The Courtly World: Sei Shōnagon and Lady Murasaki: Heian period literature and art

Kojiki, also sometimes read as Furukotofumi, is an early Japanese chronicle of myths, legends, songs, genealogies, oral traditions and semi-historical accounts concerning the origin of the Japanese archipelago, the kami, and the Japanese imperial line. The body of the translation is based on Yamaguchi Yoshinori and Kōnoshi Takamitsu, eds., Kojiki, Shinpen Nihon koten bungaku zenshû (Tokyo: Shōgakukan, 1997) This version has also has the scholarship of the earlier complete annotated translations into English.

The Nihon Shoki, translated as The Chronicles of Japan, is the second oldest book of classical Japanese history. The book is also called the Nihongi (The Japanese Chronicles). It is more elaborate and detailed than the Kojiki, the oldest book, and has proven to be an important tool for historians and archaeologists as it includes the most complete historical record of ancient Japan. The Nihongi was finished in 720 AD under the editorial supervision of Prince Toneri and with the assistance of Yasumaro no O.

Dating from the 8th century and earlier, the Manyoshu is the oldest Japanese poetry anthology. The 1,000 poems (out of a total of more than 4,500) in this famous selection were chosen by a distinguished scholarly committee based on their poetic excellence, their role in revealing the Japanese national spirit and character, and their cultural and historical significance.

Contains the essay "The female hand in Heian Japan: a first reading" by Richard Bowring

The Kokin Wakashū, commonly abbreviated as Kokinshū, is an early anthology of the waka form of Japanese poetry, dating from the Heian period. It is an Imperial anthology, conceived by Emperor Uda and published by order of his son Emperor Daigo, in about 905. This volume presents a complete translation of the tenth-century work that links its 1,111 poems by theme, imagery, and chronological progression.

This autobiographical diary and personal confession attempts to describe a difficult relationship as it reveals two tempestuous decades of the author's unhappy marriage. This noblewoman of the Heian dynasty protests the marriage system of her time in one of Japanese literature's earliest attempts to portray difficult elements of the predominant social hierarchy.

Fiction. A translation of Eiga monogatari.

Crossing the Bridge is a collection of essays that compares similar women writers of medieval Europe and Heian Japan. This study not only provides essential information on women and writing but, more important, it explores meaningful connections between two cultures. In both cultures, a combination of tensions involving language and genre created an opportunity for women writers.

Izumi Shikibu was a mid-Heian period Japanese poet.

Traces the history of Japanese painting, calligraphy, architecture, sculpture, and other arts from the prehistoric period to modern times. Section on Heian (794-1185) period.

Sorensen illustrates how painted screens and other visual art objects contributed to the development of some of the essential characteristics of Japanese court poetry.

Providing a comprehensive overview of the major trends in art throughout the history of Japan, together with a select bibliography and list of major museums housing collections of Japanese art. Chapter on Heian period.

Small section on theater in the Heian period in volume I.

Exhibition Catalog. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

Melissa McCormick provides a unique companion to Murasaki’s tale that combines discussions of all fifty-four of its chapters with paintings and calligraphy from the Genji Album (1510) in the Harvard Art Museums, the oldest dated set of Genji illustrations known to exist.

The book traces the development of the nature theme through an examination of some 140 objects from the twelfth to nineteenth centuries.

Chapters on the early Heian period (794-897) and the later Heian period : Fujiwara (897-1185)