Figures of Resistance: Language, Poetry, and Narrating in The Tale of the Genji and Other Mid-Heian Texts

Richard H. Okada

Published by Duke University Press 1991

Figures of Resistance

Language, Poetry, and Narrating in The Tale of the Genji and Other Mid-Heian Texts

Richard H. Okada
Edited by: Stanley Fish and Fredric Jameson

In the series Post-Contemporary Interventions

https://doi.org/10.1515/9780822381723

Overview
Contents

About this book

In this revisionist study of texts from the mid-Heian period in Japan, H. Richard Okada offers new readings of three well-known tales: The Tale of the Bamboo-cutter, The Tale of Ise, and The Tale of Genji. Okada contends that the cultural and gendered significance of these works has been distorted by previous commentaries and translations belonging to the larger patriarchal and colonialist discourse of Western civilization. He goes on to suggest that this universalist discourse, which silences the feminine aspects of these texts and subsumes their writing in misapplied Western canonical literary terms, is sanctioned and maintained by the discipline of Japanese literature. Okada develops a highly original and sophisticated reading strategy that demonstrates how readers might understand texts belonging to a different time and place without being complicit in their assimilation to categories derived from Western literary traditions. The author’s reading stratgey is based on the texts’ own resistance to modes of analysis that employ such Western canonical terms as novel, lyric, and third-person narrative. Emphasis is also given to the distinctive cultural circles, as well as socio-political and genealogical circumstances that surrounded the emergence of the texts. Indispensable readings for specialists in literature, cultural studies, and Japanese literature and history, Figures of Resistance will also appeal to general readers interested in the problems and complexities of studying another culture.

Reviews

“Figures of Resistance is not simply the best English-language study of Heian prose texts now available, but also one of the two or three most important studies of Japanese literature ever written. It will become not so much the ‘standard’ . . . as the critical point of departure in the field of Japanese narrative studies for years to come.” —Edward Fowler, University of California, Irvine

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	v
Preface Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Introduction Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
I. Tales of the Bamboo Cutter
1. Languages of Narrating and Bamboo-Cutter Pretexts Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	27
2. A "Pivotal" Narrative: The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	53
II. Waka JJPoetics" and Tales of JJlse"
3. Constructing a Capital "Poetics": Kokin wakashu Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	85
4. An Early Figure of Resistance: Lady Ise Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	112
5. Sexual/Textual Politics and The Tale of Ise Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	131
III. Tales of "Genji"
6. Situating the "Feminine Hand" Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	159
7. Narrating the Private: "Kiritsubo" Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	183
8. Feminine Representation and Critique: "Hahakigi" Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	197
9. A Figure of Narrating: Tamakazura Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	214
10. Aesthetics, Politics, and Genealogy Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	232
11. Substitutions and Incidental Narrating: "Wakamurasaki" Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	250
12. The Akashi Intertexts Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	266
Epilogue: Endings, Tellings, and Retellings Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	287
Appendix: Chapters in The Tale of Genji Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	293
Notes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	295
Bibliography Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	367
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	377

Language: English
Publisher: Duke University Press
Pages
- Main content: 400

eBook

Published: October 18, 1991
ISBN: 9780822381723