Seeing / Poetry / Ise monogatari

Nara period and earlier

Kojiki (Record of ancient matters)
Manyôshû (Anthology of ten thousand leaves)

Heian (classical) period

Kokin shû (Anthology of ancient and modern poetry)
Ise monogatari (Tales of Ise)

1. The Power of Seeing/Naming in Kojiki (Record of ancient matters)

a. Creation myth
i. Japan = divine space
ii. place names

b. Visit to the world of the dead
i. death = pollution
ii. seeing = power

2. The Power of Seeing in Manyôshû (Anthology of ten thousand leaves)

Waka Poetry and kunimi 国見 (land-gazing)

3. The power of poetry in the kanajo 仮名序 (Japanese preface) to Kokin shû (Anthology of ancient and modern poetry)

i. poetry is an inevitable, natural expression of human emotion

ii. it can influence/regulate the world (the gods, angry warriors, etc.)

iii. it is the way that men and women communicate with one another

4. Seeing in Ise monogatari (Tales of Ise)

• Ise monogatari is an uta monogatari - poems and tales made up to contextualize poems

• The poems and stories are unrelated, but linked together in a roughly biographical order

• There are 125 episodes

• Many of the poems are attributedto Ariwara no Narihira (825-880), a courtier, poet, and famous lover, and so sometimes Ise monogatari is thought to be semi-biographical (except it isn't). Some say he's the model for Hikaru Genji, the hero of the Tale of Genji, mostly because of episode 69.

i. Episode 1

a. miyabi (elegance) 雅--here, a lover's impulsive beautiful gesture
b. kaimaimi ("peering through a gap") 垣間

ii. Iconography of the Ise monogatari

Ise monogatari has inspired artists for centuries. Most notable are the woodblock print versions of 1608 by the studio of Hon'ami Kôetsu.(see Stanley-Baker, pp. 161-3). We also saw the Rimpa (Ôgata Kôrin) versions of the "Yatsuhashi irises" episode (i.e. Episode 9).

Famous illustrated episodes:

6 Akutagawa River
9 Yatsuhashi, Mount Suruga
12 Musashi Plain
23 Well-curb
69 Ise priestess

Ise monogatari also figures in visual culture through drama. We will read the medieval Noh play version of Episode 23, the Well-curb.