The Tale of Genji
Synopsis
In the eleventh century Murasaki Shikibu, a lady in the Heian court of Japan, wrote the world's first novel. But The Tale of Genji is no mere artifact. It is, rather, a lively and astonishingly nuanced portrait of a refined society where every dalliance is an act of political consequence, a play of characters whose inner lives are as rich and changeable as those imagined by Proust. Chief of these is "the shining Genji," the son of the emperor and a man whose passionate impulses create great turmoil in his world and very nearly destroy him. This edition, recognized as the finest version in English, contains a dozen chapters from early in the book, carefully chosen by the translator, Edward G. Seidensticker, with an introduction explaining the selection. It is illustrated throughout with woodcuts from a seventeenth-century edition.
- Copyright:
- 1985 Edward G. Seidensticker
Book Details
- Book Quality:
- ISBN-13:
- 9780307833525
- Publisher:
- Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
- Date of Addition:
- 2019-05-10T01:47:24Z
- Language:
- English
- Categories:
- Usage Restrictions:
- This is a copyrighted book.