About the author, who is known by the nickname Murasaki Shikibu, very little is known. There is no original manuscript of the Genji left, the earliest full texts date from the medieval period. But from other writings we know that the association of the text with Murasaki Shikibu is undeniable and also that the Genji had been completed and circulated widely by 1021 in a version of more than 50 chapters (as mentioned in the Sarashina Nikki, which also mentions the name of Ukifune, the heroine of the last four chapters, indicating that it must have been complete by then). Also a diary (describing events at court from late 1008 to early 1010) and a poetry collection are attributed to the same author. She was a member of the Fujiwara family and "Murasaki," "purple," either refers to the wisteria (fuji) of her family name or to the female protagonist of that name in the Genji; "Shikibu" refers to the office held by her father (in Heian Japan it was considered bad manners to record the real names of well-born ladies, so they were often named after their father's office).
Murasaki Shikibu was probably born between 970 and 978, the most probable year being 973. She was born into a family of middle rank that however had greatly distinguished itself in the literary field - most paternal relatives were important poets. Her father was a scholar of Chinese. He occupied modest positions in the capital and three times served as provincial governor (when he became governor of Echizen in 996, Murasaki Shikibu accompanied him). Murasaki's Shikibu's mother died when she was an infant and she was brought up by her father, not unlike the situation of the Eight Prince and the two Uji sisters in her novel. Murasaki Shikibu seems to have led a studious and retired life, with little contact with the opposite sex (in contrast to Izumi Shikibu and Lady Ise, who wrote in their poetry about passionate affairs). In 998 or 999, when she was probably close to thirty (late, as girls were often married as soon as they came of age, at age 12), Murasaki Shikibu married a distant kinsman and she had one daughter, Kataiko or Kenshi, but her husband died already in 1001.
After that, in about 1006, she was summoned to court as lady-in-waiting to the empress Akiko (Fujiwara no Shoshi), the daughter of Fujiwara no Michinaga, the most powerful politician of the age. She probably started writing the Genji after her husband's death and her talent in writing fiction may well have been the major reason for her being summoned to court. In an age when paper was a precious commodity, she obviously had various sponsors, who gave her writing materials and helped with transcriptions: besides Fujiwara no Michinaga, these were the Emperor Ichijo, Empress Shoshi, and the literary nobleman Fujiwara no Kinto.
Murasaki Shikibu also instructed the young empress in literature and music. She was still in Akiko's service in 1013, but after that we have no further factual information about her; it is probable that she died in 1014, at age 41. In view of the length and evolution of the Genji, she probably kept writing it until her death. Her daughter Kenshi survived her and was an important poet in her own right; but there is no basis for the surmise that she finished the Genji by writing the latter part. (The blanks in Murasaki Shikibu's biography have been filled in by rumors and unfounded tales, such as the setsuwa tale that she started writing the Genji while staying in the Ishiyamadera Temple at Lake Biwa - although actively used as tourist propaganda by the temple, this story has no historical foundation at all).
Initially read by a small circle of court ladies, the Genji seems to have gained an immediate popularity. It circulated in manuscript and as they were finished, the chapters were probably immediately circulated among readers, who then could contribute by making new copies. The Genji Monogatari has had an enormous influence on later literature (including waka poetry - the Genji itself contains about 800 poems - and the Noh theater) and other art forms, as the graphic arts. It has also been adapted for the theater, opera, cinema, television, and manga. The Genji is not just a book but a cultural phenomenon.
The Genji Monogatari served as an inexhaustible source of inspiration for Japanese visual art, in the form of hand scrolls, screens, ukiyo-e, and even decorations of craft works, such as lacquerware and textiles. Together, such pictorial representations are called Genji-e. The most famous hand scroll is the 12th c. Genji Monogatari Emaki, which contains illustrated scenes together with handwritten text (forming in fact the earliest extant version of parts of the text). The original scroll probably consisted 10–20 rolls and covered all 54 chapters. Now we have only 19 illustrations and 65 pages of text left, roughly 15% of the original. The extant scrolls, all national treasures, are divided over the Tokugawa Art Museum in Nagoya and the Gotoh Museum in Tokyo. They are so fragile that they normally are not shown in public. In later ages Genji-e became so popular that even manuals were written to assist in their production, and famous schools of painting, as the Tosa and Kano schools, were very much involved.
The original hand-copied text of the novel by Murasaki Shikibu (or others from her time) is no longer extant. The text accepted as the most complete is the Kamakura period "Aobyoshibon" copied by Fujiwara no Teika (1162-1241) - so about 2 centuries later. By Teika's time the novel's present form of 54 chapters was set.
The 54 chapters of the Genji Monogatari can be subdivided as follows:
A. The Genji Chapters
1-33: In this part, Genji is an idealized prince, and although there are setbacks, his early career is essentially a success story. The novel starts with the wild youth of Genji (1-11), filled with love, romance and transgression. Then comes his voluntary exile to Suma (12-13), a turning point in his life and career, followed by rehabilitation and rise to success and power (14-33).
34-41: Genji is in his forties and at the apex of power, but also experiences setbacks such as the death of his beloved wife Murasaki. Shadows gather over Genji's life and he realizes the transience of the world.
B. The Chapters about Genji's Descendants, Niou and Kaoru
42-44: Suddenly Genji is dead; we learn almost nothing about his last years, but instead his descendants Niou and Kaoru are introduced. These three chapters are transitional and episodic, rather different in style from what went before and comes after.
45-54: The so-called "Uji Chapters," Niou and Kaoru's rivalry in love. Murasaki Shikibu has boldly moved on to a new story and the action moves from the capital to Uji; the pessimism also grows. Murasaki Shikibu succeeds in the creation of the first anti-hero in world literature. This is one of the strongest parts of the novel.
Did Murasaki Shikibu write the whole Genji? The general (but not unanimous) opinion is affirmative. As Seidensticker says in his introduction, changes and additions in detail may have come later (Tyler speaks about "brilliant editing"), but the narrative points at a single author working over a long period of time, gradually herself also getting to know the shadows of age and experience that fall over her book.
Although Japanese high-school students are taught to read a few lines of the original text, the remoteness of the language from modern Japanese means that few people except specialists can read the entire Genji in its original form (in fact, already since the 12th c. commentaries and notes were necessary and the Genji was mostly consumed via manuals and digests). Therefore, Japanese now read it just as much in "translation" as non-Japanese; there are famous versions in modern Japanese by writers as Yosano Akiko, Tanizaki Junichiro, Enchi Fumiko and Setouchi Jakucho. Of these, the last Tanizaki version is in my view the best (yes, he made three versions), closely followed by Yosano Akiko. The versions by Enchi Fumiko and Setouchi Jakucho are more modern, but these authors, especially Jakucho, although greatly contributing to popularizing the Genji, added material of their own and are therefore nor reliable as translations.
Murasaki Shikibu writes as a gentlewoman telling a tale to her mistress; the way she refers to her characters is very discreet. She is acutely aware of social rank and assumes the reader is, too. This leads to another complication besides the language: the great ambiguity of the style, caused in the first place because almost none of the characters in the original text are given explicit names. As Heian court manners demanded, the characters are instead referred to by their function ("Minister of the Left"), by an honorific ("His Excellency"), or their relation to other characters ("the Heir Apparent"), and these titles do not remain the same, but change as careers progress, just as in real life. Modern translators usually employ nicknames (based on the chapter titles or poems written by the characters or addressed to them) to clarify things for their readers, only Tyler (see below) uses titles.
There are 4 complete translations in English: by Arthur Waley (1926-33); by Edward Seidensticker (1976); by Royall Tyler (2001); and by Dennis Washburn (2015). All four translations are by eminent Japanologists. But they are very different as well. Waley, a great pioneering achievement that also in Japan caused interest in the Genji to revive (leading to the translation in modern Japanese by Tanizaki) is very free and some passages/chapters have been cut, but it is in beautiful, almost Proustian English. Although more recent translations are more precise, it is still beautiful to read, and Waley did have a great feeling for the Genji.
Seidensticker is complete and closer to the original than Waley; but at the same time - as in his many other translations, such as those of Kawabata and Tanizaki - Seidensticker aims at natural flowing readability in English, which leads him to be concise (and take some liberties) rather than bring out all the nuances. What pleads for Seidensticker is the natural flow of the narration, which makes a very modern impression - the characters in
the novel are directly accessible, almost like contemporaries.
Tyler is closest to the original, he attempts to copy the style of Murasaki and provides extensive notes (which both Waley and Seidensticker avoid); but he also uses titles instead of names (as Murasaki Shikibu does), which sometimes makes him difficult to follow. This is the translation closest to the original, but that also makes it rather soemhting for academic study than reading for pleasure.
Washburn is a scholarly translation with many notes like Tyler, but he also incorporates some explanations in the text and uses names instead of titles. Also his translation is very detailed and therefore rather wordy, it is also a fluent, natural rendition that is a pleasure to read - many times it is my favorite translation.
The complaint I have about all four translators concerns the translation of the 795 waka poems in the Genji. Waley translates them as prose within the spoken dialogues, Tyler has rather prosaic two line translations and Washburn uses three lines. Now it is common to divide waka into 5 lines in English, which can lead to beautiful results - I wonder why none of the translators keeps to that excellent custom?
By the way, the first partial (17 chapters) English translation was made in 1882 by Suematsu Kencho (1855-1920), a journalist, author, intellectual and later also politician, who arrived in London with the Japanese Embassy in 1878 and studied at Cambridge University from 1881 to 1884. One of the pioneers for the modernization of Japan, he was back in Europe in 1904/05 to counteract anti-Japanese propaganda and argue Japan's case in the Russo-Japanese War. His Genji translation is certainly of historic interest (and was an achievement in his time), but not more than that. When seen with modern eyes - and considering that the study of the Genji has much advanced the last century in both Japan and other countries - it is of too poor quality to make it worth reading today. Unfortunately, this translation is still being published by Tuttle (and others) to profit from the Genji boom for only the cost of the paper. Be forewarned and strictly avoid this translation.
To talk about my own experience: I started in the grey past with the Waley translation, but had difficulty finishing it. A couple of years ago I read the Seidensticker translation and for the first time enjoyed the Genji and appreciated its greatness. And now I am reading the Genji for the third time, in the Tyler translation, and I enjoy that best of all - I really like the cultural nuances and copious notes.
But do read the Genji, for it is really a wonderful novel. As Tyler remarks in his introduction, the Tale of Genji is a great classic, "written in an ancient language about a vanished world, but its character's thoughts and feelings remain as fresh as ever."
Translations:
Seidensticker, Edward G. (1976). The Tale of Genji. 1 & 2. Tuttle Publishing.
Tyler, Royall (2001). The Tale of Genji. New York: Viking.
Waley, Arthur (1926-33). Tale of Genji: The Arthur Waley Translation of Lady Murasaki's Masterpiece with a new foreword by Dennis Washburn (Tuttle Classics)
Washburn, Dennis (2015). The Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu. W. W. Norton & Company; Unabridged edition
Yosano Akiko, Genji Monogatari in modern Japanese, at Aozora Bunko.
Original text in full at Japanese Text Intitiative (University of Virginia)
Studies:
Bargen, Doris G (1997). A Woman's Weapon: Spirit possession in the Tale of Genji. (University of Hawaiʻi Press)
Bargen, Doris G. (2015). Mapping Courtship and Kinship in Classical Japan: The Tale of Genji and Its Predecessors (Hawaii U.P.)
Bowring, Richard (1985). Murasaki Shikibu, Her Diary and Poetic Memoirs: A Translation and Study (Princeton U.P.)
Emmerich, Michael (2013). The Tale of Genji: Translation, Canonization, and World Literature (Columbia U.P.)
Field, Norma (1987). The Splendor of Longing in the Tale of Genji. (Princeton University Press)
Goff, Janet Emily (1991). Noh Drama and the Tale of Genji : The Art of Allusion in Fifteen Classical Plays. (Princeton University Press)
Harper, Thomas and Shirane, Haruo (2015). Reading The Tale of Genji: Sources from the First Millennium (Columbia U.P.)
McCormick, Melissa (2018). The Tale of Genji: A Visual Companion (Princceton U.P.)
McKinney, Meredith (2006). The Pillow Book, by Sei Shonagon (Penguin)
McMullen, James (2019). Murasaki Shikibu's The Tale of Genji: Philosophical Perspectives (Oxford U.P.)
Morris, Ivan I (1964). The World of the Shining Prince: Court Life in Ancient Japan. (Vintage)
Shirane, Haruo (1987). The Bridge of Dreams : A Poetics of the Tale of Genji. (Stanford University Press)
Shirane, Haruo (2008). Envisioning the Tale of Genji: Media, Gender, and Cultural Production. (Columbia University Press)
Tyler, Royall (2014). A Reading of the Tale of Genji.
Tyler, Royall (2016). To Hallow Genji: A Tribute to Noh (Blue-Tongue Books)
The Tale of Genji, Scenes from the World’s first Novel, with illustrations by Miyata Masayuki, Kodansha International (2001).
Kano Shigefumi. Genji Monogatari no butai wo tazunete (Kyoto, 2011).