Resistance will also appeal to general readers interested in the problems and complexities of studying another culture. |
| the tale of genji royall tyler: The Tale of Genji Murasaki Shikibu, 1926 |
| the tale of genji royall tyler: Ochikubo Monogatari or The Tale of the Lady Ochikubo Wilfrid Whitehouse, 2010-10-18 The Tale of the Lady Ochikubo dates from the last quarter of the tenth century. It is therefore one of the earliest of that long line of monogatari which are a special part of Japanese literature from the Heian Era. Ochikubo is the first novel: here for the first time is a vivid and realistic chronicle of life, related with a wealth of natural dialogue. In no story of the Heian Era are there so few poems or an absence of descriptions of the beauties of nature. The author keeps close to the human story he is chronicling. It is also the first novel to attempt any kind of characterisation. As a whole, the novel is of outstanding importance in the history of Japanese literature. |
| the tale of genji royall tyler: A String of Flowers, Untied . . . Murasaki Shikibu, 2001-12-01 Expressions of passion and heartbreak, written by Murasaki Shikibu 1,000 years ago, transcend time and culture in this new translation of the poetry in the first 33 chapters of The Tale of Genji. It is the relationship between the novel's characters and the poetry that creates the beauty and sustained erotic tone of Lady Murasaki's story. For the first time, these 400+ poems are presented in the increasingly popular format of tanka (5-7-5-7-7), along with extended notes that reveal the hidden details and depth of meaning in Murasaki's real and fictional worlds. |
| the tale of genji royall tyler: Juniper & Thorn Ava Reid, 2024-10-23T00:00:00+02:00 Marlinchen e le sue sorelle sono le ultime vere streghe di Oblya, una città in cui la magia sta lasciando posto all’industria. Considerate poco più che un’attrazione per turisti, trascorrono le giornate curando clienti con rimedi arcaici e incantesimi nostalgici, mentre tentano di ammansire il padre, uno stregone tirannico e xenofobo, che tiene le figlie rinchiuse nella casa fatiscente. Di notte, però, riescono a sfuggire alla casa e al padre per godersi i palpiti della città, in particolare il teatro del balletto di nuova apertura, dove Marlinchen incontra un ballerino che le catturerà il cuore. A mano a mano che i loro incontri notturni si fanno più intesi e frequenti, però, la minaccia dell’ira del padre si fa più incombente. E mentre la città prospera, qualcosa di mostruoso si cela nel suo ventre, nato dall’intolleranza e dal risentimento, soffuso del potere di un mondo antico. |
| the tale of genji royall tyler: The Tale of the Heike , 1975 The Tale of the Heike is one of the masterworks of Japanese literature, ranking with The Tale of Genji in quality and prestige. Familiar in Japan for generations, first through oral narration and later through the printed page, this fourteenth-century reworking of traditional materials tells the story of the decline and final military defeat of the mighty house of Taira, reporting battlefield exploits in vivid detail, chronicling the fates of high-born ladies and other helpless victims of the times with delicate lyricism, and introducing humorous passages to leaven the comberness of the theme articulated in its famous opening lines: 'The sound of the Gion Shoja bells color of the sala flowers reveals the truth that the prosperous must decline. The proud do not endure, thay are like a dream on a spring night; the mighty fall at last, they are as dust before the wind.' The translation is not only far more readable than earlier ones, it is also much more faithful to the content and style of the original, especially in preserving the evidence of oral narration. Intended for the general audience as well as the specialist, this edition is lightly annotated, but includes three appendixes that give background information, a chronology, and an evaluation of the Heike as literature. There is also a glossary of persons, places, and terms. Illustrations consist of a color frontispiece, about fifteen prints from fourteenth- and fifteenth-century manuscripts, and two maps. --publisher description. |
| the tale of genji royall tyler: Diaries of Court Ladies of Old Japan Murasaki Shikibu, Izumi Shikibu, 1920 |
| the tale of genji royall tyler: The Father-Daughter Plot Rebecca L. Copeland, Esperanza Ramirez-Christensen, 2001-07-31 This provocative collection of essays is a comprehensive study of the father-daughter dynamic in Japanese female literary experience. Its contributors examine the ways in which women have been placed politically, ideologically, and symbolically as daughters in a culture that venerates the father. They weigh the impact that this daughterly position has had on both the performance and production of women's writing from the classical period to the present. Conjoining the classical and the modern with a unified theme reveals an important continuum in female authorship-a historical approach often ignored by scholars. The essays devoted to the literature of the classical period discuss canonical texts in a new light, offering important feminist readings that challenge existing scholarship, while those dedicated to modern writers introduce readers to little-known texts with translations and readings that are engaging and original. Contributors: Tomoko Aoyama, Sonja Arntzen, Janice Brown, Rebecca L. Copeland, Midori McKeon, Eileen Mikals-Adachi, Joshua S. Mostow, Sharalyn Orbaugh, Esperanza Ramirez-Christensen, Edith Sarra, Atsuko Sasaki, Ann Sherif. |
| the tale of genji royall tyler: Their Promised Land Ian Buruma, 2016-01-19 A family history of surpassing beauty and power: Ian Buruma’s account of his grandparents’ enduring love through the terror and separation of two world wars During the almost six years England was at war with Nazi Germany, Winifred and Bernard Schlesinger, Ian Buruma’s grandparents, and the film director John Schlesinger's parents, were, like so many others, thoroughly sundered from each other. Their only recourse was to write letters back and forth. And write they did, often every day. In a way they were just picking up where they left off in 1918, at the end of their first long separation because of the Great War that swept Bernard away to some of Europe’s bloodiest battlefields. The thousands of letters between them were part of an inheritance that ultimately came into the hands of their grandson, Ian Buruma. Now, in a labor of love that is also a powerful act of artistic creation, Ian Buruma has woven his own voice in with theirs to provide the context and counterpoint necessary to bring to life, not just a remarkable marriage, but a class, and an age. Winifred and Bernard inherited the high European cultural ideals and attitudes that came of being born into prosperous German-Jewish émigré families. To young Ian, who would visit from Holland every Christmas, they seemed the very essence of England, their spacious Berkshire estate the model of genteel English country life at its most pleasant and refined. It wasn’t until years later that he discovered how much more there was to the story. At its heart, Their Promised Land is the story of cultural assimilation. The Schlesingers were very British in the way their relatives in Germany were very German, until Hitler destroyed that option. The problems of being Jewish and facing anti-Semitism even in the country they loved were met with a kind of stoic discretion. But they showed solidarity when it mattered most. As the shadows of war lengthened again, the Schlesingers mounted a remarkable effort, which Ian Buruma describes movingly, to rescue twelve Jewish children from the Nazis and see to their upkeep in England. Many are the books that do bad marriages justice; precious few books take readers inside a good marriage. In Their Promised Land, Buruma has done just that; introducing us to a couple whose love was sustaining through the darkest hours of the century. Look for Ian's new book, A Tokyo Romance, in March, 2018. |
| the tale of genji royall tyler: The Tale of Genji Mitsuoki Tosa, 2001 The Tale of Genji has provided endless inspiration for Japanese painters throughout the centuries. Widely held to be the first novel ever written, its story of the amorous adventures of the shining prince Genji and of the elaborate and highly ordered court culture of the Heian era was written by Murasaki Shikibu shortly after 1000 A.D., during a period of rich cultural flourishing. Presented here is a series of paintings illustrating the tale, bringing to life the events of this classic work. The fifty-four images - illustrating one chapter each - date from the mid-seventeenth century and were executed by an artist trained in the traditional Tosa school of painting. Surrounded by gilded clouds, these graceful paintings shimmer with uncommon beauty and delicacy. Their small dimensions (they measure just over five inches square) and lyrical colors call to mind the miniature illuminated manuscripts of medieval Europe. Roofs are entirely removed from houses to reveal small, doll-like figures within. Delicate flowers and plants suggest the seasons of the year. Miyeko Murase's introduction examines the paintings within the context of the history of Genji illustrations, providing insight into the evolution of the techniques and conventions employed by the artist. An overview of the tale that inspired them and of Murasaki Shikibu, its author, is also provided. Commentaries on each of the images describe the scene depicted and summarize, in brief, the key events from the tale.--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved |
| the tale of genji royall tyler: Japanese Ghost Stories Lafcadio Hearn, 2008 |
| the tale of genji royall tyler: The Madonnas of Echo Park Brando Skyhorse, 2011-02-08 We slipped into this country like thieves, onto the land that once was ours. With these words, spoken by an illegal Mexican day laborer, The Madonnas of Echo Park takes us into the unseen world of Los Angeles, following the men and women who cook the meals, clean the homes, and struggle to lose their ethnic identity in the pursuit of the American dream. When a dozen or so girls and mothers gather on an Echo Park street corner to act out a scene from a Madonna music video, they find themselves caught in the crossfire of a drive-by shooting. In the aftermath, Aurora Esperanza grows distant from her mother, Felicia, who as a housekeeper in the Hollywood Hills establishes a unique relationship with a detached housewife. The Esperanzas’ shifting lives connect with those of various members of their neighborhood. A day laborer trolls the streets for work with men half his age and witnesses a murder that pits his morality against his illegal status; a religious hypocrite gets her comeuppance when she meets the Virgin Mary at a bus stop on Sunset Boulevard; a typical bus route turns violent when cultures and egos collide in the night, with devastating results; and Aurora goes on a journey through her gentrified childhood neighborhood in a quest to discover her own history and her place in the land that all Mexican Americans dream of, the land that belongs to us again. Like the Academy Award–winning film Crash, The Madonnas of Echo Park follows the intersections of its characters and cultures in Los Angeles. In the footsteps of Junot Díaz and Sherman Alexie, Brando Skyhorse in his debut novel gives voice to one neighborhood in Los Angeles with an astonishing— and unforgettable—lyrical power. |
| the tale of genji royall tyler: The Narrow Road to the Deep North and Other Travel Sketches Matsuo Basho, 1967-02-28 'It was with awe That I beheld Fresh leaves, green leaves, Bright in the sun' In his perfectly crafted haiku poems, Basho described the natural world with great simplicity and delicacy of feeling. When he composed The Narrow Road to the Deep North, he was an ardent student of Zen Buddhism, setting off on a series of travels designed to strip away the trappings of the material world and bring spiritual enlightenment. He wrote of the seasons changin, of the smells of the rain, the brightness of the moon, and beauty of the waterfall, through which he sense mysteries of the universe. There’s seventeenth-century travel writing not only chronicle Basho's perilous journeys through Japan, but they also capture his vision of eternity in the transient world around him. In his lucid translation Nobuyuki Yuasa captures the Lyrical qualities of Basho's poetry and prose by using the natural rhythms and language of the contemporary speech. IN his introduction, he examines the development of the haibun style in which poetry and prose stand side by side. this edition also includes maps and notes on the texts. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators. |
| the tale of genji royall tyler: Samurai Rising Pamela S. Turner, 2018-03-13 Minamoto Yoshitsune should not have been a samurai. But his story is legend in this real-life saga. This epic warrior tale reads like a novel, but this is the true story of the greatest samurai in Japanese history. When Yoshitsune was just a baby, his father went to war with a rival samurai family—and lost. His father was killed, his mother captured, and his surviving half-brother banished. Yoshitsune was sent away to live in a monastery. Skinny, small, and unskilled in the warrior arts, he nevertheless escaped and learned the ways of the samurai. When the time came for the Minamoto clan to rise up against their enemies, Yoshitsune answered the call. His daring feats and impossible bravery earned him immortality. |
| the tale of genji royall tyler: A History of East Asia Charles Holcombe, 2017-01-11 The second edition of Charles Holcombe's acclaimed introduction to East Asian history from the dawn of history to the twenty-first century. |
| the tale of genji royall tyler: Nobility and Civility Wm. Theodore de Bary, 2009-07-01 Globalization has become an inescapable fact of contemporary life. Some leaders, in both the East and the West, believe that human rights are culture-bound and that liberal democracy is essentially Western, inapplicable to the non-Western world. How can civilized life be preserved and issues of human rights and civil society be addressed if the material forces dominating world affairs are allowed to run blindly, uncontrolled by any cross-cultural consensus on how human values can be given effective expression and direction? In a thoughtful meditation ranging widely over several civilizations and historical eras, Wm. Theodore de Bary argues that the concepts of leadership and public morality in the major Asian traditions offer a valuable perspective on humanizing the globalization process. Turning to the classic ideals of the Buddhist, Hindu, Confucian, and Japanese traditions, he investigates the nature of true leadership and its relation to learning, virtue, and education in human governance; the role in society of the public intellectual; and the responsibilities of those in power in creating and maintaining civil society. De Bary recognizes that throughout history ideals have always come up against messy human complications. Still, he finds in the exploration and affirmation of common values a worthy attempt to grapple with persistent human dilemmas across the globe. |
| the tale of genji royall tyler: The Tale of Genji Scroll , 1971 The tale of Genji scroll is a free visual recreation in which a number of isolated scenes from Murasaki's novel are represented. |
| the tale of genji royall tyler: The Golden Lotus Volume 2 Lanling Xiaoxiaosheng, 2011-11-10 The greatest novel of physical love which China has produced. —Pearl S. Buck A saga of ruthless ambition, murder, and lust, The Golden Lotus (Jin Ping Mei) has been called the fifth Great Classical Novel in Chinese literature and one of the Four Masterworks of the Ming novel. Admired in its own time for its literary qualities and biting indictment of the immorality and cruelty of its age, it has also been denigrated as a dirty book for its sexual frankness. It centers on Ximen Qing, a wealthy, young, dissolute, and politically connected merchant, and his marriage to a fifth wife, Pan Jinlian, literally Golden Lotus. In her desire to influence her husband and, through him, control the other wives, concubines, and entire household, she uses sex as her main weapon. The Golden Lotus lays bare the rivalries within this wealthy family while chronicling its rise and fall. It fields a host of vivid characters, each seeking advantage in a corrupt world. The author of The Golden Lotus is Lanling Xiaoxiaosheng, whose name, a pseudonym, means Scoffing Scholar of Lanling. His great work, written in the late Ming but set in the Song Dynasty, is a virtuoso collection of voices and vices, mixing in poetry and song and sampling different social registers, from popular ballads to the language of bureaucrats, in order to recreate and comment mordantly on the society of the time. This edition features a new introduction by Robert Hegel of Washington University, who situates the novel for contemporary readers and explains its greatness as the first single-authored novel in the Chinese tradition. This translation contains the complete, unexpurgated text as translated by Clement Egerton with the assistance of Shu Qingchun, later known as Lao She, one of the most prominent Chinese writers of the twentieth century. The translation has been pinyinized and corrected. |
| the tale of genji royall tyler: Red Brick, Black Mountain, White Clay Christopher Benfey, 2013-02-26 Beautiful, haunted, evocative and so open to where memory takes you. I kept thinking that this is the book that I have waited for: where objects, and poetry intertwine. Just wonderful and completely sui generis. (Edmund de Waal, author of The Hare with Amber Eyes) An unforgettable voyage across the reaches of America and the depths of memory, this generational memoir of one incredible family reveals America’s unique craft tradition. In Red Brick, Black Mountain, White Clay, renowned critic Christopher Benfey shares stories—of his mother’s upbringing in rural North Carolina among centuries-old folk potteries; of his father’s escape from Nazi Europe; of his great-aunt and -uncle Josef and Anni Albers, famed Bauhaus artists exiled at Black Mountain College—unearthing an ancestry, and an aesthetic, that is quintessentially American. With the grace of a novelist and the eye of a historian, Benfey threads these stories together into a radiant and mesmerizing harmony. |
| the tale of genji royall tyler: A Reading of the Tale of Genji Royall Tyler, 2016-05-08 The seven essays in this book present an in-depth reading of The Tale of Genji. They are entitled Genji and Murasaki: Between Love and Pride; Genji and Suzaku: The Disaster of the Third Princess; Genji and Suzaku: The Possibility of Ukifune; Genji and the Luck of the Sea; Pity Poor Kaoru; Two Post-Genji Tales on The Tale of Genji; and Feminine Veils over Visions of the Male. |
| the tale of genji royall tyler: The Tale of Genji Murasaki Shikibu, 2006-01-31 The world’s first novel, in a translation that is “likely to be the definitive edition . . . for many years to come” (The Wall Street Journal) A Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition, with flaps and deckle-edged paper Written in the eleventh century, this exquisite portrait of courtly life in medieval Japan is widely celebrated as the world’s first novel. Genji, the Shining Prince, is the son of an emperor. He is a passionate character whose tempestuous nature, family circumstances, love affairs, alliances, and shifting political fortunes form the core of this magnificent epic. Royall Tyler’s superior translation is detailed, poetic, and superbly true to the Japanese original while allowing the modern reader to appreciate it as a contemporary treasure. Supplemented with detailed notes, glossaries, character lists, and chronologies to help the reader navigate the multigenerational narrative, this comprehensive edition presents this ancient tale in the grand style that it deserves. |
| the tale of genji royall tyler: The Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon Sei Shonagon, Arthur Waley, 2013-10 This is a new release of the original 1928 edition. |
| the tale of genji royall tyler: Down in the City Elizabeth Harrower, 2013-10-23 Esther Prescott has seen little of life outside her wealthy family's Rose Bay mansion—until flashy Stan Peterson comes roaring up the drive in his huge American car and barges into her life. Within a fortnight they are living in his Kings Cross flat. Moody and erratic, proud of his well-bred wife yet bitterly resentful of her privilege, Stan is involved with his former girlfriend and a series of shady business deals. Esther, innocent and desperate to please him, must endure his controlling ways. This story of a troubled and obsessive marriage, set against the backdrop of postwar Sydney, is devastating. First published in 1957, Down in the City announced Elizabeth Harrower as a major Australian writer. |
| the tale of genji royall tyler: The Arabian Nights: Nights 1 to 294 , 2010 When the beautiful Shahrazad gives herself to the bloody-handed King Shahriyar, she is not expected to survive beyond dawn. But using all her wit and guile, she begins a sequence of stories that will last 1001 nights: stories of jinns and blind men, warriors and princesses, viziers and magical palaces, and wonderful talking birds. This volume also includes the well-known tales of Sindbad the Sailor Along with this landmark new translation, Robert Irwin's introduction examines the history and provenance of the Nights, the different uses of the works - from ethnographic source to storytelling celebration - and the varied translations through the years. This edition also contains a glossary and maps.--Jacket. |
| the tale of genji royall tyler: Seeds in the Heart Donald Keene, 1998-08 Donald Keene employs his prodigious wealth of knowledge, critical insight, and narrative aplomb to guide readers through the first nine hundred years of Japanese literature -- a period that not only defined the unique properties of Japanese prosody and prose but also produced some of its greatest works. Covering courtly fiction, Buddhist writings, war tales, diaries, poems, and more, Seeds in the Heart explores a vast and variegated treasury of writings. Detailed textual examinations of classic texts -- from the Kojiki to The Tale of Genji, from The Pillow Book of Sei Shnagon to Zeami's N plays -- allow students, lay readers, and scholars a new understanding and enjoyment of this great literature. |
TALE Definition & Meaning - Merriam-Webster
The meaning of TALE is a usually imaginative narrative of an event : story. How to use tale in a sentence.
TALE | English meaning - Cambridge Dictionary
TALE definition: 1. a story, especially one that might be invented or difficult to believe: 2. a story, especially…. Learn more.
TALE Definition & Meaning | Dictionary.com
Tale definition: a narrative that relates the details of some real or imaginary event, incident, or case; story.. See examples of TALE used in a sentence.
TALE definition and meaning | Collins English Dictionary
A tale is a story, often involving magic or exciting events. ...a collection of stories, poems and folk tales. ...the tales of King Arthur and his Round Table.
Tale - definition of tale by The Free Dictionary
1. a narrative that relates some real or imaginary incident; story. 2. a literary composition in the form of such a narrative. 3. a falsehood; lie. 4. a malicious rumor. 5. Archaic. enumeration; …
tale noun - Definition, pictures, pronunciation and usage notes ...
Definition of tale noun from the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary. a story created using the imagination, especially one that is full of action and adventure. tale of something The story is a …
tale - Wiktionary, the free dictionary
Mar 31, 2025 · tale (plural tales) A rehearsal of what has occurred; narrative; discourse; statement; history; story.
What does tale mean? - Definitions.net
A tale is a narrative or story, often involving fictional, folkloric, or mythical elements, that is told or written for the purpose of entertainment, moral instruction, or the preservation of a cultural …
tale - WordReference.com Dictionary of English
tale (tāl), n. a narrative that relates the details of some real or imaginary event, incident, or case; story: a tale about Lincoln's dog. a literary composition having the form of such a narrative. a …
Tale Definition & Meaning | YourDictionary
Tale definition: A recital of events or happenings; a report or revelation.
TALE Definition & Meaning - Merriam-Webster
The meaning of TALE is a usually imaginative narrative of an event : story. How to use tale in a sentence.
TALE | English meaning - Cambridge Dictionary
TALE definition: 1. a story, especially one that might be invented or difficult to believe: 2. a story, especially…. Learn more.
TALE Definition & Meaning | Dictionary.com
Tale definition: a narrative that relates the details of some real or imaginary event, incident, or case; story.. See examples of TALE used in a sentence.
TALE definition and meaning | Collins English Dictionary
A tale is a story, often involving magic or exciting events. ...a collection of stories, poems and folk tales. ...the tales of King Arthur and his Round Table.
Tale - definition of tale by The Free Dictionary
1. a narrative that relates some real or imaginary incident; story. 2. a literary composition in the form of such a narrative. 3. a falsehood; lie. 4. a malicious rumor. 5. Archaic. enumeration; …
tale noun - Definition, pictures, pronunciation and usage notes ...
Definition of tale noun from the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary. a story created using the imagination, especially one that is full of action and adventure. tale of something The story is a …
tale - Wiktionary, the free dictionary
Mar 31, 2025 · tale (plural tales) A rehearsal of what has occurred; narrative; discourse; statement; history; story.
What does tale mean? - Definitions.net
A tale is a narrative or story, often involving fictional, folkloric, or mythical elements, that is told or written for the purpose of entertainment, moral instruction, or the preservation of a cultural …
tale - WordReference.com Dictionary of English
tale (tāl), n. a narrative that relates the details of some real or imaginary event, incident, or case; story: a tale about Lincoln's dog. a literary composition having the form of such a narrative. a …
Tale Definition & Meaning | YourDictionary
Tale definition: A recital of events or happenings; a report or revelation.
