In his highly refined world, where every dalliance is an act of political consequence, his shifting alliances and secret love affairs create great turmoil and very nearly destroy him.Įdward Seidensticker's translation of Lady Murasaki's splendid romance has been honoured throughout the English-speaking world for its fluency, scholarly depth, and deep literary tact and sensitivity. In September 1945, he was sent with the occupation forces to Kyushu as a translator with the Marines. He received his BA from the University of Colorado in 1942 and then attended the Navy Japanese Language School in Boulder, Colorado, from 1942-1943. It is required reading in Japanese schools today. Edward George Seidensticker was born in Castle Rock, Colorado, on February 11, 1921. Genji is the favourite son of the emperor but also a man of dangerously passionate impulses. Divided into 54 chapters, the English translation by Edward Seidensticker takes up 1,090 pages. The Heian era (794 - 1185) is recognized as one of the very greatest periods in Japanese literature, and The Tale of Genji is not only the unquestioned prose masterpiece of that period but also the most lively and absorbing account we have of the intricate, exquisite, highly ordered court culture that made such a masterpiece possible. In the early eleventh century Murasaki Shikibu, a lady in the Heian court of Japan, wrote what many consider to be the world's first novel, more than three centuries before Chaucer.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |