Murasaki Shikibu
Murasaki Shikibu ( Japanese 紫 式 部 ; bl. 990-1010) was a lady-in-waiting at the imperial court and a writer in Japan during the Heian period . She is the author of the Genji Monogatari ( Tales of Prince Genji ), the first major novel of the Eastern world and a masterpiece of classical Japanese and world literature.
origin of the name
The maiden name of Japan's first female novelist, like much of her life, is unknown. Instead, it was given the name Murasaki Shikibu (literally: violet of the ceremony ), the origin of which there are various theories.
What is certain is that she came from a less important, literary branch of the then powerful Fujiwara family and was called Tō no Shikibu ( 藤 の 式 部 ) at the beginning of her court life . The name Shikibu ( 式 部 ) was probably based on the fact that her father and later her brother held offices in the Ministry of Rites and Ceremonies, the Shikibu-shō .
The Kanji character 藤 , which is read in Sino-Japanese as tō , can also mean fuji in pure Japanese . This indicates Shikibu's descent from the Fujiwara family ( 藤原 ), as fuji is not only the first syllable of the family name, but also means " wisteria ", the family symbol of the Fujiwara family.
There are several theories about the origin of the name Murasaki : One says that the name refers to a well-known poem from the Kokinshū , which Emperor Ichijō (980-1011) referred to when he introduced Murasaki to the court. But it could also be derived from the flower color of the wisteria (which is also called "wisteria" because of its bluish-purple flowers), because Murasaki means violet or lavender . According to another, widespread theory, the name is said to come from her most famous work, the Genji Monogatari , in which the main female character is Murasaki (no) Ue ( 紫 上 ).
Life
Parentage and childhood
Today there are hardly any precise sources about the life of Murasaki Shikibu, which is why often only guesses can be made about her biography. One of the few clearly verifiable facts is that she was born in Heian-kyō (today's Kyōto ).
The year of birth is already uncertain, as information can be found 970 ( Tenroku 1), 973 ( Ten'en 1) or at the latest 978 ( Tengen 1). Murasaki could have been born in the house of her father Fujiwara no Tametoki (947–?) As well as in the house of her maternal grandfather, Fujiwara no Tamenobu, since it was not uncommon at the time for a woman to be in her family home for the birth of her child returned.
It is also unknown whether Murasaki's father was even married to her mother, also a Fujiwara, since he had children with another woman at the same time and polygamy was widespread among the nobility at the time. What is certain is that the couple had three children: Murasaki's older sister, Murasaki himself and her brother Nobunori (974-1011), whose mother is said to have died when he was born.
Murasaki seemed to have inherited a talent for writing from her mother, and on her father's side she also followed twelve ancestors who were extraordinarily gifted in literature and writing. Her great-grandfather Fujiwara no Kanesuke (877-933) was accepted as one of the Thirty-Six Immortals of Poetry , and her father was famous for his excellent command of Chinese writing.
The few available information about Murasaki's childhood and development come from isolated diary entries. It is conceivable that until 987, when her grandfather Tamenobu entered the priesthood, she grew up in his household and only then moved in with her father. However, this is contradicted by the fact that she and her brother were taught by their father in “Chinese studies” (literature and writing) in their childhood and Nobunori is said to have even surpassed them. At the time it was rather uncommon to give girls an extensive education, as a superficial knowledge of literature and art was considered sufficient. Therefore, the high level of education that Murasaki achieved by studying with her brother was outside the social norm.
Adult life
In 996, Murasaki's father became the administrator of Echizen Province (now Fukui Prefecture ). This offered Murasaki a rare opportunity to leave the capital at the time, since as a daughter from a good family she was forbidden to go on pure pleasure trips.
After about one and a half years Murasaki returned to Kyoto and married in 998 or 999 Fujiwara Nobutaka ( 藤原 宣 孝 , 952-1001), a fourth cousin who had grown children at the time of marriage. In 999 Murasaki gave birth to her daughter Kataiko (= Kenshi in the On reading ), who later became known as Daini (no) Sanmi ( 大 弐 三位 , 999-1077). (There are unconfirmed assumptions that Kataiko is said to have completed the Genji Monogatari after her mother's death .)
Murasaki's husband Nobutaka died in 1001, and she is said to have begun writing the Genji Monogatari in the autumn of that year .
Life at court (I)
On the 29th day of the twelfth month in the second year of Kankō ( 寛 弘二 ), so in the year 1005, Murasaki entered the service of Empress Jōtō-mon'in ( 上 東門 院 , 988-1074, also known as Fujiwara no Shoshi ), the daughter Michinagas.
Of course it was a great honor, and yet Murasaki was reluctant to leave and after a short time returned home. Life at court was not at all as she knew it from stories and had imagined, people were critical of her, even claimed that it was her father who thought up the plot of Genji Monogatari, that she should only be write down and decorate. But even when she was offended, hated and belittled by the other courtiers, at the request of the Empress herself, she remained in her service as lady-in-waiting. She also received the support of Emperor Ichijō, who thought she was so intelligent that he said she had certainly read the Nihongi , one of the two ancient historical works of Japanese history, written in Classical Chinese. The peculiarity of this was that in the Heian period women could neither read nor write Chinese, but instead used the so-called "women's script" ( onna-de ). Murasaki did, however, have the ability to read Chinese. However, there was another court writer who was known to be proficient in Chinese script, Sei Shonagon.
Fierce rivals - Murasaki Shikibu and Sei Shōnagon
Sei Shōnagon , the author of Makura no Sōshi (English: pillow book), knew about life at court, she was provocative and self-confident and also an excellent writer. The little stepsister Murasakis married an official who worked at the emperor's court. A plan which this official had drawn up had been commented on by him in such illegible writing that Sei Shōnagon took the liberty of making him a mockery at court by making a comment on her part. She also spoke ill of Fujiwara Nobutaka, who, as already mentioned, was Murasaki's late husband. Murasaki, whose knowledge of the Shōnagon's Chinese script must have been superior, only wrinkled her nose when she saw one of Shōnagon's writings. Nor did she utter a good word about her in her diary.
Another reason they disliked each other was that they served in the wake of different empresses. The first and therefore senior wife Ichijōs was Empress Sadako (or Teishi 定子 , 977–1000), in whose suite Sei Shōnagon was. At that time, however, it was the Fujiwara who were in power, most notably Fujiwara Michinaga, and when he managed to make his own daughter empress, he ensured that it was she who held the highest rank for a woman . This, of course, was a severe blow to Empress Sadako and her entourage, who were not exactly sympathetic to the new Empress and her entourage, to which Murasaki also belonged.
Life at court (II)
Murasaki spent a lot of time writing the Genji Monogatari, but also had to attend to her duties at court. She had to learn to play the koto , practice calligraphic writing, and entertain the empress. She instructed the empress not only in the works recommended by ministers and the emperor, but also secretly in collections of poems in which Murasaki saw the possibility of turning the empress into a woman with the highest moral ideas, which her father Michinaga greatly welcomed. In the autumn of 1008 she began the Murasaki Shikibu nikki 紫 式 部 日記 , which described her life at court and the time before and after the birth of Crown Prince Atsuhira ( 敦 成 親王 , Atsuhira-shinnō ), the later Go-Ichijō Tennō (1008-1036) , treated. In her diary she wrote down all her thoughts about events and events as well as her opinions about other ladies-in-waiting until the completion in the year 1010.
It is believed that Murasaki left the court for some time in 1011 as she too had to cope with the death of a loved one, that of her brother Nobunori. It is unclear when she returned to the court and how her life continued until her death.
After death
Just as uncertain as Murasaki Shikibu's year of birth is the year of her death, here 1014 (Chōwa 長 和 3), 1016 (Chōwa 5) or 1025 (Manju 万寿 2) is mentioned. The most likely year is 1016, as her father entered a Buddhist monastery that year . It is believed that this was due to his grief for Murasaki and her brother.
In the middle of the Kamakura period she was honored as one of the thirty-six female immortals in poetry and from the 12th century as one of the thirty-six immortals in medieval poetry .
Murasaki Shikibus grave is said to be south of the Byakugō-in, a monastery belonging to the Urin-in Kyōto, and west of the tomb of Takamura no Ono ( 篁 小野 , courtier, poet and scholar, 802-853).
The 2000 yen note put into circulation by the Japanese government from July 2000 shows a scene from Genji Monogatari on the back on the left and an artist's depiction of Murasaki Shikibu on the lower right.
literature
- Ivan Morris: The Shining Prince. Court life in ancient Japan (The world of the shining prince. Court life in ancient Japan, 1983). Insel Verlag, Frankfurt / M. 1988, ISBN 3-458-14361-0 .
Web links
- Literature by and about Murasaki Shikibu in the catalog of the German National Library
- Copy of Murasaki Shikibu nikki (Japanese)
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Murasaki Shikibu |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | 紫 式 部 (Japanese) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Lady-in-waiting and writer in Japan |
| DATE OF BIRTH | at 973 |
| DATE OF DEATH | around 1016 |