Haruo Shirane, Columbia University, author of Japan and the Culture of the Four Seasons This book makes us profoundly aware of the transformation of the material Tale of Genji and reading practices in Japan from the late early modern through the postwar period, thus bridging the gap between early modern and modern literary studies as well as that between Japanese literary studies and contemporary translation studies. Throughout, Michael Emmerich engages with translation studies, reception theory, and current notions of world literature, writing in a transnational, translingual context. Gaye Rowley, Waseda UniversityĪ stunning tour de force, The Tale of Genji reveals the manner in which the work was 'replaced' by various texts and how it was made, from the late nineteenth century, into a world classic both in and outside Japan. It is a rare book, one that is sure to have a profound and lasting impact. The Tale of Genji is a brilliantly sustained work of literary criticism, quite the most engrossing book in the field of Japanese literature I have read in years. Through his sustained critique, Emmerich upends scholarship on Japan's preeminent classic while remaking theories of world literature, continuity, and community. It concludes with Genji's becoming a 'national classic' during World War II and reviews an important postwar challenge to reading the work after it attained this status. The study subsequently traces Genji's reemergence as a classic on a global scale, following its acceptance into the canon of world literature before the text gained popularity in Japan.

He then considers movable-type editions of Inaka Genji from 1888 to 1928, connecting trends in print technology and publishing to larger developments in national literature and showing how the one-time best seller became obsolete. He argues that this work introduced Genji to a popular Japanese audience and created a new mode of reading. Emmerich begins with an analysis of the lavishly produced best seller Nise Murasaki inaka Genji ( A Fraudulent Murasaki's Bumpkin Genji, 1829–1842), an adaptation of Genji written and designed by Ryutei Tanehiko, with pictures by the great print artist Utagawa Kunisada. Exploring iterations of the work from the 1830s to the 1950s, he demonstrates how translations and the global circulation of discourse they inspired turned The Tale of Genji into a widely read classic, reframing our understanding of its significance and influence and of the processes that have canonized the text. Michael Emmerich thoroughly revises the conventional narrative of the early modern and modern history of The Tale of Genji.

The tale of genji book