The tale of Genji is a novel reputed to have been written by Murasaki Shikibu in the early eleventh century. It features a large cast of characters, and doesn't have a real "plot"-it is more of a slice of life that follows the lives of the characters, most of whom reside at Court. The main character, Hikaru Genji, is the son of the emporer with nice looks. A lot of focus is on his romantic exploits, one of which is on the girl Murasaki. When she is a child, he kidnaps her and raises her to be his "perfect" lady. Sometimes in manga or even outside of Japan, you might hear reference to this, someone raising a child to be their perfect lover. It is also notable because it is the first example of a novel the entire world has. A Japanese woman wrote the first novel.
The Tale of Genji has been converted into movies and operas.
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日本語で、源氏物語（げんじものがたり）といいます。It is required for all high school students to study. I read all series of Genji in Old Japanese. It was soooo difficult but really good literature.
ReplyDeleteOne thing I want to accomplish by studying Japanese is to be able to read this noval in it's original form.
ReplyDeleteAndy, that was soooo difficult. It was like a code language. I found the website that has Genji written in old and modern Japanese. You might see how they are.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.geocities.jp/yassakasyota/genjig.html
haha,the website is soooo hard! even the subtitle is writen by kanji...Andyさん、がんばってね ~:)
ReplyDeleteでしょ。I told you. がんばってね、アンディさん。
ReplyDelete