A Brief Introduction to the Heian Literature of Japan

I remember my very first visit to Japan’s old capital, Kyoto. I stood on a street mesmerised by the city, wondering how it had become so beautiful.

I like to get to the heart of things, and I believed I might find an answer to Kyoto’s breathtaking loveliness by turning to the translated classic literature which was written about a thousand years ago.

The literature of this era is at the very heart of Kyoto culture. These core texts are among the foundational pillars of Japanese literature, referenced over and over in Japanese arts such as Noh, kabuki, the geisha dances, kimono fabrics, seasonal tea ceremony sweets and ceramics, modern literature and poetry, and gardens.

The Heian era (794-1185) is Japan’s golden era. It was a prolonged period of peace and tranquility, which allowed the aristocracy to devote themselves to the perfection of beauty. This beauty was expressed through their poetry, their beautiful villas and seasonal gardens, the beautiful many-layered robes of the court ladies, and through their refined sensitivity to scent, and so on.

The empresses of the Imperial Court created salons of highly educated women with which to surround themselves, and many of these women created diaries, poetry, and in one very special case a novel. It is through these pieces that were written for the entertainment of the court that we are able to glimpse the rarified world in which they lived.

The Heian nobility were hugely skilful at creating poetry. Nobles of the court were very much judged on their ability to write. It was necessary to have an encyclopaedic knowledge of classical Chinese verse to reference in the poetry, and it was crucial to reference the change in the seasons too.

This was the aristocratic social communication of the age, where everything about the letter portrayed the sender’s exquisite taste: the choice and colour and scent of beautiful papers, the poem itself, and the choice of flower with which to attach to the letter when folded and knotted.

Servants criss-crossed the city carrying love letters attached to symbolic seasonal flowers – in spring it might be branches of cherry blossom. The receiver of the letter was expected to send a poetry response immediately, as the servant waited. In an era where a court lady spent her life screened from the male gaze, her ability to quickly respond to a love poem described much of her personality and education.

In this way, literature was at the heart of Heian court society. The highly-educated ladies of the court were not allowed to learn the language of learning which was Chinese, and so their written work evolved around the Japanese script of hiragana. We are fortunate that so many of their observations about court life a thousand years ago are available for us to read in brilliant English translations.

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Genji Monogatari - The Tale of Genji

The most dazzling work of Heian fiction is The Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu.

The Tale of Genji is a fictionalised account of life at the Kyoto court, set about fifty years before Murasaki served the Empress Shōshi there as lady in waiting.

The central protagonist is Hikaru Genji – Shining Genji – a prince born to an Emperor’s favourite concubine. Much of the opening chapter of Genji brings in allusions to the classical Chinese poem ‘The Song of Unending Sorrow’ by Tang dynasty poet Bai Juyi.

Hikaru Genji is a dazzling prince with many abilities which would make him the perfect Emperor, but he will never accede to the imperial throne owing to the circumstances of his birth.

Earlier in the novel, Genji is banished from his beloved Heian-Kyō (modern-day Kyoto), but later restored to the city, where he creates his splendid villa at Rokujō-in. The four residences of the villa each have a garden which celebrates one of the four seasons.

Here, Genji installs the ladies who mean the most to him: the Akashi Lady, mother of Genji’s little daughter, who lives in the Winter quarter; Akikonomu, the daughter of the Rokujou Haven, and former Ise Priestess, who lives in the Autumn quarter; Genji’s beloved wife Murasaki who lives in the Spring quarter; and Hanachirusato, consort to Genji’s father the Emperor, who dwells in the Summer quarter.

The novel is underpinned by the changing seasons, in a similar way to the Heian imperial anthology of poetry known as the Kokin Wakashuu, which lists its collection of poems according to the subtle adjustment of the seasons as spring turns into summer, and so on.

The novel follows Genji in his youth through his many love affairs, and later through his deep attachment to his wife, the Lady Murasaki. These attachments are precisely what cause him great difficulty in his final days, as within his Buddhist belief, relationships are what have tied him to the mundane world and hinder him from crossing over the floating bridge of dreams to the next world of the Pure Land. Many of the novel’s characters aspire to the Buddhist afterlife – it is a deep seam which underpins the story.

By reading the novel, we see many aspects of ancient Kyoto life, including the court ladies attending the Aoi festival of Kamigamo and Shimogamo Shrines in Kyoto. The festival calendar was of huge importance to these ladies who lived most of their lives within the palace. They travelled to the festivals in ox-drawn carriages, obscured by screens, artfully draping the sleeves of their magnificent and costly juunihitoe beyond the fine reed blinds.

Many of the dances and festivals that we read about in The Tale of Genji are still a huge part of the Kyoto calendar today.

Many of the city streets that were originally established in reference to the ancient capital of China, Ch’ang’an (modern day Xi’an), still exist too.

In The Tale of Genji we can see many of the shrines and temples which still surround the city, and their importance to Kyoto and to the court.

In January I visited Kamigamo Shrine to see the Musha Jinji, the Heian archery. There are so many connections in modern Kyoto to the old capital of the past.

The Tale of Genji features many waka poems which add lustre and depth of meaning to the narrative. It is an extraordinary work of art and it is of huge significance to Japanese culture.

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Makura no Sōshi - The Pillow Book

The Pillow Book, written by Sei Shōnagon, is another work of huge significance to Japanese literature. Sei Shōnagon was a contemporary of Murasaki Shikibu’s in the same Kyoto court, but she served Empress Teishi, who was the High Consort to Emperor Ichijō.

This work is a fascinating series of lists, observations, and anecdotes, from which you catch a charming glimpse of the ancient Kyoto court. It is a wonderful companion book to Genji.

If you break off a branch of splendidly flowering cherry and arrange it in a large flower vase, the effect is delightful. And it’s particularly charming if a gentleman, be it one of Her Majesty’s brothers or a normal guest, is seated nearby engaged in conversation, wearing a cloak in the cherry-blossom combination with undersleeves displayed.

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Ise Monogatari - The Tales of Ise

The Tales of Ise is a collection of Heian-era poetry which is at the very heart of Japanese literature. Over one hundred poems describe different aspects of love – reciprocated, unrequited, forbidden, and friendship - with the famous real-life poet Ariwara no Narihira featuring often as the protagonist. He is understood to have been the author of many of the waka poems.

The Tales of Ise was composed earlier than The Tale of Genji, and Ariwara no Narihira is mentioned with respect in the novel: an inspiration to Murasaki Shikibu. As an elegant, fine-looking man with imperial lineage, and the brilliance to write fine poetry, Ariwara no Narihira may have been an inspiration to Murasaki for Prince Genji himself.

Long ago, the man’s life in the capital became too difficult to bear, so he set off towards the east. As he was walking along the beach on the border between Ise and Owari provinces, he saw the white waves rising and composed a poem:

The further I travel,

the more I long for the place

from whence I have come.

How I envy the ebbing waves,

returning home.

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The Ink Dark Moon

The Ink Dark Moon is a wonderful modern collection of poetry featuring the passionate, devastating love poetry of two Heian ladies of fierce intellect: Ono no Komachi and Izumi Shikibu.

Ono no Komachi:

I thought to pick

the flower of forgetting

for myself,

but I found it

already growing in his heart.

Izumi Shikibu:

Time passes,

a man forgets

and no longer comes;

yet still

I depend on his promises.

These two famous poets are still connected to the city: Ono no Komachi is celebrated at the plum blossom festival at Zuishi-in Temple where she once lived.

At Kyoto's summer festival the Gion Matsuri, a float named Hosho Yama celebrates the romance between court noblemen Yasumasa Hirai and Izumi Shikibu. The float features the scene where Yamasa breaks a branch from a plum tree at the imperial palace to give to Izumi Shikibu.

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The Diaries

We are fortunate that several court ladies, including Murasaki Shikibu created diaries, called nikki in Japanese. These personal journals were not read to gatherings at court for entertainment but are private writings which often detail the private sorrows of court women condemned to yearn for the visit of an otherwise engaged lover. The aching loneliness and the slow passage of time is very evident in the lives of these court women.

The Diary of Murasaki Shikibu

We know, by reading The Diary of Murasaki Shikibu, that she was a well-regarded lady of the Empress Shōshi’s salon at court.

There are many wonderful insights in her Diary, and we even learn her nickname! The quote below hinges on the name of the beloved wife of her fictional character Prince Genji, who is also called Murasaki (it is a shade of imperial purple in Japanese).

In Murasaki Shikibu’s Diary we get to see her caustic personality and withering responses sometimes!

Major Counsellor Kinto poked his head in.

‘Excuse me,’ he said. ‘Would our little Murasaki be in attendance by any chance?’

‘I cannot see the likes of Genji here, so how could she be present?’ I replied.

In the Diary we can catch a tantalising glimpse of the Empress helping to produce Murasaki’s great novel, and the Emperor gifting her writing supplies.

Then while I was in attendance, His Excellency sneaked into my room and found a copy of the Tale that I had asked someone to bring from home for safekeeping. It seems that he gave the whole thing to his second daughter. I no longer had the fair copy in my possession and was sure that the version he now had with her would hurt my reputation.

In Murasaki Shikibu’s great novel The Tale of Genji we see the importance of stories and writing to the ladies of the court. They helped to pass the long days:

The long rains were worse this year than most, and to get through the endless wet the ladies amused themselves day and night with illustrated tales. The lady from Akashi made up some very nicely and sent them to her daughter. This sort of thing particularly intrigued the young lady in the west wing, who therefore gave herself all day long to copying and reading. She had several young gentlewomen suitably gifted to satisfy this interest.

Izumi Shikibu Nikki – the Diary of Izumi Shikibu

Izumi Shikibu is regarded as an extraordinarily gifted poet. Her diary records the poems which were shared between her and her lover, the Prince Atsumichi, and offers us a window onto a rarified, glittering world.

Their relationship, once discovered, caused a great scandal at court causing Izumi Shikibu to marry and move far away. When she was called back to the court a few years later, she served as a lady-in-waiting alongside Murasaki Shikibu.

Once it snowed heavily and he sent me a poem attached to a branch covered with snow:

Snow falls,

And on all the branches

Plum flowers are in bloom,

Though it is not yet spring.

I wrote back:

Thinking the plum flowers were in bloom

I broke the branch,

And snow scattered like flowers.

Sarashina Nikki - The Sarashina Diary

The Sarashina Diary opens with a young girl, the eponymous Lady Sarashina,  passionate in her desire to read The Tale of Genji, and desperate to live in the capital Heian-Kyou, modern-day Kyoto:

I was brought up in a part of the country so remote that it lies beyond the end of the Great East Road. What an uncouth creature I must have been in those days! Yet even shut away in the provinces I somehow came to hear that the world contained things known as tales, and from that moment my greatest desire was to read them for myself.

To idle away the time, my sister, my stepmother, and others in the household would tell me stories from the Tales, including episodes about Genji, the Shining Prince; but, since they had to depend on their memories, they could not possibly tell me all I wanted to know and their stories only made me more curious than ever.

In my impatience I got a statue of the Healing Buddha built in my own size. When no one was watching, I would perform my ablutions and, stealing into the altar room, would prostrate myself and pray fervently. ‘Oh, please arrange things so that we may soon go to the Capital, where there are so many Tales, and please let me read them all.’

Lady Sarashina was born just after Sei Shōnagon’s Pillow Book was completed, and at a time when Murasaki Shikibu was still writing her novel The Tale of Genji. When she writes of her frustration in her journal, the novel must still be quite new.

Kagero Nikki

Lady Sarashina’s writing follows family precedent: the earlier Kagero Nikki was written by her mother’s sister, known only as Michitsuna no Haha (mother of Michitsuna). Also known as The Gossamer Years, this diary is an autobiographical account of a Heian noblewoman and her frustration within her marriage to a Fujiwara nobleman, as she records her indignation at her rival wives and concubines.

The diary opens with our lady receiving a letter, in a scene that is typical of the Heian aristocracy. Here we can see, in an era when noblewomen were screened from the male gaze, just how much information is gleaned from a letter:

I shall not touch upon the frivolous love notes I had received from time to time. Now the Prince was beginning to send messages. Most men would have gone through a suitable intermediary, a lady in waiting perhaps, but he went directly to my father with hints, possibly half-joking at first, that he would like to marry me; and even after I had indicated how inappropriate I found the idea he sent a mounted messenger to pound on my gate. I scarcely needed to ask who it was.

With the house in an uproar, I finally had to take the message, though I would have preferred to refuse it. My women only became noisier.

It consisted of but one verse: ‘Sad am I, ‘mid talk about the warbler. May not I too hear its voice?’

The paper was rather unbecoming for such an occasion, I thought, and the handwriting was astonishingly bad. Having heard that he was a most accomplished penman, I wondered indeed whether he might not have had someone else write it.

I was half-inclined not to answer, but my mother insisted that a letter from such a gentleman was not to be ignored, and finally I sent off a return poem: ‘Let no bird waste its song in the wilderness where it finds no answer.’

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Heike Monogatari – The Tale of the Heike

The Heian era – a prolonged period of peace and tranquility – explodes with the advent of rival clans and samurai warfare. The Heike is a dazzling tale, which famously begins with the tolling of the great Buddhist Jetavana temple bell, in a poem which foreshadows how the arrogant and mighty will fall.

It precedes a narrative which is at once poetry, then prose, which describes the downfall of the mighty Heike clan in Kyoto, and the ascendancy of the samurai Genji clan in Kamakura.

Many of the breathtaking scenes and characters in the Tale have been captured in other Japanese artforms such as Noh and kabuki.

One notable lady is Tomoe, a formidable samurai archer serving Minamoto no Yoshinaka:

With her lovely white skin and long hair, Tomoe had enchanting looks.

An archer of rare strength, a powerful warrior,

And on foot or on horseback a swordsman to face any demon or god,

She was a fighter to stand alone against a thousand.

She could ride the wildest horse down the steepest slope.

In battle, kiso clad her in the finest armor,

Equipped her with a great sword and a mighty bow,

And charged her with the attack on the opposing commander.

She won such repeated glory that none could stand beside her.

The Heike Monogatari is similar to The Iliad in its violent and unflinching depiction of war.

And we see the beautiful old capital on fire, then abandoned and decaying:

Anyone could watch, before his eyes,

A brilliant city once in full flower

Dull, alas, to vacant wasteland.

This wonderful literature affords us an incredible window into the glittering world of the Heian Kyoto court – and its downfall.

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In subsequent generations there are literary works created in Japan which closely emulate The Tale of Genji. Written a hundred years after the end of the Heian era, Towazugatari, The Confessions of Lady Nijō is a wonderful book written in this style, which details the agony and suffering of courtly romance.

Through reading these extraordinary literary works we catch a dazzling glimpse of how Kyoto used to be.

Across Kyoto we can walk the same streets and visit the same shrines, temples, and festivals where these people and characters walked a thousand years ago. The books help us to understand that many of the arts which the Heian nobles perfected laid the foundation for the exquisite beauty that is so much at the heart of Kyoto today.

Cathy x

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Sources

Murasaki Shikibu, (translated by Royall Tyler), The Tale of Genji, (Penguin Classics, 2001), p.460.

Murasaki Shikibu, (translated by Richard Bowring), The Diary of Lady Murasaki, (Penguin Classics, 2005), pp.31 and 33.

Sei Shōnagon, (translated by Meredith McKinney), The Pillow Book, (Penguin Classics, 2006), p.6

Anonymous, (translated by Peter Macmillan), The Tales of Ise, (Penguin Classics, 2016), Poem 7: The Returning Waves.

Ono no Komachi and Izumi Shikibu, (translated by Jane Hirshfield with Mariko Aratani), The Ink Dark Moon, (Vintage, 1990), p.22 and p.61.

Izumi Shikibu, (translated by Annie Shepley Omori and Kōchi Doi), Heian Court Heroines: Izumi Shikibu Nikki, (Toyo Press, 2019), p.118.

Lady Sarashina, (translated by Ivan Morris), As I Crossed a Bridge of Dreams: Recollections of a Woman in Eleventh-Century Japan, (Penguin Classics, 1971), p.31.

Michitsuna no Haha, (translated by Edward Seidensticker), The Gossamer Years: The Diary of a Noblewoman of Heian Japan, (Tuttle Publishing, 1964), pp.33-34 .