In Chapter 21, you learned about the Heian period. This was a Golden Age in Japan when there was a great flowering of art and writing. Aristocrats, especially women, were important in the creation of this uniquely Japanese culture. Women of the royal court kept diaries, wrote poetry, and created new forms of literature.

The best-known Heian writer was Murasaki Shikibu, a lady-in-waiting at the Heian court. She wrote The Tale of Genji, a story about the romantic adventures of a prince. It is a long tale, with six parts and 54 chapters. It is often called the first novel ever written, not only because of its length, but also because of its well-developed characters and realistic setting.

Below is a biography of Lady Murasaki Shikibu. What does her life story teach you about the time and place in which she lived?

Murasaki Shikibu was born around 978. Her father was part of a minor branch of the powerful Fujiwara clan, which dominated the royal court. Apparently, Lady Murasaki was an extremely smart young girl. As an adult, she wrote about her childhood in her diary:

When my brother Nobunari was a boy my father was very anxious to make [him] a good [scholar of Chinese], and often came himself to hear Nobunari read his lessons. I was always present, and so quick was I at picking up the language that I was soon able to prompt my brother whenever he got stuck. At this point my father used to sigh and say to me: "If only you were a boy how proud and happy I should be."

When she was 16, Lady Murasaki married a distant relative and then had two daughters. She had been married only seven years when her husband died. Because the royal family had heard of Lady Murasaki's intelligence and talent, they brought her to court.

It is clear from Lady Murasaki's diary that she did not like everything about court life. She was a quiet person, and court life could be very rowdy. But she recounted her life at court in beautifully detailed writing. Much of what historians know about the Heian court, they learned from the diaries of Lady Murasaki and other court women.

Lady Murasaki's writing was also popular during her lifetime. During Heian times, Chinese was the language spoken and written by scholars. (Remember Lady Murasaki's brother and his studies.) But women wrote in their native Japanese. This meant that their poems and stories could be read by everyone.

Not much is known of Lady Murasaki's life after 1010, when her diary ends. It's possible that she went to live in a convent after retiring from life at court.

Source
Diary excerpt from Diary, Tokyo: Hakubunkwan, p. 51. In The Tale of Genji, Mineola, NY: Dover, 2000.

Investigating Biographies

Create a historical marker at Heian (now called Kyoto) commemorating the contributions of Lady Murasaki Shikibu to literature and history.

History Alive! The Medieval World and Beyond, Investigating Biographies