Murasaki Shikibu

English: Lady Murasaki) (c. 978 – c. 1014 or 1025) was a Japanese novelist, poet and lady-in-waiting at the Imperial court during the Heian period. She is best known as the author of The Tale of Genji, written in Japanese between about 1000 and 1012. Murasaki Shikibu is a nickname; her real name is unknown, but she may have been Fujiwara Takako, who was mentioned in a 1007 court diary as an imperial lady-in-waiting.
Heian women were traditionally excluded from learning Chinese, the written language of government, but Murasaki, raised in her erudite father's household, showed a precocious aptitude for the Chinese classics and managed to acquire fluency. She married in her mid to late twenties and gave birth to a daughter before her husband died, two years after they were married. It is uncertain when she began to write The Tale of Genji, but it was probably while she was married or shortly after she was widowed. In about 1005, Murasaki was invited to serve as a lady-in-waiting to Empress Shōshi at the Imperial court, probably because of her reputation as a writer. She continued to write during her service, adding scenes from court life to her work. After five or six years, she left court and retired with Shōshi to the Lake Biwa region. Scholars differ on the year of her death; although most agree on 1014, others have suggested she was alive in 1025.
Murasaki wrote The Diary of Lady Murasaki, a volume of poetry, and The Tale of Genji. Within a decade of its completion, Genji was distributed throughout the provinces; within a century it was recognized as a classic of Japanese literature and had become a subject of scholarly criticism. Early in the 20th century her work was translated; a six-volume English translation was completed in 1933. Scholars continue to recognize the importance of her work, which reflects Heian court society at its peak. Since the 13th century her works have been illustrated by Japanese artists and well-known ukiyo-e woodblock masters.

Early life

Murasaki Shikibu was born c. 973[1] in Heian-kyō, Japan, into the northern Fujiwara clan descending from Fujiwara no Yoshifusa, the first 9th-century Fujiwara regent. The Fujiwara clan dominated court politics until the end of the 11th century through strategic marriages of Fujiwara daughters into the imperial family and the use of regencies. In the late 10th century and early 11th century, Fujiwara no Michinaga arranged his four daughters into marriages with emperors, giving him unprecedented power.[3] Murasaki's great-grandfather, Fujiwara no Kanesuke, had been in the top tier of the aristocracy, but her branch of the family gradually lost power and by the time of Murasaki's birth was at the middle to lower ranks of the Heian aristocracy—the level of provincial governors.[4] The lower ranks of the nobility were typically posted away from court to undesirable positions in the provinces, exiled from the centralized power and court in Kyoto.[5]
Despite the loss of status, the family had a reputation among the literati through Murasaki's paternal great-grandfather and grandfather, both of whom were well-known poets. Her great-grandfather, Fujiwara no Kanesuke, had fifty-six poems included in thirteen of the Twenty-one Imperial Anthologies,[6] the Collections of Thirty-six Poets and the Yamato Monogatari (Tales of Yamoto).[7] Her great-grandfather and grandfather both had been friendly with Ki no Tsurayuki, who became notable for popularizing verse written in Japanese.[5] Her father, Fujiwara no Tametoki, attended the State Academy (Daigaku-ryō)[8] and became a well-respected scholar of Chinese classics and poetry; his own verse was anthologized.[9] He entered public service around 968 as a minor official and was given a governorship in 996. He stayed in service until about 1018.[5][10] Murasaki's mother was descended from the same branch of northern Fujiwara as Tametoki. The couple had three children, a son and two daughters.[9]

The names of women were not recorded in the Heian era. Murasaki's real name is not known; as was customary for women of the period, she went by a nickname, Murasaki Shikibu. Women took nicknames associated with a male relative: "Shikibu" refers to (Shikibu-shō), the Ministry of Ceremonials where her father was a functionary; "Murasaki" may be derived from the color violet associated with wisteria, the meaning of the word fuji, although it is more likely that "Murasaki" was a court nickname. Michinaga mentions the names of a few ladies-in-waiting in a 1007 diary entry; one, Fujiwara Takako (Kyōshi), may be Murasaki's real name.[]
In Heian-era Japan, husbands and wives kept separate households; children were raised with their mothers, although the patrilineal system was still followed.

Murasaki was unconventional because she lived in her father's household, most likely on Teramachi Street in Kyoto, with her younger brother Nobunori.

Their mother died, perhaps in childbirth, when the children were quite young.

Murasaki had at least three half-siblings raised with their mothers; she was very close to one sister who died in her twenties.
]
Murasaki was born at a period when Japan was becoming more isolated, after missions to China had ended and a stronger national culture was emerging.

In the 9th and 10th centuries, Japanese gradually became a written language through the development of kana, a syllabary based on abbreviations of Chinese characters. In Murasaki's lifetime men continued to write in Chinese, the language of government, but kana became the written language of noblewomen, setting the foundation for unique forms of Japanese literature.[17]
Chinese was taught to Murasaki's brother as preparation for a career in government, and during her childhood, living in her father's household, she learned and became proficient in classical Chinese.[8] In her diary she wrote, "When my brother ... was a young boy learning the Chinese classics, I was in the habit of listening to him and I became unusually proficient at understanding those passages that he found too difficult to understand and memorize. Father, a most learned man, was always regretting the fact: 'Just my luck,' he would say, 'What a pity she was not born a man!'"[18] With her brother she studied Chinese literature, and she probably also received instruction in more traditional subjects such as music, calligraphy and Japanese poetry.[13] Murasaki's education was unorthodox. Louis Perez explains in The History of Japan that "Women ... were thought to be incapable of real intelligence and therefore were not educated in Chinese."[19] Murasaki was aware that others saw her as "pretentious, awkward, difficult to approach, prickly, too fond of her tales, haughty, prone to versifying, disdainful, cantankerous and scornful".[20] Asian literature scholar Thomas Inge believes she had "a forceful personality that seldom won her friends."[8]

Aristocratic Heian women lived restricted and secluded lives, allowed only to speak to men when they were close relatives or household members. Murasaki's autobiographical poetry shows that she socialized with women but had limited contact with men other than her father and brother; she often exchanged poetry with women but never with men.[13] Unlike most noblewomen of her status, she did not marry on reaching puberty; instead she stayed in her father's household until her mid-twenties or perhaps even to her early thirties.[13][21]
In 996 when her father was posted to a four-year governorship in Echizen Province, Murasaki went with him, although it was uncommon for a noblewoman of the period to travel such a distance on a trip that could take as long as five days.[22] She returned to Kyoto, probably in 998, to marry her father's friend Fujiwara no Nobutaka (c. 950 – c. 1001), a much older second cousin.[5][13] Descended from the same branch of the Fujiwara clan, he was a court functionary and bureaucrat at the Ministry of Ceremonials, with a reputation for dressing extravagantly and as a talented dancer.[22] In his late forties at the time of their marriage, he had multiple households with an unknown number of wives and offspring.[7] Gregarious and well known at court, he was involved in numerous romantic relationships that may have continued after his marriage to Murasaki.[13] As was customary, she would have remained in her father's household where her husband would have visited her.[7] Nobutaka had been granted more than one governorship, and by the time of his marriage to Murasaki he was probably quite wealthy. Accounts of their marriage vary: Richard Bowring writes that the marriage was happy, but Japanese literature scholar Haruo Shirane sees indications in her poems that she resented her husband.[5][13]

The couple's daughter, Kenshi (Kataiko), was born in 999. Two years later Nobutaka died during a cholera epidemic.[13] As a married woman Murasaki would have had servants to run the household and care for her daughter, giving her ample leisure time. She enjoyed reading and had access to romances (monogatari) such as The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter and the Tales of Ise.[22] Scholars believe she may have started writing The Tale of Genji before her husband's death; it is known she was writing after she was widowed, perhaps in a state of grief.[2][5] In her diary she describes her feelings after her husband's death: "I felt depressed and confused. For some years I had existed from day to day in listless fashion ... doing little more than registering the passage of time .... The thought of my continuing loneliness was quite unbearable".[23]
According to legend, Murasaki retreated to Ishiyama-dera at Lake Biwa, where she was inspired to write The Tale of Genji on an August night while looking at the moon. Although scholars dismiss the factual basis of the story of her retreat, Japanese artists often depicted her at Ishiyama Temple staring at the moon for inspiration.[14] She may have been commissioned to write the story and may have known an exiled courtier in a similar position to her hero Prince Genji.[24] Murasaki would have distributed newly written chapters of Genji to friends who in turn would have re-copied them and passed them on. By this practice the story became known and she gained a reputation as an author.[25]
In her early to mid-thirties, she became a lady-in-waiting, nyōbō, at court, most likely because of her reputation as an author.[2][25] Chieko Mulhern writes in Japanese Women Writers, a Biocritical Sourcebook that scholars have wondered why Murasaki made such a move at a comparatively late period in her life. Her diary evidences that she exchanged poetry with Michinaga after her husband's death, leading to speculation that the two may have been lovers. Bowring sees no evidence that she was brought to court as Michinaga's concubine, although he did bring her to court without following official channels. Mulhern thinks Michinaga wanted to have Murasaki at court to educate his daughter Shōshi.[26]

.

Heian culture and court life reached a peak early in the 11th century.[3] The population of Kyoto grew to around 100,000 as the nobility became increasingly isolated at the Heian Palace in government posts and court service.[27] Courtiers became overly refined with little to do, insulated from reality, preoccupied with the minutiae of court life, turning to artistic endeavors.[3][27] Emotions were commonly expressed through the artistic use of textiles, fragrances, calligraphy, colored paper, poetry, and layering of clothing in pleasing color combinations—according to mood and season. Those who showed an inability to follow conventional aesthetics quickly lost popularity, particularly at court.[19] Popular pastimes for Heian noblewomen—who adhered to rigid fashions of floor-length hair, whitened skin and blackened teeth—included having love affairs, writing poetry and keeping diaries. The literature that Heian court women wrote is recognized as some of the earliest and among the best literature written in the Japanese cano

يتمة الام في الطفولة المبكرة وربما اثناء الولادة، ولها اخت كان قريبه منها ماتت وهي في العشرين من عمرها .

يتيمة الام في عامها الاول.