Chinese learning as performative power in Makura no sōshi and Murasaki Shikibu nikki

Abstract

FUKUMORIWere mid-Heian period women really barred from Chinese learning?The evidence from extant texts reveals that such was not the case.In this paper, I would like to explore the issues of language and identity construction in mid-Heian women's texts by examining the function of references to Chinese learning and allusions to Chinese writings in Sei Shonagon's <1Fi'.1>~~, b. 966?) Makura no soshi (tt1itr, early eleventh century) 1 and Murasaki Shikibu's (~]:\$, b. 978?) memoir, the Murasaki Shikibu nikki (~]:\$ B ll2, events of 1008-1010).Questions concerning women's ability to read and write Chinese have been posed persistently by readers and scholars in attempts to delineate and qqalify the conditions of women's literary production during this so-called "flowering" of women's vernacular writing-that is, the period patronized by the regencies and chancellorships of Fujiwara Kaneie (iii!Jit3ltt*, 929-990), Kaneie's sons Michitaka (Ji~, 953-995) and Michinaga (Ji*, 966-1027), and Michinaga's son Yorimichi (~illl, 992-1074), from about 980 to about 1070. 2 The longstanding working assumption in scholarship has been that women were denied formal training in Chinese learning, and that, therefore, they pursued literary expression in the vernacular.The relationship between the two facts-women's restriction from Chinese learning and their production of vernacular writing -is, of course, much more complex.1 A .list of the Chinese allusions in Makura no soshi can be found in Yahagi, 133-151.2 In fact, there was a recent discussion (summer 2000) on the PMJS (premodern Japanese studies) email list on gendered literacy.The archived discussion can be found at the following URL:http://www.meijigakuin.ac.jp/-pmjs/archive/2000/literacy .html102 Chinese Leaming as Peifonnative Power ... The following explanation is a now-familiar one.That is, that the Chinese language-the lingua franca of East Asia-and other Chinese cultural practices were introduced to the imperial system by the Yamato clan as a state project aimed at buttressing its claims to sovereignty both in the Japanese archipelago and in the greater East Asian sphere.Because men were the actors in government who of necessity had to learn these practices, a cultural dimorphism gradually developed whereby the adopted Chinese culture and native Japanese culture became gendered-that is, the signification of Chinese, male culture was set off against that of the native, female culture.The other dichotomies that developed out of this Japanese/Chinese or wakan (fO~) dialectic are as they appear below 3 : China (specifically Han(~] and Tang [}l!f] cultures) Chinese language Chinese literature: shi (Wt),fumi c>c) male public (oyake [~]) formal (hare [Pili]) Japan (Yamato [:;kfO])

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