pmjs logs for October 1999. Total number of messages for month: 218

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Most of the threads in this month have long been available in the public archives. As a rule, only the opening question is included here. The links in bold lead to the individual pages where these threads can be read in full.

Even after omitting these long threads, and simplifying headers and footers, this page is the equivalent of over 75 printed pages.

Here are some of the topics included in the logs below, with links for those that led to an exchange.

Lightly edited (see "principles"). Editorial comments in italics.

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(1) the list's name
(2) subject line of messages
(3) Web page for bibliography
(4) members database
(5) new members
(6) self-introductions

(1) the list's name

It has been wonderful the way the list has taken off. This week I've enjoyed taking a back seat and watching the discussions bloom. I decided it was best to hold my peace and listen to what members thought about the issue of the list's name, tempted as I was at times to intervene and say (in my usual flippant way) "I'm happy to change the name. Let's add a hyphen to 'premodern'!"

Unrepentant as I am about the name, I do admit that when making the icon
(see our home page), I couldn't come up with a convincing Japanese
equivalent and simply used the lame and inaccurate "nihon kenkyu." Any suggestions?

(2) subject line of messages

If you've looked at the archives (http://pmjs.listbot.com), you will have seen how messages are nicely stored by date, but the "ichiranhyo/list" does not display the author of messages. It would help if we would all change the subject of messages to something that reflects its contents. There have been rather too many messages titled "intro" or "here we are" but dealing with mono-no-ke. Sorry to be boring but it would help...

(3) Web page for bibliography

Not all of you use the Web as frequently as e-mail, I suspect. However for those who do, Web pages offer a convenient place to store and access information that has been exchanged in the course of our discussions. Chris Drake commented off-list about the problem of bibliographic information being exchanged in a "piecemeal" manner. Absolutely. We've all had the experience of seeing an interesting reference in online discussions but not making a note of it at the time, then not being able to find it later when we actually find we need it some time later. As mentioned before, I have begun a running list of references that are mentioned, either in self-introductions or in our online discussions:

http://www.meijigakuin.ac.jp/~watson/pmjs-db2.html

I plan to add other items that have come to my attention. The emphasis will be on new and noteworthy items, both books and articles. I've started us off with some recent publication by PMJS members:

Brazell, Karen, ed. Traditional Japanese Theater: An Anthology of Plays. Columbia University Press, 1998.

Kornicki, Peter. The Book in Japan: A Cultural History from the Beginnings to the Nineteenth Century. Handbuch der Orientalistik/Handbook of Oriental Studies. Vol. 7. Leiden, Boston, Cologne: Brill, 1998.

I'll add italics but do not intend to tidy up references more than I have to, so it would help if they are reasonably complete.

When works are reviewed, it might be helpful to add a short note to that effect. I've seen this done in a Tokyo University newsletter in Medieval English studies, but never in our field. Wouldn't it be handy?
Yang, X. Jie and Sonya Arntzen, kanaCLASSIC...
Reviewed by Aileen Gatten (MN 54.3, 1999)...
Again, I will have to rely on others for information about reviews. Some of us don't get to see the full range of journals in the field.

(4) MEMBERS DATABASE

The database of members' names and self-introductions was mentioned earlier.
It's now just about up to date. The alphabetical list of names is at http://www.meijigakuin.ac.jp/~pmjs/pmjs-db.html
but I had last minute cold feet about the idea of including e-mail addresses and have left them out

Rather than an "opt-out" system, I thought it prudent to have you "opt in" if you want your e-mail address included on this public page. When you submit a comment or self-intro. to the list, it would help if you
could add:
P.S. include/do not include my e-mail address in the database
Or write to me directly to that effect. If I don't hear from you, your address will only be distributed to other list members (i.e. in a message stored in the closed archive). All very mendokusai/bothersome I know, but I thought it best to respect people's privacy, even if it involves more work.

The good news is that nearly half the names listed are BLUE, i.e. clicking one will lead to that person's self-introduction. So many of you have now provided good self-introductions. While there is no obligation to provide one, they _are_ appreciated and help us all to know who we are talking to/listening to. Feel free to update/emend the information about yourself (minor changes offlist to watson@k.meijigakuin.ac.jp).

(5) NEW MEMBERS

New members include
Doris Bargen
John Schmitt-Weigand
and two graduate students of Susan Klein's
Sherri Bayouth
Daniel Coble

Michael

From: Royall Tyler
Date: Fri, 1 Oct 1999 19:57:29 +1000
Subject: Medical matter

First, my apologies to all about Don Juan. Suddenly I'm not sure anyone even mentioned him. I must have seen a ghost.

At the beginning of "Sawarabi" the Ajari sends Nakanokimi a basket of sawarabi, bracken shoots. I have a lot of bracken on my place, and we spray as much of it as we can. Bracken is poisonous. In all phases of its life, from shoot to dead leaf, it contains an extremely toxic compound, though in low concentration. We pray whenever we see our animals nibble at it, as they occasionally do. Cattle that eat a lot of bracken may die of it, though on beef cattle farms this is seldom a problem because the stock are not around long enough. It is a cumulative poison.

So you can imagine my feelings when the Ajari sends Nakanokimi that basket. Think of warabi mochi, sansai, and so on.

Does anyone know anything about this?

Royall Tyler

See http://www.meijigakuin.ac.jp/~pmjs/archive/1999/arch02.html for the remainder of this thread. Discussants: Michael Watson, Christina Laffin, Reinhard Zoellner, Hank Glassman, David Pollack, David Olson, Gary Cadwallader, Tom Harper

From: David Lurie
Date: Sat, 2 Oct 1999 17:05:48 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: self introduction

David Lurie

I am a PhD. candidate in Classical Japanese Literature (see the brief explanatory note below) at Columbia University, currently studying at the University of Tokyo. My dissertation is a history of Japanese writing systems through the 8th century, with a particular focus on the emergence of kanbun kundoku and its connection to the inscription of Japanese texts in works like the Kojiki and the Man'yoshu.

[remainder of message archived in "naming" thread]

From: Karen Brazell
Date: Fri, 01 Oct 1999 20:36:58 -0700
Subject: Japanese Theater Archives

If there are any of you who have pictures (or know someone who does) of traditional Japanese performing arts (including modern adaptations, or fusion theater events) which you have the copyright to and are interested in getting involved in a web archival effort, please contact me directly (kwb3@cornell.edu).
The copyright issue is far from clear. However, if you took photographs at a performance event which permitted you to do so, you can probably claim copyright. Can't same the same for videos though.
Anyway if this interests you, please contact me.
Thanks, Karen Brazell

From: Drew Gerstle
Date: Sat, 02 Oct 1999 14:52:57 +0100
Subject: Gerstle Introduction

I teach Japanese literature at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. My research has focussed on Tokugawa-period drama, especially the plays of Chikamatsu. I am hoping soon to complete a translation of five late Chikamatsu plays, four of which are jidaimono. I am also involved in an ongoing group research project on 'Kansai in the 18th and 19th centuries'.
Three recent publications:
'Heroic Honor: Chikamatsu and the Samurai Ideal', HJAS, vol. 57, no. 2 (Dec. 1997)
'Gidayuu botsugo no Chikamatsu' in volume eight of the ten-volume Iwanami Kouza: Kabuki, Bunraku, 'Chikamatsu no jidai' (Iwanami Shoten, 1998)
'Takemoto Gidayuu and the Individualistic Spirit of Osaka Theater', in Osaka, The Merchants' Capital of Early Modern Japan, ed, by J. McClain and Wakita Osamu (Cornell, 1999)

(I do not mind if my email is listed on the website.)
It is great to have such a forum as the PMJS. I am a novice to these kinds of internet lists.
--
Andrew Gerstle
SOAS
University of London
Russell Sq.
London WC1H OXG
Email: ag4@soas.ac.uk

The "naming and premodern" thread re-emerged at this point with messages from Chris Drake, Karen Brazell, Janine Beichman, David Lurie, Peter Kornicki, Joshua S. Mostow, Elliot Berlin, Michael Watson, Morgan Pitelka, Philip C. Brown, Gary Cadwallader. See arch02 for full text of the remaining messages.

From: Janine Beichman
Date: Mon, 04 Oct 1999 21:41:29 +0900
Subject: translating 'yuujo'

How do you translate the word 'yuujo', written play woman? I have heard 'courtesan,' 'prostitute', 'woman of pleasure'. Perhaps the word is too broad in meaning to be covered by one English word; in this case, I need it to describe the authors of kinsei kayou (another term I wonder how to translate: Edo period popular song? Folksong doesn't seem quite right. ) Any suggestions or corrections welcomed! I wish Frank Hoff were on this list, he could help!

This began another thread on "yuujo" that ran simultaneously with the those on "naming" and "bracken [warabi]." For the remaining messages see arch03. Discussants: Royall Tyler, Janet Goodwin, Janine Beichman, Kendon Stubbs, David Pollack, Esperanza Ramirez-Christensen, Richard Bowring, Ivo Smits, Gaye Rowley, John Schmitt-Weigand, Jordi Escurriola

From: Michael Watson
Date: Tue, 05 Oct 1999 17:44:18 +0900
Subject: announcements

As all but twenty of the 106 members have introduced themselves in one way or another, I have sent those twenty a little reminder. Take your time, please, but do let us hear from you.

Meanwhile another group, alphabetical this time, have been the victims of direct mail, what I hope was a polite request to furnish a few
bibliographical particulars of recent publications, or more if they like. For the web-based database you understand. I'll send out requests to a dozen or so members at a time so that I can stay on top of what I hope will be a steady stream of mail. Even if your time has not yet come, dust off that list of publications!

New members, new self-introductions:

Roberta Strippoli
PhD Candidate, Japanese Literature, Stanford University
My main interest is Kamakura-Muromachi narrative, from gunki monogatari to otogizoshi.

James Baskind
Ph.D. Student in Japanese premodern literature at Yale. My primary interest is in classical poetry, particularly the wakan dialectic, as well as the poetry-Buddhism dialectic.

David Olson
Technical translator. Translated text for the CD-ROM "Kokuhou Butsuzou"
http://www.pfu.co.jp/e_butsuzocd/index.html

Don Best
Stone Bridge Press: Quality Books & Software About Japan We publish books about Japan, and I join as many lists relating to Japan as
I can to gather information. I will more than likely be the ultimate lurker.
http://www.stonebridge.com

Peter McMillan
Kyorin University, Tokyo.
> I could make a stab at writing this, Peter, but I'll leave it to you!

Best wishes,

Michael Watson

From: Leith Morton
Date: Wed, 06 Oct 1999 12:52:39 +1000
Subject: Self Introduction

Leith D. Morton (lgldm@cc.newcastle.edu.au)
Professor of Japanese, Head, Department of Modern Languages
University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia
My interest in premodern literature is mainly in classical poetry (waka and haiku).

Esperanza,

I like your translations of Saikaku's haikai verses! Very nice. I also like your spatial sense. Just to fill in, in verse 26, "....How madly
they pull at the love sash," the woman of the "they" is a heavenly sky woman (Amatsuotome, of 'Shinkokinshuu' 1653/-1 etc. fame) descending down onto her lover. This is because the heavenly woman appears in verse 25 and continues, linked forward, in verse 26. The cloth sash being stretched seems to be Nunobiki Falls itself, the heavenly woman's robe, which the couple is now looping around (the back of) both their necks as their tight "love sash." I believe it's the man who's most commonly horizontal in shunga versions of kubihiki as well, though *very* unfortunately I don't have time to check to be sure at the moment.

Thanks for sharing the wonderful hokku. I think making a 'rempai(?)' sequence in English would be great. Are you going to do the wakiku for us? Please don't hesitate. Before we go any further, though, I'd like to ask you about one thing. In my personal experience, alternating verses of four and three lines in English often seems to approximate the effect of compressed Japanese 'lines' or units better than alternating three and two English lines. Three and two are really tough to work with, and demand great discipline, though of course I'm not opposing that form at all. I just want to mention this to get your opinion or the opinions of others who might want to participate. Then again, changing lineation might not be so good, since the hokku is already in three lines. Anyway, do you want to try for a kasen or a hyakuin? And how many verses will be on the first "face"? Six? Eight? Since the hokku's so nice, maybe we could just make it the face of the moon and leave it at that.

Cheers,

Chris

I left the list on auto-pilot for a full day while I trecked out to the wilds of Saitama to see the new Ninagawa *King Lear* I comment on
separately. Nice to come back and find active discussions raging on two fronts.

There were also many responses to my plea for self-introductions. Those sent directly to me are given below as well as being included in the database page (http://www.meijigakuin.ac.jp/~pmjs/pmjs-db.html) [corrected]

Many thanks, and many apologies to those who felt their arms twisted. If the request comes at a busy time for you, please reply at your own convenience. The average length of introductions has been on the increase, but even two or three lines are welcome.

The list has been joined by two members well known to many of us, Edward Kamens and Janet Ikeda. Welcome to you both. (I jumped the gun by sending out Janet Ikeda's self-introduction before she had formally joined.)

Now to the self-introductions, in rough order of increasing length.

Edward Kamens
Kendon Stubbs
James Baskind
Kenneth R. Robinson
Robert Borgen
Christian M. Hermansen
Kate Wildman Nakai

Edward Kamens
Dept. of East Asian Languages and Literatures, Yale University.
My research is on premodern poetry and prose (various periods and genres).

Kendon Stubbs
I am deputy university librarian at the University of Virginia and coordinator of the Japanese Text Initiative at U.Va.'s Electronic Text Center (http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/japanese)

James Baskind
Ph.D. Student in Japanese premodern literature at Yale. My primary interest is in classical poetry, particularly the wakan
dialectic, as well as the poetry-Buddhism dialectic.

Kenneth R. Robinson
A historian, my research interests include the Muromachi period and Japanese foreign relations. I am an Assistant Professor at International Christian University and currently am a post-doctoral fellow at Harvard University.

Robert Borgen
I teach early Japanese history and literature--albeit pretty much all in English--at University of California, Davis. My research focuses on Heian history and literature, with a bit of religion on the side. I'm currently working on many projects, but not necessarily finishing all of them.

Christian Morimoto Hermansen (longer introduction) Presently teaching fellow at the Department of Asian Studies at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark. I have recently handed in my thesis for a Ph.D.-degree. My research topic has been the organized hinin in Osaka during the Edo period, in particular the settlement called Hiden'in associated with Shitennooji. I have mainly focused on their organization, the work they did in the city, and the sentiments towards them. I hope to do further studies on the social concern of religious bodies like Shitennooji, and aquire a better understanding of the economic situation of the hinin, while at the same time also make comparisons with similar groups at other places in Japan at that time. Aside from history one of my other fields of curiosity is within the religions and religious practice in Japan both past and present.

Kate Wildman Nakai
Professor of Japanese History, Sophia University, and Editor, Monumenta Nipponica

I teach (O fateful word!) "premodern" Japanese history in the Faculty of Comparative Culture, Sophia University, and for the last two-and-half years have served as editor of Monumenta Nipponica. One of the nicest aspects of that position is that it has given me the opportunity to get to know, or know better, many of the people who are members of this list. Most of my time these days seems to be taken up with matters related to the journal, but I continue to have a primary interest in intellectual history, particularly various dimensions of the reception of Confucianism in Japan and the ongoing reinterpretation of the kamiyo myths.

I trust that the members of this list are among the most faithful readers of MN, but I'd like to note that the forthcoming issue (54:4, due out at the beginning of November) will include articles by two members: a long article by Royall Tyler on the relationship between Murasaki and Genji that is highly pertinent to the earlier discussion of possession in Genji, and a review article by James McMullen on the translation of Itoo Jinsai's Gomo jigi. If you're not already aware of the Monumenta homepage--the university has finally given us a name instead of just a number--it contains a complete, topically arranged index of articles that have appeared in the journal (approximately 1000). The index is also searchable by words appearing in the titles of articles and author name. We hope to update it and provide more information about recent reviews in the near future, but in the meantime I hope you'll find
it worth a visit in its present form as well.

http://monumenta.cc.sophia.ac.jp/

From: Michael Watson
Date: Thu, 07 Oct 1999 12:44:02 +0900
Subject: allusions

I am not planning to become the theatre critic of the list as well, but I thought that the following comments might interest some.

Many of you will know how the director Ninagawa Yukio introduces elements of traditional Japanese culture into his Shakespeare productions. The *King Lear* now on at the "Sai no kuni geijutsu gekijo" (Yono-honmachi, Saitama) was was no exception. When Lear came back from the hunt, he carried a fine rattan-wrapped bow (the shigedoo no yumi of war tales). Visual and musical quotations from noh abounded, included the pine tree at the back of the stage, hayashi music at crucial moments,the hannya and waka-onna masks used
by the Fool, and Lear's "litter". The katashiro straw images of Goneril and Regan are burnt in effigy in the mock trial scene. For once it was an English-language production with all but one actor from the Royal Shakespeare Company. The exception was the popular Japanese actor Sanada Hiroyuki as the fool, a largely successful gamble. The costumes are a bit of a jumble but the overall effect is fine. Seats in Saitama have been sold out for months, but the production will be have eighty some performances on at RSC theatres in Stratford upon Avon and London. I'll be interested to hear what the English critics--and those of you who see it in Japan or England--will think.

On the same day I saw the play (Oct 6), the Asahi Shinbun evening edition carried a review of a production of a new "opera" based on the story of the Christian daimyo Takayama Ukon. Apparently the structure and language followed closely the conventions of mugen noh, but the music was entirely "Western".

Michael Watson

I have a question. In the "Yadorigi" chapter of Genji (Seidensticker p. 891), Kaoru, who feels sorry for Nakanokimi over Niou's marriage with Rokunokimi, wishes he had taken Nakanokimi for himself. (The shinnaigo passage that follows is astonishing.) He thinks,
--Ainashi ya, waga kokoro yo, nani shi ni yuzuri-kikoeken,
which seems to go easily into,
--How wrong I was! Ah, my heart, why did I leave her to him?
And yet the modern glosses I consult most often all but obliterate "waga kokoro yo." Shinchosha (vol. 7, p. 154) has,
--Tsumaranu koto o kangaeta mono da, nan to iu jibun no ryooken dattaroo, dooshite Nakanokimi o Niou no Miya ni yuzuri-moshita no daroo; while new Shogakukan ( vol. 5, p. 368) has,
--Ware nagara tsumaranai ryooken o okoshita mono yo, dooshite ano o-kata o
miya ni o-yuzuri-mooshita no daroo ka.
As far as that goes, Tanizaki has,
--Jibun wa nan to iu fugai nasa de aru koto ka, dooshite kono kimi o hito
ni yuzutte ageta no de aroo ka.

What happened to "waga kokoro yo"? Is this simply unsayable in modern Japanese? (It is not commonplace in the original, either.) And if so, why? Or have I been seduced by a false parallel (Ah, my heart! O mon coeur! Ach, mein herz!) into completely misunderstanding the original? Does "waga kokoro yo..." actually mean something like, "Why did I leave her to him of my own free will?"

I have long been intrigued by the uncompromising physicality even of the most emotional or sentimental sense of "heart" in the familiar European languages (the physical organ as the seat or even the substance of love), as contrasted with the physically uncommitted notion of kokoro; though heart and kokoro certainly play similar roles. This example seems to have something to do with that issue, maybe. Or maybe not?

Royall Tyler

Shokun,
Michael certainly deserves great credit for his initiative in beginning what already has become a very useful tool--many thanks, Michael!
For my jiko shoukai, I teach classical, pre-modern, premodern, early, antique Japanese language and literature at the University of California, Berkeley. A medievalist by training, I have specialized in linked verse and diary/travel literature (with any luck my Journal of Socho and Song in an Age of Discord will both someday see the light of day from Stanford UP). But an long-standing interest in the Silla envoy poems in Man'yoshu has more recently led to a book manuscript I'm tentatively calling Song at the Frontier, as well as a contract for an annotated translation of the whole Man'yoshu anthology, which may require several reincarnations to finish. I'm sure I'll have
recourse to PMJS many times in the course of the project. Yoroshiku!
Mack Horton

Royall Tyler wrote

> Does "waga kokoro yo..." actually mean something like, "Why did I leave her to him of my own free will?"

Yes, that would seem to be it. The modern translations you quote preserve the sense in the expressions "jibun no ryooken" "Ware nagara tsumaranai ryooken o okoshita..." "Jibun wa..."

As far as I can see from searching the e-text Genji, "waga kokoro yo" only appears here, although there are at least 76 examples of expressions beginning "waga kokoro". Often the "kokoro" seems just emphatic, "myself/herself" as in Myobu's self-reflection (shinnaigo= "words inside the heart") in "Suma"

waga kokoro hitotsu ni kakaramu koto no yoo ni zo oboyuru (Shogakukan, older edition, 2:175) which Seidensticker renders "she felt as if she and she alone had been the cause of all the troubles" (228)

Machiko suggests that "waga kokoro yo" in "Yadorigi" is equivalent to "waga kokoro nagara" or "ware nagara".

Taking the paraphrase "kokoro nagara" we find (8:79c-d) "jibun de shihai shi nakereba naranai kokoro de aru ni mo kakawarazu. Jibun no kokoro de arinagara. Ware nagara. Naishin de wa" with an apposite quotation from Utsoho monogatari.

"Ware nagara" here leads us to the same dictionary's entry for "ware nagara" (20f:700d-) "jibun no koto de aru ga. Jibun no shita koto de aruga. Wagami nagara. Jibun nagara. Ware kara" with quotations from Shuishu 759 and Genji/Aoi.

A quick check of Genji shows some 12 examples of "waga kokoro nagara"
Shogakukan 1:228, 1:243, 2:299, 3:346, 3:421, 4:442, 4:460, 5:114 (S

777: "he was not up to following his inclinations"); 5:170 (S 806 "Why must he himself be so different?"); 5:355 (S 882 " for his circumstances had, after all, been of his own devising") 5:379; 5:393.

The first is from "Yugao":
waga kokoro nagara, ito kaku hito ni shimu koto wa naki wo ikanaru chigiri ni ka wa ariken nado, oboshi yoru.
Seidensticker p. 66 "He hoped that he might reconcile himself to what must be and forget the affair as just another dalliance; but he was not confident."

The contexts are given below, after our signature. [Japanese quotes omitted here]

I know we haven't really proven that waga kokoro yo = waga kokoro nagara, but this does seem to be how it is glossed.

Michael Watson
Midorikawa Machiko

Two new self-introductions, from Monica Bethe and X. Jie Yang.
Welcome also to a new member from Europe, the noh scholar Erika de Poorter

Monica Bethe
Kyoto Center for Japanese Studies, Otani University.
Interests: Noh/Kyogen in particular (practice & academic study, masks, costumes), Japanese theater, narrative, festivals in general. On a
different track, textiles: making and historical research.

X. Jie YANG
Associate professor at the University of Calgary, Canada, where I am teaching Japanese language and Japanese literature. During my graduate study in Kyoto University, I was studying Genpei Josuiki, a special edition of Heike Monogatari. In recent years, I am much more interested in _emaki_ (picture scrolls). Currently I am invited as a visiting associate professor at Nichibun-ken (International Research Center for Japanese Studies) in Kyoto. My topic is "Picture Scrolls and the Multi-media." I am working on a project as a continuation to my recent publication "kanaCLASSIC" **, to present the classical works as well as our academic knowledge through the powerful new technology.
**
Institute for Medieval Japanese Studies
http://www.columbia.edu/cu/ealac/imjs/imjs0.html
Columbia University Press
http://www.columbia.edu/cu/cup/catalog/idx_cd.html

From: Michael Watson
Date: Fri, 08 Oct 1999 17:58:48 +0900
Subject: from Joan Piggott

Greetings to all from Joan Piggott, Associate Professor of Pre-1600 Japanese History, Cornell University. I work in the areas of classical
kingship, church-state relations, family and gender history, temple/estate history, and urbanism. I have recently published <The Emergence of Japanese Kingship> and "Chieftain Pairs and Corulers: Female Sovereignty in Early Japan" in Tonomura, Walthall, & Wakita eds., <Women and Class in Japanese History>. Dorothy Ko, JaHyun Haboush, and I are editing a volume of essays on gender and Confucianism in premodern East Asia; and I am currently working on two additional volumes--a new edition of Richard Miller's <Japan's First Bureaucracy> and a volume of translated and annotated historical essays tentatively entitled, <Capital and Countryside in Early and Classical Japan, 500-1200>. I have also completed a translation of the <Shin sarugakuki> that I plan to publish with several essays concerning aspects of Heian urbanism circa the year 1000. I wish that I could say the latter would be ready in the second millenial year but I fear that would be too optimistic.

Many of you will know that I have been directing the Cornell Kambun Workshops over the last three summers. Since they have been so successful we are considering hosting a fourth workshop this summer in which participants would read Heian courtier diaries such as <Teishinkoki>, <Shoyuki>, and <Chuyuki>. The leader would be Professor Sanae Yoshida of Todai's Shiryo hensanjo, who edits the <Chuyuki> for the Dainihon kokiroku series. Different from previous workshops, this one would host a small group of specialists (advanced grad students and faculty) who already read Heian kambun but who would like to improve their understanding of Heian
courtier diaries. Is anyone out there interested in participating? If so, please let me know of your interest at <jrp5@cornell.edu>. I hesitate to move ahead with this plan unless there is real interest. I have even thought dreamily of a summer off...

Best regards to all! JP

The definitions I quoted for "kokoro nagara" and "ware nagara" were from the _Nihon kokugo daijiten_, a dictionary that devotes over forty pages to kokoro. Somehow that reference was lost in last minute editing.

In parenthetically explaining what "shinnaigo" means, I was answering Janine Beichman's query (correctly, I hope).

From: George Perkins
Date: Fri, 08 Oct 1999 12:37:05 +0000

Though I joined the group a while ago, I have not given you a self-introduction yet, to here goes:

George Perkins, Associate Professor at Brigham Young University. Ph.D. from Stanford back when Leland was still alive. My area of
specialty is Medieval Japanese literature, I guess. My translation of "Masukagami" finally appeared last year. I'm thinking about maybe
doing a translation of "Heiji monogatari" next (with a colleague at Waikato University in New Zealand, Mike Roberts) if we finally decide
no one else is already doing it, and the dissertation out of Berkeley is not to be published finally. (If any of you know, please let me know.)

From: Janine Beichman
Date: Fri, 08 Oct 1999 22:31:31 +0900
Subject: Re: waga kokoro

Michael, thank you for answering my question about 'shinnaigo' and also for pointing out that you had: I was so overwhelmed by the fund of info in your message that I hadn't noticed it. Now I know!

From: RoyallTyler
Date: Sat, 9 Oct 1999 07:08:43 +1000
Subject: Re: waga kokoro yo

Thank you very much, Michael. (Sorry about shinnaigo, Janine.) Still, hmmm. Of course waga kokoro, waga kokoro hitotsu are no problem, and neither is waga kokoro nagara. There are lots of those. But indeed, there is only one waga kokoro yo (I can't find it in the Kokka Taikan, either), and it occurs in a passage of exceptional--and exceptionally frank--emotional intensity. The whole passage seems to me to stand out in just the same way waga kokoro yo does--one has not read anything quite like it before. So I wonder whether something unusual is not going on. Still, the commentaries I have say nothing about it.

At any rate, taking it as waga kokoro nagara certainly draws a sharp line between kokoro and heart!

By the way, that shinsaku noh "Takayama Ukon" you mentioned is by the psychiatrist and novelist Kaga Otohiko.

Royall Tyler

I was very interested to hear that George Perkins is thinking of
> doing a translation of "Heiji monogatari" next (with a colleague at Waikato University in New Zealand, Mike Roberts) if we finally > decide no one else is already doing it, and the dissertation out of Berkeley is not to be published finally.

What version of "Heiji monogatari" are you thinking of translating?

As you know, the Berkeley dissertation you refer to (Chalitpatanangune, Marisa. "Heiji Monogatari": a Study and Annotated
Translation of the Oldest Text. Ph.D. Berkeley, 1987) covers first two of the three books of the Yoomei-Gakuishuin version (the
text of this version is now readily available in the Shin NKBT series, ed. Kusaka Tsutomu, 1992)

One more question. Do you or anyone else know if there is any Western translation of the text of the Heiji monogatari emaki?

Those of you who like to gather Web resources will find that Hitachi has made a good attempt to show this emaki online, see:
http://www.viewseum.com/fine_art/

Other bibliography for those who are interested and don't know already (a small group, perhaps!):

The partial English translation of the monogatari by Edwin Reischauer is from a rufubon version, it would seem:
Reischauer, Edwin O., and Joseph Yamagiwa, eds. Translations from Early Japanese Literature. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard-Yenching Institute Studies XXIX, 1951 (2nd , abridged edition, 1972).

There are French and Italian translations of the Kotohira version in the older NKBT edition (1961):

Sieffert, Rene. Le Dit de Hogen; Le Dit de Heiji. Le cycle epique des Taira et des Minamoto. Paris: Publications Orientalistes de France, 1988.

Stramigioli, Giuliana. Heiji Monogatari, Parte I. Rivista degli Studi Orientali 49.III-IV (1975): Volume 49 Fasc. III-IV; Parte II. Rivista degli Studi Orientali 51.I-IV (1977).

Michael Watson

From: Rein Raud
Date: Sun, 10 Oct 1999 11:49:23 +0200
Subject: Hito and lines

Our list is getting so big and intensive that it is so easy to lose track of something if you do not reply immediately. I would like to return to Janine's translation of the Ryutatsu kouta (Janine 5 Oct 16.23) especially to its last lines, and to some things Chris raised in his comment (Stumbling moon, 8 Oct) on Esperanza's translations, ie the question of lines and their length.

Janine Beichman quoted her translation in the yuujo thread. -ed

This is the poem in case anyone's interested, though I'm afraid there will be complaints about having turned four lines into six and also about having translated the last line too freely.

Tori to kane to wa
omoi no tane yo
to wa omoedomo
hito ni yori soro
Ryuutatsu Kouta

Birds and bells--
they're seeds of gloom
or so I thought--
but it all depends on who
you've lately
lain with
Ryuutatsu Song

About hito, and translating it as "someone you've recently lain with" first. It is quite clear what the word refers to in the poem, but it is not what the poem actually says. I think translations should mirror what originals say rather than refer to. "Beloved" for hito might still make a good case as a poetical codalisation. May I suggest "the one on your mind"? After all, the poem offers no proof that it is written after the act. It seems that the English reader of poetry does not like to read comments very often and translators are forced to put everything in their translations, even if it is not there in the original texts. I don't think it is fair to the poets, and it is not always done in translations of culturally closer texts. Since there are quite a few people doing waka on the list, we could also speak about the question of poetic structure (lines, ku, rhythm, syllables, moras etc.), and its rendition in translation. I would be glad to participate in a renku as well. But I've been always annoyed by the lack of rhythm, the absence of a background structuring principle in English translations of waka, although it is not as bad as the tradition of translating Chinese poetry into measureless and rhymeless vers libre. On the other hand, translations that actually preserve the syllabic count are not always rhythmically better than the vast majority that does not. It would
also be interesting to compare the experiences of the speakers of different languages in translating waka.

Rein Raud

From: Janine Beichman
Date: Sun, 10 Oct 1999 18:52:02 +0900
Subject: Re: Hito and lines

Thanks for your comments, Rein. "Lately lain with" is what I had, and I think it's quite different from
"recently lain with." I don't think "beloved" would work for "hito" here since the speaker obviously sleeps with people whom she doesn't love as well as ones she does, and 'hito' covers both sorts.
The problem I was trying to solve was how to be as oblique as the original but not so bland as to be uninteresting. "It depends on the man", or "It depends on the person" is not only bland but also not as precise or specific as the original. I am not sure why this should be so, but I think we would agree that it is so?? Perhaps this is because "hito" in Japanese does not only mean 'person' but also and very often (esp. in poetry) means someone with whom one has an erotic relationship (I am purposely avoiding the word 'lover' which usually implies duration of relationship that may not apply here, since this speaker obviously has a fair number of partners, else she could not compare them). So we know when she says 'hito' that she
doesn't mean a man or a person, but a person with whom she has had an erotic relationship: in that sense, 'lately lain with' is just giving to the English what is *already* there in the Japanese, part of the word. (Of
course there are other phrases that could get that meaning in, and I don't mean to sound like I think the one I used is the only one!) What I mean is: here, "hito" is not "person", is not "man", is not "beloved". It does not mean any of those things. [There must be a way to diagram this to show that the English word 'person' or 'man' applies to a different range of real things than the Japanese word 'hito' does --couldn't someone who knows more about linguistics than me help here? Rein? Chris? Someone else?]So to translate it as any of those things is not to translate what the poem "actually says", is on the contrary, to translate what the poem does not say. As to "the one on your mind," I don't think that would work because the whole point of the poem is that are people who are not on your mind at all, and that's exactly why you want them to leave. The poem may not offer proof that it is written 'after the act' , by which I assume you mean that it doesn't give the feeling of having been written after a specific night with someone --certainly not, but then neither does 'lately lain with'. The point is that she is comparing men she likes with ones she doesn't. That cheekiness is what makes the poem and needs to be kept, as well as the boldness and immodesty. What a refreshing voice coming down to us hundreds of years later! In fact, as I think of it, I'm not sure if I'm defending my own translation or that delightful woman. Well, this has taken up enough room so I won't answer the second part, about lines, etc., but I'm sure that someone else will!

Does anyone know of a good place on the web
to order this? I've lost touch with my bookseller in Kanagawa. Best
regards. -Esperanza

From: Lawrence Marceau
Date: Sun, 10 Oct 1999 11:02:46 -0400
Subject: Ordering Japanese books on the Web

To Esperanza (and the PMJS list):

I've been using the Toshokan Ryu*tsu* Sentaa's site for ordering Japanese books now for three years or so. They have a weekly updated page listing new books, that is divided by genre, as well as by format (I always check the list of bunko-bon first). They also have a database that lists over 750,000 titles dating back to 1980. You can search by title, author, publisher, etc.

You can pay for the books by credit card. Your card is charged according to the actual exchange rate applicable to the day in which they put through the charge.

The URL is: http://www.trc.co.jp

Best,

Lawrence Marceau

Thanks for the new address to order books. I've been using Kinokuniya
Online for a couple of years. Here's the URL:

<http://bookweb.kinokuniya.co.jp/>

They're pretty good, but it takes FOREVER to get books from them, even with priority shipping, as they seem to have a couple of people who just walk around and grab your book when they think about it. I've had up to a two week wait from the day I ordered a book to the day I found it had been procured and was being shipped. Unfortunately, they really don't make any effort to get hard-to-get books, as even though they list it in their nice and fully filled inventory, almost half the books I've ordered have been "sold out" and they cancelled the order. I find that really annoying as hell.

Tony

placed in public archives as booksellers (see below for more advice)

Michael,

Edwin O. Reischauer and Joseph H. Kitagawa, _Translations from Early Japanese Literature_, Cambridge (Mass.): Harvard University Press, 1951, pp. 447-457.
>One more question. Do you or anyone else know if there is any Western
>translation of the text of the Heiji monogatari emaki?

Ivo Smits

[call for paper for graduate student conference to be held February 2-26, 2000 at Yale University.]

Does anyone know of a premodern Japanese treatise on military strategy or tactics that clearly shows the influence of classical Chinese thought on that theme? A student who wants eventually to do an Honours thesis in that area asked me, and I have no idea.

From: David Olson
Date: Tue, 12 Oct 1999 13:08:29 -0700
Subject: Re: Military treatises?

As I recall, Leon Zolbrod's translation of _Ugetsu Monogatari: Tales of Moonlight and Rain_ has extensive footnotes for one chapter (early in the book) where the speaker is showing off his knowledge of Chinese military lore.

From: Reinhard Zoellner
Organization: Uni-Erfurt
Date: Tue, 12 Oct 1999 22:11:13 +0200
Subject: Re: Military treatises?

The "Kouyou gunkan" (early 17th c.) reports lots of stategical-tactical discussions by Takeda Shingen and his followers directly referring to Sonshi.

Reinhard Zoellner

Can anyone recommend any scholarly studies of seppuku? I am particularly interested in its origins, its treatment in medieval
literature, and its practice before the Tokugawa period. Thanks very much for your help.

Jackie Stone

From: Anthony J. Bryant
Date: Tue, 12 Oct 1999 15:16:17 -0600
Subject: Re: Military treatises?

> Does anyone know of a premodern Japanese treatise on military strategy or
> tactics that clearly shows the influence of classical Chinese thought on
> that theme? A student who wants eventually to do an Honours thesis in that
> area asked me, and I have no idea.

I've never encountered such texts, but IIRC, many household laws and testaments insist that heirs read SunTzu and his commentators. I
remember that several famous generals had read them, but I don't recall hearing of domestic treatises on strategy or tactics. I'd love to see
some, myself...

Tony

From: Janine Beichman
Date: Wed, 13 Oct 1999 06:51:34 +0900
Subject: Re: new PMJS archives

To help in your giri-discharging project, might I ask what your most useful reference work for translating plant names from Japanese to English is?

>As a way of discharging my _giri_, let me mention that as a technical translator I have a lot of dictionaries right here at home on plants (e.g. Makino) and chemistry, and I welcome questions on these subjects. I'm curious about their traditional uses.
> David Olson

For the scientific name, _Makino's Illustrated Flora of Japan_ (Kaitei Zouho Makino Shin Nihon Shokubutu Zukan) (1995, Hokuryuukan).

Makino covers 5056 species arranged by family (kamoku no "ka") with Japanese and Latin indices in back. At the end of each entry he includes non-specialist linguistic information: the Chinese name, common misidentifications, possible etymologies. In the case of *warabi* he tells us that this is;

straw + fruit (mi/bi)

The "bi" is also attested in "akebi", a plant whose fruit opens when heated. I doubt that these etymologies have been vetted by a real linguist, but they're interesting.

Because many plant names have multiple kanji designations, the scientific practice is to use only katakana.

The _Green Goddess_ (Kenkyuusha's New Japanese-English Dictionary, Koh Masuda, General Editor, Fourth Edition, 1974) also has pretty good coverage, often giving several common names along with the scientific names. A couple of times GG will give a different species name than Makino; sometimes no species name.

In the case of *itadori*, GG give only "Japanese knotweed" whereas Makino gives: "Reynoutria japonica Houtt. var. japonica (Tade ka)"

In technical translations, once I've identified the Latin name, my job is done. Obviously a different set of rules apply for literary translations. This is what I've noticed as a reader and wannabee literary translator.

In the first place, it's often not the species but the genus or the family that matters. For example, in Shinto the *sakaki* is not always Cleyera japonica. In the Chuubu region it is more likely to be Eurya japonica (hisakaki), and I don't know what species they use in Touhoku or Hokkaidou.

Both C. and E. japonica are members of tsubaki-ka (Theaceae; "tea family"). On the other hand, the higher one goes in the taxonomic tree, the greater the disagreement between researchers about classification. Warabi, at the family level, is classified either as Polypodiaceae (uraboshi -ka) or Dennstaedtiaceae (kobanoishikaguma-ka) or Pteridaceae (inomotosou-ka). All of this suggests that there is no particular benefit for a literary translator to use the Latin term.

On the other hand, when Latin names are input into Japanese Internet search engines such as InfoNavigator and InfoSeek they tend to yield good responses; this is also true of the Japanese systematic katakana name. Lots of photographers and botanists have made images available, so you can see them in bloom, infested by aphids, bearing fruit, etc.

That said, it would be nice to have a list of "default translations" or "teiyaku" for this type of thing. After kvetching about the opacity of the ListBot archives, I had thought about undertaking the task of re-organizing them (at least for plants). But that's a lot of work --- therefore when I saw Michael's message that he had actually done this, I keenly appreciated the effort.

David Olson

Jacqueline Stone asks
> Can anyone recommend any scholarly studies of seppuku? I am
> particularly interested in its origins, its treatment in medieval
> literature, and its practice before the Tokugawa period.

I assume you know Pinguet's book, a broad treatment of voluntary death, from the Man'yo maidens who drown themselves to Mishima. Chapter VII in particular deals with seppuku (L'art martial de bien mourir)

La mort volontaire au Japan / Maurice Pinguet.. Paris] : Gallimard, c1984. 380 p., [8] p. of plates ; 23 cm. -- (Bibliotheque des histoires)
Bibliography: p. [317]-335 ; Includes index. ISBN: 2070701891(: pbk)

Voluntary death in Japan / Maurice Pinguet ; translated by Rosemary Morris. Cambridge, UK : Polity Press, c1993 365 p., [8] p. of plates ; 24 cm. ISBN: 0745608701

There are also translations into Italian, German, Portuguese and Japanese (Chikuma bunko, 1992, ISBN: 448008026). The book seems to have struck a chord.

I do not know the Japanese secondary literature on the subject, but a search for seppuku on http://webcat.nacsis.ac.jp/ finds a large list of books with promising titles--whether they are scholarly studies or not is less clear. Nakayasu Hiromichi (?reading)  is one author you might look into.

Michael Watson

I should think that it would be difficult to find a premodern military treatise that does not show influences of Chinese thought. It is typical, at the very least, to begin by quoting from one or another Chinese classic. The Yagyu's "Heiho kadensho," for example, opens with a quote from the Sanlüe, one of the standard Chinese works on military tactics. Also, Yin-Yang theory and geomancy is fundamental to traditional Japanese military thinking.
Tell you student to look at the following sources:

Ishioka Hisao. Nihon heihôshi. 2 vols. Tokyo: Yûzankaku, 1972.

Isogai Masayoshi and Hattori Harunori, editors. 1965. Kôyô gunkan. 3 vols. Sengoku Shiryô Sôsho, 35. Tokyo: Shin Jinbutsu Oraisha.

Yamaga heigaku zenshû. 1917. 5 vols. Tokyo: Yamaga Heigaku Zenshû Kankôkai.

William Bodiford

From:Erika de Poorter
Date: Wed, 13 Oct 1999 14:12:15 +0100 (MET)
Subject: Re: seppuku

There is an article by Yamaori Tetsuo on Seppuku in the Heike monogatari; "Heike monogatari no jigai" in Kokubungaku 31/7 (June 1961).
Erika de Poorter

From: Rein Raud
Organization: University of Helsinki
Date: Wed, 13 Oct 1999 15:22:13 +0200
Subject: Re: Hito and lines

Dear Janine,

you have contextualised the poem to remarklable depth. The "omoi" of the second line might still be "longing" as well as gloom and the poem (as it stands) allows for taking the "hito" of the last line as the feeler, not the reason of gloom/longing as well. (Some "hito" feel "omoi" at the sound of a bell, some don't.) It is quite clear to me that your translation aims to transmit the original context of the poem, which, in your argument, rules out other grammatically possible readings. The result is an impressive poetic text. Even more impressive, in fact, than the original, and that is my point. I would strongly argue for keeping the context in the context, except for clear codalisations, ie
expressions that have acquired an immediately recognisable poetic meaning. These are obviously "in the text". If, in a spy novel, somebody uses an innocent phrase to signify something else, surely a translation of this novel should keep the phrase and not its ultimate signification?

The economy of sexual relations was obviously also quite different in those times, and I have heard attacks on the word "love" for "koi" on those grounds as well. But the author of the poem is using the only poetic language available to her, in which hito goes for beloved, even if she does not love or even like the men she sleeps with. But surely that was not a privilege reserved for yuujo only? Should we perhaps call scrolls XI-XV of the Kokinshu "Songs of conceptualised desire and feelings related to sexual politics" then?

Rein Raud

From: Janine Beichman
Date: Thu, 14 Oct 1999 21:59:53 +0900
Subject: Re: Hito and lines

Dear Rein,
I enjoyed your spirited response, but this is getting too complicated for me to keep track of and I feel that it is not ideally suited for discussion by email. Perhaps we can continue it when next we meet. It seems to involve issues about translation that might surface in more than one context.
Best wishes,
Janine

From: Royall Tyler
Date: Fri, 15 Oct 1999 19:58:34 +1000
Subject: Genji authorship

Thank you very much, all who answered my appeal about military treatises. I got very helpful answers, which I've passed on to the student in question.

The list being quiet, perhaps I might raise an issue I often have on my mind, on the strenth of powerful impressions I get in the course of my passage through the Genji text. As I listen to the text, I hear many voices.

I have not studied this matter. I know a few have always been convinced that Genji monogatari is not all by the same writer, but I also have the impression that orthodox opinion recognizes Murasaki Shikibu as the sole author. Moreover, scholars and the public are, naturally, strongly inclined to champion Murasaki Shikibu. I feel exactly the same way. (If a nonspecialist may sigh when acknowledging that the homeric epics as we have them are probably not, after all, by a single genius named Homer, how much more disappointing it is to think that MS may not have written all of Genji!) Still, in my daily work I cannot evade the question. I wonder what people out there feel, think, know, or think they know.

For example, while translating most of "Yugiri" I had the strong feeling that whoever wrote what I was translating was someone new. This feeling culminated in the passage in which Murasaki no Ue reflects on the fate of women. It seemed completely out of character for the narrator's treatment of Murasaki no Ue both before and after "Yugiri," and I also found it relatively poor quality. (Strangely, immediately after this passage I began to feel at home again with the writer I assume to be MS.)

The interior monologue passage (Yadorigi) that I mentioned in connection with "waga kokoro yo" is also startling. It's very good, but it's astonishingly unlike anything in the chapters (Shiigamoto, Agemaki) on which it constitutes a kind of commentary.

A little later in "Yadorigi," (Seidensticker p. 902, top) there's a sudden, lengthy, and very surprising intervention of the narrator on the subject of whether or not Nakanokimi really deserves pity over Niou's marriage to Rokunokimi. Where did THIS come from?

These are just examples that struck me particularly.

Then there are the chapters like Niou no Miya, Kobai, Takekawa. I don't see why MS should have written them.

My most absorbing impression (wholly naive, I insist, and subject to any kind of revision or cancellation) is that the author of the main chapters and the author(s) of the Uji chapters (counting them from "Niou no Miya) cannot be the same person. The main Uji chapters are extremely accomplished, but they are so different in manner, in focus, in rhetoric, in plot construction, and so on from the main chapters that I cannot imagine how MS (my assumed main chapters author) could have written them, and certainly not AFTER the main chapters. Actually, I imagine a group of several women getting together to write the Uji chapters, in order to extend the tale. Each wrote different bits (there would have been differences of rank between them, so that a relatively inferior draft from one would have been more acceptable than from another), but they were very talented, and they got together to discuss all the drafts and to adjust them, and perhaps one acted as an overall editor. This takes place purely in my imagination.

In my mind the Uji chapters are to the main chapters as the Kokinshu is to the Man'yoshu, though to explain that would take much space and time.

Well that will do. These impressions do not represent "my position" on anything. They are something to talk about. And of course I know that they are implausible if only because, surely, if MS did not write the whole tale, some tradition or document to that effect would survive. (And I know that the works of a single writer can be surprisingly different from one another.)

Royall Tyler

From: Elliot Berlin
Date: Fri, 15 Oct 1999 17:44:39 -0400
Subject: Genji Documentary

As some of you may have noticed from my intro I have a documentary film in development which will introduce The Tale of Genji to Western audiences. Production can't yet be declared a sure thing, but at this point there are many causes for encouragement. I'm getting pretty sure it will come to fruition.

The film will consist largely of what scholars apparently call the "reception" and interpretation of the Genji. It will also be something of an homage to this great work, and will represent people both in Japan and in the West who have been variously smitten by its qualities. I don't mean to say that the film will be uncritical. But a film for general audiences should be designed to encourage interest and broaden readership, as well as inform and entertain. The narrative threads will be provided by the scholars, artists, writers, and critics who have engaged the Genji in various ways. As of now we don't intend to use a professional narrator to carry the story forward.

There are a few people who participate in this list who have been kind enough to provide advice and encouragement. For that I am very grateful. Over the next little while I will pose the occasional query here, as I try to uncover a person or an idea that will help us flesh out the film's content, or provide a new perspective on something we're already working with.

Here's the first in that series:

I need to consult with people who are knowledgeable about the influence of the Genji on Japanese cinema. I have sent a letter by mail to one well-known expert, but I can't be sure the address I have is current, so I don't know if I'll hear back from him. If you are aware of someone who fits the bill, please reply to this message or send a message off list to abelard@tidalwave.net.

I am also happy to field any questions or suggestions that might be sent my way.

Thanks very much.

Elliot Berlin

From: Michael Watson
Date: 17 Oct 1999 13:57:55 -0000
Subject: new members/info

This seems an apposite time to announce that we have been joined by the Finnish translator of _Genji_:

Kai Nieminen
Other new members include

Raj Pandey (Melbourne)
Wakabashi Haruko (Tokyo)
Minna Torniainen (Helsinki)
Daniel Gallimore (Oxford)

And I have an enquiry from St Petersburg. What an international group we have become!

Other new members who have sent self-introductions:

Karen L. Brock
Associate Professor of Japanese Art History, Washington University in Saint Louis
Research interests: Japanese picture scrolls; aristocratic Kyoto from the 13th-16th centuries;
"Saint" Myoe and Kozanji (current project)

Mary Cender Miller
Ph.D. student in Japanese (Heian studies) at Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana.

Keller Kimbrough
I recently finished my doctoral degree at Yale University (I wrote my dissertation on medieval lit.--setsuwa, otogizoshi and jisha engi),
and I am teaching this year (Visiting Assistant Professor) at the University of Michigan.

Christine Shippey
I am a Ph.D. candidate at UC-Berkeley in the East Asian Languages and Cultures Dept. I am researching irogonomi and am particularly
interested in Heian literature.

Thanks also to Lynne Miyake and Ivo Smits for sending the following:

Lynne Miyake
Associate Professor of Japanese, Pomona College. My graduate school training was in Heian nikki bungaku and my dissertation was on a litte known work, Tonomine Shosho monogatari. I have since branched out a little and do work on Heian prose narratives and on
poststructuralism, narratology, feminist studies, and cultural studies.

Ivo Smits
My interest is in classical (and contemporary) literature, especially poetry of the Heian and Kamakura periods. I try to focus on
two areas: the relation between Chinese and Japanese poetry, and poetic networks and the relations beteen patrons and poets.

Meanwhile, the magic year 2000 is coming up and what James Clavell failed to tell us is that Will Adams (aka Richard Chamberlain), when he washed ashore in Usuki Bay in April 1600, was employed by the Dutch. Next year therefore marks 400 years of bilateral relations between Japan and the Netherlands. Together with Leonard Blusse (Leiden University) and Willem Remmelink (Japan-Netherlands Institute, Tokyo) I am one of the editors of a memorial volume commemorating that event in approximately 320 pages. Seventy Japanese and Dutch authors will together produce an lavishly illustrated book describing the four centuries of contacts between these two countries and cultures. Three editions are planned: in Dutch, Japanese and English. So, please buy a copy.

Obviously, at the moment I find little time to do much in the field of literature, but two things I try to work on --apart from articles and
translations in Dutch-- are:

"China as Classic Text: Chinese Books and Twelfth Century Japanese Collectors" [working title], an essay for a volume edited by Andrew Goble on Japan's technological, medical and intellectual contacts in East Asia, 1100-1600.

"Song as Cultural History: Reading the Wakan roeishu" [working title], a two-part article Kate Wildman is foolish enough to let me write for _Monumenta Nipponica_ about various aspects of Wakan roueishuu studies. Should be published next year, I hope.

Recently published:
"The Poet and the Politician: Teika and the Compilation of the Shinchokusenshu," in: Monumenta Nipponica 53: 4 (1998).

"Poets in their Place: Reflections on Poetic Salons in Early Medieval Japan," in: The Medieval History Journal 1: 2 (1998).

"The poet and the demon: A Kuniyoshi print and its inspirations," in: Andon 60 (1998).

"Reading the New Ballads: Late Heian kanshi poets and Bo Juyi," in: Stanca Scholz-Cionca (ed.), Wasser-Spuren: Festschrift fur Wolfram
Naumann zum 65. Geburtstag, Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 1997.

-- More information from the rest of you welcome. I have added the new
self-introductions and Ivo's biblio. to the appropriate database pages [now found at]

http://www.meijigakuin.ac.jp/~pmjs/pmjs-db.html
http://www.meijigakuin.ac.jp/~pmjs/pmjs-db2.html

Michael Watson

I've been putting off introducing myself, but the guilt has finally gotten to me, so here goes.....

Susan Blakeley Klein
Associate Professor of Japanese Literature
East Asian Languages and Literatures Dept., UC Irvine

I've published on Butoh, on Noh theater, and on Kamakura period literary commentaries influenced by the heretical Shingon sect of Tachikawa. If anyone wants citations I'd be happy to send them along.

When I get through editing the current book on esoteric commentaries (forthcoming Harvard UP), I'm planning to write about the influence of the commentaries on Noh. Then I'm going to write a book on the historical development of Japanese ghosts, which I've taught as an undergraduate class the last couple of years.

I've enjoyed this list tremendously so far, and look forward to interesting discussions in the future!

Susan

From: Raj Pandey
Date: Mon, 18 Oct 1999 17:17:31 +1000
Subject: Re: intro

I guess it is time for me to stop pleading shyness and to introduce myself. I am a new member - I have already learnt a great deal from the lively and engaged contributions of the participants. I am senior lecturer in Japanese Studies at La Trobe University in Melbourne.
I recently published a book on the works of Kamo no Choumei. The book is entitled "Writing and Renunciation in Medieval Japan".
I am currently working on representations of women in medieval writing. I am focusing on women's sexuality, the notions of fujou( impurity), itsutsu no sawari and so on in order to understand how women's potential for Buddhist enlightenment came to be articulated. I shall concentrate on setsuwa literature and the various ojouden. I would very much appreciate feed-back and suggestions.
I was particularly taken with the discussion on yuujo as I have been working for some time now on yuujo in the Heian and Kamakura periods. If only I had known that there were others out there struggling with how to translate the term! I have no new light to shed and continue to remain somewhat at a loss as to how to resolve the problem. I agree that all the translations we come up with inevitably have built into them certain moral overtones that are guided by rather modern and ofcourse (male) conceptions of sex.
I look forward to further discussions.
Yoroshiku
Raj

I too am glad to hear there is someone else out there struggling with yujo, I have the feeling that part of the reason for the struggle is a) that the word covered so much and b) that most of what it covered went on outside the boundaries of the institutional family, in an area where women (and perhaps other outsiders, who could have included men) made their own structures. So it could cover a myriad of careers or non-careers, ways of making a living, and non-profit activities. Perhaps there was no reason to define what the yuujo did too closely because from the viewpoint of the larger institutions (patriarchal family? I don't know my social institutional history here) they were all marginal anyhow, since they did not contribute to making legitimate babies and carrying on family lines. It's a case, perhaps, of the larger society defining language. Those beyond the pale all go by the same name, or at least a very limited group of them. This is all just a wild stab --does it make sense to anyone who knows more?

From: Lawrence Marceau
Date: Mon, 18 Oct 1999 17:32:05 -0400
Subject: Re: Ordering Japanese books on the Web

Esperanza R-Christensen wrote:

> I wonder if there's a site for furuhonya lists . . . .

Esperanza,

There are several. I recommend checking out Yahoo Japan furuhon http://www.yahoo.co.jp/Business_and_Economy/Companies/Books/Used/

Of furuhon'ya search engines, the following have been "pretty good":

"Super Genji": http://kbic.ardour.co.jp/~newgenji/oldbook/sgenji.html

"Book Town Kanda": http://www.book-kanda.or.jp/db/index02.htm

"Nihon no Furuhon'ya":
https://www.kosho.or.jp/kosho/user/kensaku/index.asp

There are also sites for Kyoto and Osaka, but I have to take our daughter for her
clarinet lesson. Check out the bunko-bon site, while you're at it!

L. Marceau

From: Morgan Pitelka
Date: Tue, 19 Oct 1999 10:23:04 +1000
Subject: links to books, used books, publishers

Dear PMJS,

I also have a lot of links to furuhonya/book/publisher related sites, as
well as other research resources (in Japanese) at the following page:

http://www.princeton.edu/~mpitelka/japan_links.html

(that's japan_links.html)
Morgan Pitelka

From: Dr Peter Kornicki
Date: Tue, 19 Oct 1999 09:06:14 +0100 (BST)
Subject: Re:new book

Let me draw attention to James McMullen's new book, _Idealism, protest, and The Tale of Genji: the Confucianism of Kumazawa Banzan (1619-1691)_, which has just been published by the Clarendon Press, Oxford. It is a major work of scholarship at the highest level and highly significant both for the history of the reception of the Genji and for Banzan and the character of Tokugawa Confucianism.

Peter Kornicki

I have recently been introduced to PMJS-list and I would like to introduce myself...

I am Minna Torniainen from University of Helsinki, Institute for Asian and African Studies. Right now I am working with my PhD-thesis entitled " The Idea of Wabi in Japanese Philosophy and Aesthetics - Through Chadô-related Classical Literature". Main sources used are included into Chadô Koten Zenshû (1956) by Tankôsha. Thesis is basically divided into two: Wabi as a philosophical concept and wabi as an aesthetical concept. After finishing the thesis, summer-autumn 2000 if, I am interested to continue studying on 'the Concept of Spiritual training (shugyô) in classical poetry (Shinkei), nô theatre (Zeami) and in chadô (Nanpôroku and Yamanoue Sôjiki)'. This is just a draft and I shall think it over more closely after finishing the PhD-thesis!

I am looking forward for interesting and fruitful conversations!!!

From: Michael Watson
Date: Wed, 20 Oct 1999 14:07:17 +0900
Subject: buying books on Amazon.com

I thought I'd make it a little easier for us to learn about and buy or order each others' books. If you look at
http://www.meijigakuin.ac.jp/~pmjs/pmjs-db.html
you will see I've added selected links to Amazon.com (and sometimes Barnes & Noble) for books by our more published members. These are links to the specific book page--a time-saving way for me to avoid having to cut & paste in ISBN numbers, etc.

I must rush off to Wednesday cmt meetings now, so I've only got up to letter G, but I'll gradually work through the alphabet.

You can also help colleagues' sales by adding comments to the booksellers' page--where praise is due, of course.

I hope this will also encourage those who haven't a book to their name to let me know the biblio. of their published articles etc. Makanai yoo ni...

Comments welcome, on list or off

From: Morgan Pitelka
Date: Thu, 21 Oct 1999 13:59:46 +1000
To: JAHF <jahf-list@Princeton.EDU>, PMJS <pmjs@listbot.com>, EMJNET <emjnet@lists.acs.ohio-state.edu>
Subject: Shunkan

Would anyone be willing to provide information on the tale of "Shunkan," named for the Heian period monk associated with Goshirakawa who was abandoned on Kikaigashima in the course of the incident known as the "Shishigatani conspiracy."? The incident is described in the Heike Monogatari, was dramatized in at least one Noh play (titled "Shunkan" or "Kikaigashima"), as well as in the Chikamatsu play "Heike nyogo no shima," and was illustrated in the 1808 yomihon "Shunkan Souzu shima monogatari." I have a sense of the basic narrative, but I'm interested in other appearances of the tale in any media, and any studies people may be able to recommend in
Japanese or English.

Thanks!

(Sorry if people receive multiple copies of this message. Now that there are so many specialized Japanese studies email lists I'm not sure where to send this query, so am resorting to flooding all three.)

Morgan

[Japanese characters here for Shunkan, Kikaigashima, Heike nyogo no shima, Shunkan Souzu shima monogatari]

Internet doesn't have as many rules as renga, but I am not sure if it is "done" to mix messages from different list servers.
Nevertheless, a message was posted on the J-LIT server that may interest some of us as who are not (yet) subscribing to J-LIT.

Anthony J. Bryant posted the query below:

> ... on the subject of Japanese literature, does anyone know of any recent scholarship on gunkimono? I'm looking for material that could be useful i an analysis of the Mouko Shuurai Ekotoba, which, although not a gunkimono per se, may have some elements of one.

Bryant's e-mail address is: ajbryant@INDIANA.EDU
Or, if we want to go list crashing, answer to JLIT-L: JLIT-L@VM.CC.PURDUE.EDU
Of course, post the answer on *pjms* as well, please.

Ivo Smits

From: Alexander R. Bay
Date: Thu, 21 Oct 1999 08:45:25 -0700
Subject: Re: Gunkimono

Concerning Moko Shirai Ekotoba, Tom Conlan has a translation coming out soon from Cornell, I believe. But until then see if there is anything good in Nihon no emaki series 13, "Moko shurai ekotoba" Komatsu Shigemi, ed., Tokyo: Chou koronsha, 1990; and "Moko shurai ekotoba no shajitsusei" Miyamoto Joichi, in "Nihon emaki taisei geppo 20, Sept. 1978

Greetings!
As the newsletter editor of the Association of Teachers of Japanese (ATJ), I've decided to institute a new column that would list new hires (at either the junior or senior rank) at universities, colleges, junior colleges etc. around the country. If you yourself are a new hire or you have hired someone recently at your university in the fields of Japanese language, literature, linguistics, or pedagogy, I would greatly appreciate it if you would send me the name, the rank at which he/she was hired, and the university from which he/she graduated. This list will appear in the November issue of the newsletter.
If you have any questions about this--or the ATJ in general--please don't hesitate to get in touch.
Thanks again.
Stephen Miller
University of Colorado

Sorry if you already got this on J-LIT!!!

In terms of the visual aspect of the Moko shurai you might wish to consult the exhibition catalogue of the Sannomaru Shozokan (Tokyo):
Emaki, Moko shurai ekotoba, Eshi zoshi, Kitano tenjin engi, 1994. The curator, Matsumoto Aya wrote a brief essay including data of the
respective emaki at the end of the volume.

I've had several inquiries about my publications, especially in Noh and esoteric commentaries. Since I'm feeling a bit pushed this fall (I'm only checking my email every two or three days), rather than respond personally, I'm just going to list everything here. I'd actually love it if *everyone* would post their publications, or at least send them to Michael so we could have them on the PMJS website!

Books

_Ankoku Butô: The Premodern and Postmodern Influences on the Dance of Utter Darkness_, Cornell East Asia Series #49 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University East Asia Program, 1989).

_Allegories of Desire: The Esoteric Literary Commentaries of Medieval Japan_ (Harvard University Press, forthcoming 2000).

Articles

"Fujiwara Tameaki" in _Medieval Japanese Writers_, a volume in the series _Dictionary of Literary Biography_,edited by Steven Carter (Bruccoli, Clark and Layman, 1999).

"A Translation of Ise monogatari zuinô (The Essence of The Tales of Ise)," _Monumenta Nipponica_ 53:1 (Spring 1998).

"Allegories of Desire: Poetry and Eroticism in Ise monogatari zuinô," _Monumenta Nipponica_ 52:4 (Winter 1997).

"Woman as Serpent: The Demonic Feminine in the Noh Play Dôjôji" in _Religious Reflections on the Human Body_, edited by Jane Marie Law (Indiana University Press, 1994). [REVISED AND EXPANDED VERSION OF ARTICLE BELOW -- I PREFER THIS VERSION]

"When the Moon Strikes the Bell: Desire and Enlightenment in the Noh Play Dôjôji," _Journal of Japanese Studies_ (Summer 1991), pp. 291-322.

Translation of _Kakitsubata_, published in _12 Plays of the Noh and Kyogen Theaters_, edited by Karen Brazell, Cornell University East Asia Papers Series #50 (Ithaca, NY: East Asia Program, 1989), pp. 64-79.

Susan Blakeley Klein
East Asian Languages and Literatures
HIB 479
UC Irvine, Irvine CA 92697

Hi Folks --

As someone who is subscribed to *way* too many listserves (if I'm away for four days I have 200 messages!), I just want to make a couple of points about listserve "netiquette." Richard Bowring has pointed out that some of our discussions have gotten a bit off topic and into the realm of the personal. Another, perhaps less obvious point is that we've had a lot of messages recently of the one-line, "Wow Fred, what a great thought!", variety.

This kind of message is not a good use of the listmembers' time -- really, any message that is personal should be sent directly to the person you want to address, not to the listserve as a whole. It is good to get into the habit of doing this, so that you don't find yourself accidentally sending a *really* personal message to the listserve. If you have been subscribed to a listserve for any length of time, you will have experienced the excruciating embarrassment that occurs when someone does this -- it is particularly embarrassing when someone says something very critical of someone else on the list. If you get in the habit of sending even innocuous personal notes directly to your addressee, you will save yourself much handwringing later on. Of course, the other way you can save yourself from embarrassment is to never, ever say anything personally critical on email -- you shouldn't anyway, because you have no control over what you've written after you send it!

The other point is that single-line replies that are basically "thank you for that great thought" or "I'd be happy to do X" and which don't delete the message to which they are responding, are not just a waste of time to the rest of us, they can also be a real financial burden to listmembers who don't have free access to the internet. I'm as much guilty of this as anyone else -- I just posted a note that accidentally included a completely unrelated message from Michael Watson. But as a kindness to those who aren't affiliated with a university that gives them a free internet address, or have a slow modem at home, you should always at least try to remember to delete any part of the message you are replying to that is not absolutely essential to your point.

Rant over.

Now I can say, wow folks, your thinking sure is great! I'm enjoying this listserv tremendously.

Susan

Some additional netiquette thoughts:

Ivo Smits asks about crossposting from other lists. On H-Japan we freely crosspost announcements such as CFPs, seminars & lectures, job openings etc, since these are meant to be circulated widely. I expect that no one would be unhappy if people did the same on PMJS. Messages in discussions on non-H-Net lists--for example the recent thread on yuujo, or the discussions of Genji authorship--are not posted without the permission of the author. This is because such messages are often designed with a specific audience in mind; for example, sometimes people post something to a non-academic list that they would prefer to rewrite if they knew it would be seen by an academic audience. Of course since H-Japan is a moderated list it's possible to exercise this kind of control; obviously on PMJS, what gets posted is up to each individual participant.

Susan Klein mentions that one shouldn't post personal messages or "gee what a great idea" type one-liners. I heartily concur. From my
experience on H-Japan, however, I suspect that most people don't really intend to do that, but misuse the "reply" function of their mailer.
That's easy enough to do, as I've found to my embarrassment. It can also be disastrous on an unmoderated list. For example, one subscriber to an unmoderated list I belong to mistakenly thought he was ordering a book, and broadcast his visa card number to everyone. The only way to avoid this sort of thing is to look at the "To" line carefully before sending your post.

--Janet Goodwin

Message from Anthony Bryant quoted below has gone missing here.

From: Michael Watson"
Date: Fri, 22 Oct 1999 15:22:34 +0900
Subject: Mooko shuurai text

>Thanks. I have a facsimile print of the entire scroll(s). I also have the entire text, typed into my computer after many laborious hours...Since Prof. Conlan's beat me to a translation <g> I can maybe do some good with the Japanese e-text and put it up on a website somewhere to make it accessible....

Tony--

I'd be happy to offer you space on my website, with your notes/commentary and links from the PMJS page. Text or HTML format by email to me, whenever you are ready!

You can also publicize this e-text via main Japanese mailing list for electronic texts--

http://www.egroups.com/list/etml/

I love the Mooko shuurai and always wanted to learn more about the text.

Michael Watson

Today I discovered that only the first three volumes of Konishi Jin'ichi's Nihon Bungei Shi have been translated into English (the title is A History of Japanese Literature, Princeton UP). Does anyone know why the last two volumes (it is five in all, I believe) have not come out yet and if they will be in future?

From: David Lurie
Date: Fri, 22 Oct 1999 21:32:24 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: Konishi Jin'ichi's A History of Japanese Literature

Several years ago, while assisting Prof. Henry Smith in the compilation of materials for Columbia's Japanese bibliography class, I called Princeton University Press to ask about the remainder of the Konishi history. I'm afraid I've forgotten who I spoke with, but I was told that there were no plans to publish translations of the last two volumes. I doubt that the situation has changed, but perhaps someone
else has more up-to-date information than I do.

--David Lurie

From: Michael Watson
Date: Sat, 23 Oct 1999 18:18:08 +0900
Subject: Re: Mooko shuurai / list announcement

Mooko shuurai is "Mongol Invasion" [kanji]

You'll find a facsimile of pictures and text with transcription and commentary in vol. 13 of _Nihon no emaki_, ed. Komatsu Shigemi (Chuo
Koronsha). The fierce looking Mongols are a delight to look at, though no doubt some would have us see them as an example of "the Other"!

Off hand I couldn't give a very coherent summary of the plot--my copy is at work--but between Tony Bryant and Tom Conlan, who is joining the list, we should manage fine.

This in answer to Janine. Now to everyone (to save bandwidth). I'd like some feedback, on-list or off, about bibliographical information and amazon.com links I've added to the members' database page.

http://www.meijigakuin.ac.jp/~pmjs/pmjs-db.html

In the vulgar parlance of the market-place, I hope this will be a win-win situation for everyone. Good for those with books to "sell" or publicize. Good for those looking for an easy way to order books, or learn what's available. And good for the list, as if any commissions do come my way, I will use them to arrange PMJS kenkyukai and the like.

One more thing. It's too early to announce this, but at
http://www.meijigakuin.ac.jp/~pmjs/trans/trans.html

you'll find the beginning of another bibliographical page for translations and studies of texts from Kojiki onwards, in rough chronological order. This idea was suggested most recently by Morgan Pitelka. I'll be adding links to Japanese electronic texts, and asking you to help fill in the blanks--especially for areas outside my main interests. Don't expect too much just yet, but I've made a start.

Michael Watson

more messages concerning Môko shûrai ekotoba in arch06

Friends and Colleagues,

Do (m)any of you have experience using Japanese-language Optical Character Recognition software, preferably for the Macintosh? How about PC's? What do you use for Kanbun? How are all of these e-texts actually produced?

My apologies if these questions have already been answered on one list or another. If so please point me in the right direction.

Thanks for all of the discussion of the Moukou shuurai scroll.

Karen L. Brock
Art History and Archaeology
Washington University

I use MacReader Pro v.4 for Macintosh (Japanese OS 8.5) and it works
brilliantly. You have to proofread everything very carefully, of course, but
I find that it does save time for entering long texts that have been put
into katsuji. It seems to perform well with both modern Japanese and older
forms, as long as the characters are clearly printed on your original.

Here is a quick description of how this process works. You take a text (a
passage from a book or an article or even a good xerox of an article) and
scan it on a regular flatbed scanner. Any kind of scanner will do (does not
need to be Japanese-friendly; it is only taking an image), though it works
best if you can do a high resolution scan. You then take the image file to
the computer with MacReader Pro installed (I do my scans at school and do
the OCR work at home) and run the images through the program. You select the
areas of Japanese text to be "recognized" and turned into usable text. It
converts them, and displays the converted text in a window next to the
image. You then can proofread the text from within MacReader Pro, "teaching"
the program when it made a mistake. (So, for example, I scanned in a series
of 17th century letters that had been transcribed and printed in a book in
the 80s. MacReader Pro thought that the character "te" was the
character "men," but I taught it the correct character, a function called
gakushuu and on the next image, it didn't make the same mistake). Then
you save the text file and can use it in documents however you please.

[kanji here]

The program is by no means perfect. Very subtle differences in character
shape are difficult. For example, I have been unable to teach the program to
distinguish between the kanji meaning two, "ni" and the katakana
character "ni" which are of course slightly different. But it is easy to
go over the text and find these small mistakes.

I do not know how this program would work with an English system w/ the
Japanese language kit. Fortunately it does not have any extensions, which
tend to be the elements in applications that crash if not on a Japanese
language OS.

Good luck!

Morgan

A hearty welcome to Robert Morrell and Tom Conlan, both already active in
discussion. "Yokoso" also to Sonja Arntzen (U. of Alberta), Wolfgang Michel
(Kyushu U.), Minae Savas

From: Michael Watson
Date: 24 Oct 1999 10:37:57 -0000

I was very pleased that Susan Klein raised the issue of listserve
"netiquette."
> Richard Bowring has pointed out that some of our discussions have
gotten a bit off topic
> and into the realm of the personal. Another, perhaps less obvious
point is that we've had a lot of
> messages recently of the one-line, "Wow Fred, what a great
thought!", variety.

Actually I believe that Richard Bowring was talking about a JLIT-L
thread, but be that as it may, the two issues, relevancy and one-
liners, are problems faced by this list like any other. Janet
Goodwin's points, from her long experience as H-Japan editor, were
well taken.

In my non-confrontational way I was rather hoping that "offenders"
would realize themselves after receiving copies of their own short
messages that it is often better to write directly to someone, rather
than say "thanks" to the whole list. Most of us have sinned in this
way at one time or other. Certainly I have. Don't worry that we will
think you rude and ungrateful if you go off-list to thank someone or
to continue a one-to-one discussion directly.

Let me make two modest suggestions, however. First, to enable others
on the list to contact you directly, it would a great help if EVERYONE
would include e-mail addresses in signatures. Most kinds of mail
software allow you to register different signatures. (On this list I
use an "editor's" one when I'm wearing my official hat and a personal
one when I'm not.)

If you don't do this, would-be correspondents may be forced to open up
the internet header to find your address. (I have to do this so often
to sign people up to the list that I've found it worth creating a
keyboard shortcut.) That's a lot to ask--not everyone knows what an
"internet header" is.** If it's in your automatic signature they can
copy/paste it more easily into the "TO" box of a new message. Or save
it to their address book.

One more suggestion. When you log on in a hurry to check whether
important personal mail has come in or not, you will sometimes be hit
by a flood of mail from this list and others--the deluge is worse if
you don't check daily. Try this solution: have the mail software sort
your mail automatically.

With Microsoft's "Outlook Express" (for example) this is a simple
matter of setting "RULES" so that when you log on, all mail from
sender "pmjs" is put in a folder that you create, called whatever you
choose. This keeps it separate from personal mail in your "In Box",
allowing you to ignore it until you have a free moment. It will keep
down the irritation factor, and also save you the trouble of sorting
mail out later. I do this will all list mail and wonder why I never
tried before.

I don't want to open up a discussion about mail software. (We've had
enough tech discussion recently on JLIT-L.) However if anyone one
wants to send instructions for other mail software, I'll put up the
information on another web page. (You must all think I'm web mad, but
uploading a page to the server is a matter of seconds--even from home,
where I'm mainly working.)

(**INTERNET HEADER: if when reading this message you don't see all the
dull dull information about the servers it passed through to get to
you, then choose "Show source" under "View" menu with Outlook Express,
or "Page Source" under "View" menu with Netscape (Mac versions, 4.x--
I'm guessing at the names since I have Japanese versions of these
programs.)

In other list news, the members' database page has been updated and
revamped:
http://www.meijigakuin.ac.jp/~watson/pmjs-db1.html

New members may want to catch up with discussions. Lewis Cook has
returned to the fascinating question of Genji's authorship. The thread
so far can be read at:
http://www.meijigakuin.ac.jp/~watson/pmjs/arch06.html

My previous attempt to send this was mysteriously cut off. I was in
the middle of welcoming members. We now number 127. Other new members
are: the Noh specialist Richard Emmert and three graduate students:
Alexander R. Bay (Stanford), Peter Flueckiger (Columbia) and Anna
Schegoleva (St Petersburg).

Michael Watson

I like the way Michael has set the current list reply function, and I
hope he won't change it. I'd also like to second what Lewis has just
said on this subject. If the list is to be an open forum of ideas and
information, replies need to be sent to all subscribers. Every list I
subscribe to operates this way, and I think public exchanges are the
most important aspect of pmjs as well. I have benefited many times
already from listening in on exchanges between other people, and I'd
like to express my thanks to all the discussants and to Michael for
having set up list replies the way he has.

I get the feeling that there is netiquette and there is netiquette.
There seem to be different versions floating around out in e-space.
According to the netiquette I'm familiar with, nothing has yet appeared
on pmjs that would come close to being a breach of netiquette. I don't
find short messages of agreement, affirmation, or just plain vanilla-
flavored satori to be completely irrelevant to the list. I believe such
short messages are acceptable and common on a great many serious lists.
I belong to a couple of very rigorous academic lists, and even there
short or exclamatory messages are fairly common, and no complaints are
made about them. They actually seem to sometimes contribute to a sense
of the excitement of discovery that is essential, I think, to any active
list. I personally feel that even short, exclamatory messages can add
to the pmjs list by creating an atmosphere of openness and mutual
scholarly interest in each other's points. Even a simple expression of
agreement can be important, since agreement between two individuals on a
list is also public agreement and has a potential significance going
beyond the two individuals directly addressing each other. For example,
an expression of agreement is significant as a judgment that might cause
others to think about their own judgments as well. And so on. Also, I
personally enjoy the almost brainstorming quality of some brief remarks.
They can potentially lead to further, trans-personal discoveries. There
may be some remarks that are overly obvious, but I think this is a
matter of common sense rather than some a priori netiquette. As Lewis
said, it doesn't take long to push or click to delete. If there are any
people on the list who are being financially hurt by short, informal
messages, then please contact me (or the list?). If any others agree,
then let's set up a fund to reimburse them for their losses. Free, open
discussions are worth it in my opinion.

I also have a question about cross-postings. It's my understanding that
non-personal notices about conferences and forthcoming journal issues
don't require the cross-poster to get the personal permission of the
sender. Is that right? Recently I've seen a couple of conference
announcements migrating around on several lists that I thought might
interest some members of pmjs, but I didn't cross-post them because I
didn't know what members thought about cross-posting. Both conferences
were both on cross-cultural themes that seemed to be relevant to some of
the discussion on pmjs so far. Is there any consensus about this sort of
thing?

Best,

Chris Drake

Hi Folks --

Michael reiterated in a very pleasant (and informative) style my somewhat
irritated comments on people simply hitting the reply button. I hadn't
realized that other email programs don't give you the email address of the
sender (the Eudora program I use gives you the email address in the header,
and so this didn't seem like a problem to me). I'll try to be sure to
include my signature from now on.

It almost seems inevitable that new members to the listserve will go
through a period of simply hitting reply until they figure the system out.
Perhaps the solution is for Michael to keep a short "netiquette" message
that he can send out to new members? The other possibility would be for
Michael to change the listserve reply function so that it goes directly to
the person who wrote the message, not the list as a whole. The problem with
this, of course, is that it is rather inconvenient for discussions. What do
people think?

Susan

Susan Blakeley Klein
East Asian Languages and Literatures
UC Irvine, Irvine CA 92697

Susan Klein suggests that I could set the list reply so that replies
go directly to the person who wrote the message, not the list as a
whole. To write to everyone you would have to address the reply to
pmjs@listbot.com. Now why didn't I think of that. It is indeed a
simple matter for me to change the settings in this way. Comments one
way or other, please.

Meanwhile it is close to a month since I last distributed a list of
members' e-mail addresses. Please refer to it when communicating among
yourselves, but do not distribute it further.

[list of 128 names & addresses omitted]

Has anyone else used OCR programs in Japanese?

I believe the recognition database of any OCR program is simply the set of
kanji characters in the language system installed on your computer. I use
ATOK 12, which seems to have all the standard kyuuji, though certain strange
premodern variants (especially those that appear in names, Buddhist terms,
and Chinese texts) are missing. (ATOK 12 has a helpful function from the
"moji palette" where you can call up the standard itaiji of any character,
if such a variant exists). With MacReader Pro 4, if the system doesn't catch
the kyuuji the first time aroud, you just teach it to recognize the correct
character and it gets it the next time. Laborious at first, but increasingly
useful as the program gets "smarter."

One of the most important strategies seems to be scanning in texts at high
resolution, which of course unfortunately takes more time and takes up more
disk space.

One of the annoyances of the program is that it gets confused by furigana
and alternative readings/characters provided to the side of vertical text in
parentheses (is this interlinear text?). There may be a function to deal
with the problem that I haven't discovered yet.

Morgan

Hello,

following the thread of the recent discussion about the Mouko shuurai
ekotoba I would like to ask about a certain feature of the work
that those of your who read or studied the text have probably
noticed.

The Mouko shuurai ekotoba is one of the earliest extant examples of
the usage of "gachuushi" ("e no naka no kotoba"), sporadic
elements of text written in the illustrations.
Concentrating on Muromachi illustrated literature I didn't have
the time to take a closer look at the work yet but I would
be interested if anyone knows if it has been clarified that
these "gachuushi" form an original part of the work and are not
a later addendum or simple "rakugaki"?

With regard to Mrs. Beichmann, who is obviously concerned about the
quality of her bungaku jiten I would like to point out that I
had the impression that the Mouko shuurai is regarded as a historical
account rather than a work of narrative literature in Japan, which
might explain why in the eyes of the editors of the bungaku jiten
in question it just didn't qualify for an own entry.

John Schmitt-Weigand
Kanazawa University

I have also used MacReader Pro, but an older version (I think 2.0) than
the one recommended by Morgan Pitelka. I'm sure 4.0 is better than the
older version, but let me recount my experience anyway.

I naively expected to scan in printed documents such as those in Kamakura
ibun, run them through the OCR process, convert them to a word processing
program, and find key kanji with a search function. In other words, I was
trying to create a kind of index on the fly, which would help me find
pertinent documents without searching them "manually" line by line. The
OCR was about 90 percent accurate, which sounds pretty good on the
surface, but meant that I had to look over every line anyway, so it didn't
save me any time. Specific problems I discovered were:

1. There were lots of kanji not in its database--the kyuu kanji were
missing, and quite a few others. (Whether or not the text was kanbun
didn't make any difference, since it didn't seem to depend on context to
recognize characters.)

2. It could not handle interlinear text.

3. It had trouble with blurry printing.

4. The package, which I purchased in Japan fortunately with my
university's money, was pretty expensive--I think I paid 200,000 yen for
it.

I suspect the value of the package depends on how you're going to use
it. Obviously it worked well for Morgan. I do wonder, however, if the
newer version has improved its recognition rate--if so it might be worth
considering a purchase.

--Janet Goodwin

>Susan Klein suggests that I could set the list reply so that replies
>go directly to the person who wrote the message, not the list as a
>whole. To write to everyone you would have to address the reply to
>pmjs@listbot.com. Now why didn't I think of that. It is indeed a
>simple matter for me to change the settings in this way. Comments one
>way or other, please.

I'm tempted just to say, if it ain't broke don't fix it. I don't
think the need to discourage the occasional or even rather frequent
post in "Hey, thanks for the info..." mode is worth the risk of
curtailing, inadvertently or not, posts to the list and ensuing
discussion. One thing we all have is a 'delete' key. I'd much prefer
to follow Susan's suggestion to send new subscribers (most lists seem
to do this) a Welcome / FAQ message spelling out basic netiquette and
routines for sending messages as posts vs. private mail.
I'm not at all sure about the technical issues here. I'm using
Outlook Express 4.x (default mail client for Win95 and 98-J) which
offers (among others) the options "reply to author" / "reply to all."
As things stand, the former sends a reply to "PMJS," the latter to
"PMJS;PMJS" either of which gets to the list, where it belongs. If the
alternative is to set things up so that the former would result in an
off-list / personal message, and the latter a post to the list, that
would be fine for OE users, but would this work out quite so neatly
with all e-mail clients?
Is it too much to ask people who want to send offlist / personal
mail to list-members to learn the simple procedure for doing so
(referring to OE, anyway, "compose message" addressed to the intended
recipient, not to the list)?
FWIW, some may recall that JLIT-L (unlike any other listserv list
or discussion list I've ever seen, and there have been many) was
originally set up so that replies to posts on the list went by default
only to the author, not to the list. This is not the way to foster a
public discussion. (I suggested, years ago, to the list-owner that the
defaults might be reversed, and was politely asked to mind my own
business). Last year or so the defaults for JLIT-L were indeed
reversed. The resulting increase in traffic may have included
occasional mishaps and some wasted bandwidth (though the recent
discussion over there of the usage of "chikusho" turned out, somewhat
ironically, to be more informative IMHO than many other JLIT-L threads
in recent memory.) No unmoderated discussion list is proof against
these. I think an occasional reminder, such as Susan's, that "pmjs" is
a public forum, and a few guidelines for new subscribers, should be
enough.

Lewis Cook
lcoqc@att.net

Janet Goodwin wrote
> I have also used MacReader Pro, but an older version (I think 2.0) than
> the one recommended by Morgan Pitelka. [4.0]

My experience with the same software, version 3.0, splitting the difference.

In answer to Morgan
> One of the annoyances of the program is that it gets confused by furigana
> and alternative readings/characters provided to the side of vertical text in
> parentheses (is this interlinear text?). There may be a function to deal
> with the problem that I haven't discovered yet.

I had the same problem, with footnote numbers, with rubi, with interlinear
translations (Shincho nihon koten bungaku shusei)

The program attempts to recognize the "zones" of the page, putting boxes
around a line. These can be de-selected before beginning recognition.

With footnotes numbers and rubi one time-consuming but effective solution is
to use the program's eraser tool to wipe out them out before character
recognition.

Morgan recommends
> One of the most important strategies seems to be scanning in texts at high
> resolution, which of course unfortunately takes more time and takes up more
> disk space.

Alternatively you can make an enlarged photocopy first. That's often enough.
This is VERY effective with Western language OCR as well (OmniPage)--and
doubly useful if you have a sheet feeder on top of the photocopier. (I did
OCR on hundreds of pages of English materials while I was marking entrance
exams, just dropping in every now and again to place another 100 pages in
the feeder. You also end up with an easy to read photocopy of the work in
question.)

> I believe the recognition database of any OCR program is simply the set of
> kanji characters in the language system installed on your computer. I use

Morgan is wrong about this, I believe. The manufacturer's information about
MacReader states that has nearly 100% recognition ability of JIS level ONE
plus 200-500. You can TEACH it any character which is in your language
system. See

http://www.mediadrive.co.jp/katuji/ocr/index.html
(and click on "moji ninshiki no gijitsu suijun")

The pages here give a clear, well illustrated explanation of how OCR works.

The problem of the number of characters recognized is the biggest headache
for those dealing with older texts. For some texts you need JIS level TWO
plus 1000 or more.

That having been said, however, do not despair. There are a lot of texts in
yamatokotoba with just a few kanji. And it really helps to start with a
relatively UNCLUTTERED text face--minimum of annotation, post-war kanji etc.

MacReader claims a speed of 120 characters a SECOND. A little faster than
most of us can type manually. Of course, you'll be proof-reading and
re-entering characters until the cows come home, but it may be worth it,
depending on the language of the text, the edition, and your expectations.

Michael Watson

Most lists operate as PMJS now does. In my experience as editor of two
lists (H-Japan and EMJNet), folks joining one list usually find one or more
additional lists they are interested in. To the extent that PMJS serves as
the first list "learning experience"for our members, it really is in the
best interests of everyone to learn to use their e-mailer in such a way as
to be able to send personal messages to the individual, not the whole list.
This is easily accomplished in Eudora and Netscape as well as MS Outlook.
My experience as list editor (H-Japan has over 1000 members) of managed
lists is that far less than one percent of participants send us personal
messages. When they do, or when EMJNet members do, it is overwhelmingly an
oversight (sometimes embarassing in the case of an unmoderated list like
PMJS, EMJNet, etc.), not lack of knowledge about how to direct replies.

Philip C. Brown
Department of History
Ohio State University

May I make one further suggestion: since one does have the option of simply
deleting anything on a thread in which one has no (further) interest, it
seems a good idea to be sure to indicate on the subject-line when one is in
fact changing the subject. The subjects "list list" and "netiquette" may not
be of equal interest to everyone, for example. PMJS has been pretty good
about this.

David Pollack
University of Rochester

I wasn't really worried about the quality of my bungaku jiten; in fact I'm
very fond of it. All I meant was that the fact that the common view only
thought it rated that small a mention while it is in actuality a
fascinating work shows that it is well worth working on --interesting, but
not yet well known. But your saying that it's thought of as an historical
work rather than one of narrative literature raises the question of how all
those other works under the emakimono entry (which is where the Mooko
Shuurai is) are thought of--what I mean is that it is interesting that
there should be this kind of genre that crosses history and literature--and
which the Japanese themselves have perhaps not fully disentangled--how much
of Mooko Shuurai is historically accurate anyway? Is emakimono like manga
today, essentially a way of presenting information visually, information
which is sometimes explicitly fictional (like shoujo manga), at other times
meant to convey accurate information about the real world (like the manga
about economics) , and at still other times meant to convey a little of
both (those manga, for example, about the gourmet cook, meant to show what
it was like to be one, even if the hero himself was fictional)--
I will also be interested to hear how your question about the gachuushi is
answered (and thank you for explaining the word, too, for those who like me
are venturing on new territory here)

At 11:30 AM 10/25/1999 +0900, John Schmitt-Weigand wrote:
>With regard to Janine Beichman [corrected name], who is obviously
concerned about the
>quality of her bungaku jiten I would like to point out that I
>had the impression that the Mouko shuurai is regarded as a historical
>account rather than a work of narrative literature in Japan, which
>might explain why in the eyes of the editors of the bungaku jiten
>in question it just didn't qualify for an own entry.

First let me publicly thank everyone who responded to my OCR question; I
hope to hear from more of you so that I can make up my mind if the
investment would be worth it.

In regard to texts written within the paintings of emaki, there
are several different kinds of comments, and the practice of including
them began at least by the late 12th century.

Comments ending with the
word "tokoro" (Here is where x is taking place) can be found in the
Hikohohodemi no mikoto
emaki (known only from copies, see Komatsu Shigemi, Nihon emaki taisei,
vol. 22), in the Kegon engi emaki (a.k.a Kegonshu soshi emaki) of the
1220s-30s (NET vol. 17) and the much less well known Wakasa no kuni
chinjujin ekeizu (at Kyoto National Museum). This explanatory comment
ultimately comes from cartouches or even longer narrative passages found
in narratives painted on walls or screens in both Japan and China (it is
common in Dunhuang paintings).

A second type of comment is simply a name identifying an important
character in the tale, this too is present in the works cited above.

The third type of writing are the interpolated confersations, sometimes
numbered, which are placed near the figures who are supposed to be
speaking them. These appear in the Kegon engi emaki scrolls (in addition
to the tokoro-type comment), but in the earlier scrolls of this set (i.e.
1220s) they seem to be interpolations, while the ones in the later scrolls
(1230s) might be original. A calligraphy specialist or scientific
analysis of the ink might be able to distinguish original from
interpolated comments.

The linkage between manga and emaki is an unfortunate one,and stems from
Edo-period attributions of several scrolls to Toba Sojo (especially the
Frolicking Animals scroll and Shigisan engi emaki), a famous abbot who
has long been celebrated as the originator of Manga, but who probably did
not paint picture scrolls.

In my view, picture scrolls cannot be classified as "art," "literature,"
"history," or the like. They demand (but rarely receive)
interdisciplinary attention as they are often the earliest or only extant
text of their subject. They were made through a collaborative process that
involved patrons, painters, scribes, and audience(s), and often employed
very costly materials. The best preserved are those that were made as
pious gifts to shrines and temples, where they functioned as "proof" of
their owner's history and sanctity. There was no single approach to the
editing of the text or the relationship between text and picture, just as
they was no one type of text or patron involved. Certainly some emaki are
very funny and were indeed entertaining, but quite often the texts
conveyed more serious and didactic messages. When we have a source text to
compare the emaki text to, we will find varying degrees of editing,
abridgement, and expansion, all indicators that the emaki editor was
manipulating the story for effective telling with the pictures.

Three of my articles go into some of these issues more deeply:

"Chinese Maiden, Silla Monk: Zenmyoo and Her Thirteenth-century Japanese
Audience" in Marsha Weidner, ed., Flowering in the Shadows: Women in the
History of Chinese and Japanese Painting (Hawaii, 1990): 185-218.

"The Making and Remaking of Miraculous Origins of Mt. Shigi," Archives of
Asian Art XLV (1992):42-71.

"The Shogun's Painting Match," Monumenta Nipponica 50.4 (1995): 433-484.

Needless to say I am VERY happy that emaki are being discovered,
translated, and studied by scholars outside of art history.

Karen L. Brock
Dept. of Art History and Archaeology
Washington University in St. Louis

Many apologies for forgetting to list several names.

Edward Kamens
Janet Ikeda
Carol Tsang

I do hope there were not to many more.
It's easy for me or any of you to get an alphabetical list of e-mail addresses at
http://pmjs.listbot.com/
but alphabetical by surname requires manual entry and errors creep in, even if Nisus takes care of the alphabetizing. I must confess that I did not cross-check, relying on you to correct errors.

On the other question, of changing the list settings to "reply to sender only" there has so far been one off-list vote in favour and three against (Chris, Lewis and one vote off-list).

Talking of alphabetization, Melanie Trede has been kind enough to comment on the sample bibliography of translations from classical literature.
http://www.meijigakuin.ac.jp/~watson/pmjs/trans.html
She rightly pointed out that an alphabetical order by title of work would be more convenient than an attempt at a chronological order, and I've followed her suggestion for the few dozen works listed so far. Kamakura and later works will follow anon. Noh will have a separate page...

Michael Watson

All I can add regarding the gachuushi is that they are clearly written
by several different individuals; some are in red ink; others in normal
black ink. My guess is that this topic deserves further research.

Tom

John Schmitt-Weigand wrote:
> Concentrating on Muromachi illustrated literature I didn't have
> the time to take a closer look at the work yet but I would
> be interested if anyone knows if it has been clarified that
> these "gachuushi" form an original part of the work and are not
> a later addendum or simple "rakugaki"?

Dear Karen,
Thank you for clearing up all the questions brought up in the recent thread
so pithily and elegantly. I'm looking forward to reading your articles too.
I don't want to go on record as a manga fan (I don't read them at all, it's
just that I've had masses of them around the house for years as the mother
of two kids growing up in Japan and anyone living in Japan can't avoid
being aware of them) but at the same time I think we ought to remember that
they are not always meant to be humorous--often they are quite serious,
even didactic. Artistically they are of course far behind emakimono but in
intent there may be overlapping areas. Someone with interests in popular
culture might find the parallels worth examining (not me, I hasten to add).

A Japanese colleague has asked for information about recent bibliographies
of works in English on Japanese thought and religion. I'm sure that
information about works in other Western languages would also be welcome,
and undoubtedly others (myself included) would also like to know if anything
of that sort is readily available. Does anyone have any suggestions?

Kate Wildman Nakai
-------------------
Kate Wildman Nakai, Prof. of Japanese History, Sophia University,
and Editor, Monumenta Nipponica

Dear PMJS,

Sorry to send another computer question out, but I am having problems with
MS Word 98 (for Macintosh), which I recently began using. For some reason
the footnotes in my documents sometimes cause page breaks, even when there
is no page break character/command inserted. For example, after footnote 35,
the page ends and is completely blank, and then the text starts up again on
the next page. This happens about 3 times in a document with 50 footnotes. I
cannot for the life of me figure out what is different about those
footnotes. If I make them all endnotes, the problem goes away, but I want
them to be footnotes.

Any advice would be much appreciated. Please respond to my personal email
address, not the list. Thanks!

Morgan

********************************
Morgan Pitelka
Ph.D. Candidate
East Asian Studies Department
Princeton University

With regard to Kate Wildman Nakai's query, I do not know of anything on
religion, but on thought there is a huge amount of material contained in
_Bibliography of Japanese history to 1912_, which I compiled in 1996 and
which is available from Zoe Conway Morris who can be reached at
zhc20@cam.ac.uk. This is now being updated and will eventually be on the
web. Pages 49 to 60 cover Tokugawa intellectual history and pages 85 to 87
Meiji intellectual history; as far as possible, works in English, French,
German and Italian are included.

Peter Kornicki

Faculty of Oriental Studies
University of Cambridge
Sidgwick Avenue
Cambridge CB3 9DA
UK

I'm trying to locate a renga verse (I think it must be a maeku
from around late 14th -- early 15th c.?) to cite in a lecture, and
would be grateful for assistance. The gist of the verse as I recalll
it is that the speaker has just moved from the shade of a tree or a
wood into the summer sunlight and remarks not the heat but the abrupt
sense of coolness. I'm sure I've run into this verse more than once
(don't think myself capable of having imagined it) but can't find
anything in Shinsen Tsukubashuu or Chikurinshou that fits (nor in
_Heart's Flower_ --- was thinking it might be Shinkei). Could someone
kindly help rekindle my memory? Many thanks in advance.

Lewis Cook

Not only does it deal with a pre-modern topic, its prehistoric!

Habu, Junko and Mark Hall. "Jomon Pottery Production in Central
Japan," ASIAN PERSPECTIVES Vol. 38, No. 1, 1999, pp. 90-110.

Later, Mark Hall

Is there perhaps someone on the list who can answer a question about the
set of 54 incense configurations known as _Genji kou_? Here's the question:

When appearing in series in a short illustrated text on traditional
patterns, why would the 54 not be listed in the standard chapter order?

A Meiji 18 publication, _Iroha-biki hayami monjou taisei_, has a complete
set of all 54 chapter titles and corresponding incense arrangements (some
are repeats, it seems), but they appear in this order (6 or 7 chapters to a
page):

Kiritsubo, Yuugao, Momiji no ga, Sakaki, Suma, Akashi;

Sekiya, Usugumo, Tamakazura, Hotaru, Nowaki, Makibashira, Wakana;

Hahakigi, Wakamurasaki, Hana no en, Hana chiru sato, Miotsukushi, Eawase,
Asagao;

Hatsune, Tokonatsu, Miyuki, Ume ga e, Wakaba, Utsusemi, Suetsumuhana;

Aoi, Yomogiu, Matsukaze, Otome, Kochou, Kagaribi, Fujibakama;

Fuji no uraba, Kashiwagi, Yokobue, Minori, Takekawa, Shii ga moto, Yadorigi;

Kagerou, Suzumushi, Maboroshi, Koubai, Azumaya, Tenarai;

Yuugiri, Niou no miya, Hashihime, Sawarahi, Ukifune, Yume no ukihashi.

What is the pattern here? Is this a traditional arrangement, whether among
incense people or among Genji readers of early Meiji Japan? Or is there
some other obvious pattern (one that I just can't see)? Any help much
appreciated.

Steve Forrest

Finance Minister Miyazawa has shown an image of the new 2000 yen
bill, to be released next July at the G7/8 summit in Okinawa. The
obverse shows the Shurei-mon Gate of Shuri-jou in Naha, while the
reverse shows Genji talking/not talking to his "secret" son, Reizei,
from the GM emaki, Suzumushi Chapter. Murasaki Shikibu is also shown,
in a scene from the MS nikki emaki.

According to the newspaper account

http://www.sankei.co.jp/html/1029side002.html

the depiction of a woman on a Japanese bill is a first for the Bank of
Japan, and the first time since Jinguu/Jingou Kougou was depicted in the
Meiji era.

MS must be the author...

Lawrence Marceau

From: Eric C. Rath
Date: Fri, 29 Oct 1999 14:37:11 -0500 (CDT)
Subject: life expectancy

Does anyone have any idea about average life expectancy during the
Muromachi period?

Eric C. Rath
Assistant Professor
Dept. of History
University of Kansas

"Stephen M. Forrest" wrote:
> Is there perhaps someone on the list who can answer a question about the
> set of 54 incense configurations known as _Genji kou_? Here's the question:
>
> When appearing in series in a short illustrated text on traditional
> patterns, why would the 54 not be listed in the standard chapter order?

While I can't answer this, I know a place you might be able to find the answer.

A woman here at IU did her thesis about a decade or two ago on the incense
ceremony (quote-unquote?), in which she went into great detail on the various
equipment and supplies for incense burning, its importance in Heian culture,
and various points where she felt translators had missed the point of the
emotions writers were trying to evoke by mentioning specific fragrances and so
on in their writings. I'm pretty sure she would have addressed that there, but
I can't remember offhand.

I'm pretty sure you can get her thesis through the University Microfilm people.
The title was something like "The Japanese Incense Ceremony" I think.... It's a
very interesting read, and I really enjoyed it when I read it a few years back.
It's the first time I've ever seen the topic addressed in English.

Tony

Stephen,

I don't know the answer, either, but I do know that _The Book of Incense_, by
Kiyoko Morita, now at Tufts, was published by Kodansha International about five
years ago. I believe that Ms. Morita is the individual Tony Bryant is referring to
below. The answer to your question might be in her book...

Good luck!

Lawrence Marceau

Regarding fragrance and character in the Tale of Genji there is also
the earlier study by Aileen Gatten:

Gatten, Aileen. "A Wisp of Smoke: Scent and Character in The Tale
of Genji." MN, 32 (1977), 35-48.

Robert Omar Khan
Asian Studies
University of Texas at Austin

Lawrence Marceau wrote:
> I don't know the answer, either, but I do know that _The Book of Incense_, by
> Kiyoko Morita, now at Tufts, was published by Kodansha International about five
> years ago. I believe that Ms. Morita is the individual Tony Bryant is referring to
> below. The answer to your question might be in her book...

That could well be her. That sounds very familiar, and the lady was Japanese.

Since it's out from Kodansha, I'm going to have to buy it. Off to the store!

Tony

[in reply to Eric Rath]

I'd think such a figure would only be meaningful in the context of exactly
where and when. We don't think of life expectancy in Kyoto around 1470
as being terribly long. Then again, it's always surprising to read of the
longevity of many of the Zen monks, who seemed to live well into their 70s.
I've decided to chalk this up to the virtues of a near-starvation diet --
it's well known that mice on that sort of diet live longer anyhow. Would
merchants have naturally lived longer lives than warriors? Periods of famine
or plague would take a bite out of the old lifespan, etc. etc.

David Pollack

Many thanks to Lawrence Marceau for the latest news on the Women and
Minorities 2000 Yen Bill. Yes, MS MUST be the author...

I was just reading a piece by Edward Seidensticker, from KOKUBUNGAKU,
January 1969. He expressed himself very clearly on the authorship issue,
praising a consistent progress in sophistication and quality from
"Kiritsubo" all the way through through the Uji jujo, which, he believed,
mark a new leap forward; and he dismissed the idea that anyone who was not
MS, and whose name we do not even know, could just come along like that and
top her. Of great interest to me was a remark that although many people,
naively reading through Genji, find themselves concurring with the
"traditional interpretation" that MS did not write them, no reader who
looks beneath the surface could agree. Does anyone know about such a
"traditional interpretation" (dentooteki kaishaku), with which so many
ordinary readers were or are so likely to agree?

With apologies for my Genjimania.

Royall Tyler

It turns out I'm supposed to do the second verse, so here goes.

1. Big autumn moon stumbles
up the sky - with a place or without
a place of rest she burns herself away.

(Anne Carson)

2. Tents of the visiting troupe
billow in slow music by the shrine

(Chris Drake)

Esperanza, are you going to do the next verse? Also, are you going to be
the honored shuhitsu, or should we just keep track of the sequence on
the list home page?

Cheers,

Chris

What incense patterns does the Meiji book give for Kiritsubo and Yume no
ukihashi, Stephen? In the conventional arrangements with which we are
familiar, there are no patterns for the first and last chapters. Apparently
this is because the possible permutations of five sticks of incense (ABCDE,
AABCD, ABACD etc) come to 52, not 54.

Up in the wilds of Fukushima Prefecture just now, enjoying the autumnal
colours. None of the Genji reference books we keep here give any hint of an
order different to Hahakigi - Tenarai. However I did bring the modem (what a
mistake) and have done the usual online search, finding 84 pages including
Japanese text "Genji-koo."

Those who are not familiar with the traditional way of illustrating
pattern--e.g. first and third stick the same, others different...--can look
at the chapter headings in Puette handbook of Genji (Tuttle). Or for a
fast-loading web page--you'll need Japanese to read the chapter titles--

http://www.cc.matsuyama-u.ac.jp/~b982283/genji.html

You will notice that it begins with Hahakigi, the only chapter to have the
combination (kumi-awase) of five different kinds of incense.

http://www.koju.co.jp/tvkuizu/kuizunihon.html

includes pictures from a broadcast of that sometimes informative Sunday 7pm
NHK program "Nihonjin no shitsumon" showing Genji-koo fans playing the game
of trying to guess the incense pattern.

Not all 52 patterns are used at one time (that would be too exhausting for
the nose)--25 permutations are chosen for the "game"--as I understand it the
KIND of incense is not fixed, there must just be five kinds. Off hand we
can't remember the name of the store in Kyoto where we've bought Genji
incense. It features a full set of Genji-koo, all with designs to match the
chapter title or subject.

Those with Japanese display, patience and a fast web connection can look at
the 84 results of the "goo" search--we checked only two likely-looking
pages:

http://www.goo.ne.jp/default.asp?MT=%B8%BB%BB%E1%B9%E1&act.search=%B8%A1%BA%
F7&WTS=ntt&SM=MC&DE=2&DC=50&_v=2&ES=1

(you'll have to paste all that into the browser search window)

Now to get out and do some autumn-leaf hunting (? momiji-gari)

Michael Watson

In response to Royall on the authorship issue,

In _Nihon koten bungaku daijiten_ II:406--37 (Iwanami Shoten, 1984),
Akiyama Ken, Abe Akio, and Shinohara Shouji discuss the authorship issue
from pages 407 to 408. At the bottom of 407 they acknowledge that there
are many arguments against MS as author of all the chapters ("ooku no
iron ga aru"). At the top of 408 they identify, based on stylistic
evidence, that "compelling" ("yuuryoku na") theories exist for a
separate author or authors of the "Niou no miya", "Koubai", and
"Takekawa" chapters. However, they caution that the difference
presented by these chapters is not of the scale that we encounter in a
later addition, such as "Yamaji no tsuyu."

At the bottom of page 409, in their discussion on the "circumstances
of creation" ("seiritsu katei") of the chapters, Akiyama et al. declare
that such "orthodox" Genji scholars (Ikeda Kikan, Tamagami Takuya, and
Ishida Jouji, among others) argue persuasively for separate authorship
of several of the later chapters, based on a number of theme, character,
rhetoric, and other factors. It seems that the late 60s was a time when
many of these theories were coming out, so it's perhaps not so
surprising that in 1969 Seidensticker would feel that the "traditional
interpretation" is for separate authorship of many of the later
chapters.

I also found helpful the more recent item on GM in _Nihon koten
bungaku daijiten_ (1 volume, Meiji Shoin, 1998) by Fujii Sadakazu (pp.
395--401). Surprisingly, Fujii is less direct on the authorship issue
than Akiyama and co. are, focusing rather on Takeda Munetoshi's theory
of 17 "Murasaki no ue" chapters supplemented by 16 "Tamakazura"
chapters, and how this affects the total structure of the work as a
whole, including the post-"Kumogakure" chapters. (Now I know where
Helen McCullough came up with her choice of 17 chapters for her _Genji &
Heike_ translation.)

Better stop here, and get back to "work"!

Lawrence Marceau

Noel Pinnington, now teaching at the University of Arizona at Tucson (I have lost his e-mail number but should be able to get it to on Monday), has written a very erudite article on this very subject. He has not managed to publish it yet because half of it deals with higher mathematics and the role that 52 has in a branch of maths called combinatorics. I am surprised he is not part of the PMJS list (his thesis was on Zenchiku) and I will try to copy your question to him when I find his number.
Richard Bowring
Cambridge

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