Word: murasaki
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Dates: during 1920-1929
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...PILLOW-BOOK OF SEI SHONAGON- Translated by Arthur Waley-Houghton Mifflin ($2.50). The Tale of Genji, recently done into English, revealed a highly sophisticated civilization in loth Century Japan. Lady Murasaki's novel is fiction glossed with decadent romance, but her accuracy of atmosphere and circumstance is corroborated by this loth Century Japanese diary. Sei Shonagon was in the service of Empress Sadako at the elaborate court of Heian. Not the least of her qualifications for the post was her handwriting-the cult of calligraphy amounting almost to a religion at court. Love affairs often began by some chance...
...TALE OF GENJI, PART IV-BLUE TROUSERS-Lady Murasaki, translated by Arthur Waley-Houghton Mifflin...
...more interested anyway in the heroine of his youth, his older wife, Murasaki* of the versatile wit and mature charm. "Coming from the presence of younger women, such as Nyosan, Genji always expected that Murasaki would appear to him inevitably (and he was willing to make allowance for it) a little bit jaded, a trifle seared and worn. . . . But as a matter of fact it was just these younger women who failed to provide any element of surprise, whereas Murasaki was continually astounding him . . . her clothes scented with the subtlest and most delicious perfumes...
...Author. A lady at the glittering Japanese court of the 11th Century, Murasaki Shikibu was a shrewd observer of life in the capital. Up to her time fiction had taken the form of short fairy tales and allegories; her 4,000-page novel was a distinct innovation, the first attempt at realism. Some say she was called Murasaki after the heroine of her famous tale; others (among them Amy Lowell) say that the Mikado whose favorite she was wrote her a poem: "When the purple grass (Murasaki) is in full color one can scarcely perceive the other plants...
...Translator. The translator who can be accurate and yet idiomatic is both craftsman and artist. Such a one is Scott Moncrieff, translator of difficult Marcel Proust. And such a one is Arthur Waley, translator of exquisite Chinese poetry and of the monumental Japanese novel by Lady Murasaki. Translator Waley learned both Japanese and the still more difficult Chinese from native teachers in London. He has never been east of Suez, and yet he is a recognized authority on literature and art of the Far East. By profession Assistant in the Oriental Section of the British Museum Print Room, his favorite...