Unbinding The Pillow Book

The Many Lives of a Japanese Classic

Gergana Ivanova

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Hardback

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English

Columbia University Press
06 November 2018

Literary studies: classical, early & medieval

"An eleventh-century classic, The Pillow Book of Sei Shōnagon is frequently paired with The Tale of Genji as one of the most important works in the Japanese canon. Yet it has also been marginalized within Japanese literature for reasons including the gender of its author, the work's complex textual history, and its thematic and stylistic depth. In Unbinding The Pillow Book, Gergana Ivanova offers a reception history of The Pillow Book and its author from the seventeenth century to the present that shows how various ideologies have influenced the text and shaped interactions among its different versions.

Ivanova examines how and why The Pillow Book has been read over the centuries, placing it in the multiple contexts in which it has been rewritten, including women's education, literary scholarship, popular culture, ""pleasure quarters,"" and the formation of the modern nation-state. Drawing on scholarly commentaries, erotic parodies, instruction manuals for women, high school textbooks, and comic books, she considers its outsized role in ideas about Japanese women writers. Ultimately, Ivanova argues for engaging the work's plurality in order to achieve a clearer understanding of The Pillow Book and the importance it has held for generations of readers, rather than limiting it to a definitive version or singular meaning. The first book-length study in English of the reception history of Sei Shōnagon, Unbinding The Pillow Book sheds new light on the construction of gender and sexuality, how women's writing has been used to create readerships, and why ancient texts continue to play vibrant roles in contemporary cultural production."

By: Gergana Ivanova
Imprint: Columbia University Press
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 229mm, Width: 152mm,
ISBN: 9780231187985
ISBN 10: 023118798X
Pages: 240
Publication Date: 06 November 2018
Audience: Professional and scholarly , Undergraduate
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

Acknowledgments 1. What Is The Pillow Book? 2. (Re)constructing the Text and Early Modern Scholarship 3. From a Guide to Court Life to a Guide to the Pleasure Quarters 4. The Pillow Book for Early Modern Female Readers 5. Shaping the Woman Writer 6. New Markets for Japanese Classics Notes Bibliography Index

Gergana Ivanova is associate professor of Japanese literature and culture at the University of Cincinnati.

Reviews for Unbinding The Pillow Book: The Many Lives of a Japanese Classic

Ivanova's work is a fascinating exploration of the reception, reproduction, and re- imagination of Sei Shonagon's Pillow Book over time, focusing in particular on book history and publishing cultures of the seventeenth through early twentieth centuries.--Keller Kimbrough, University of Colorado, Boulder The Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon stands next to The Tale of Genji as the most recognized and best loved of Japanese classical literature. In this exceptionally clear and clear-headed work, Gergana Ivanova tells us exactly how and why we are able to read The Pillow Book today. Tracing the ways in which the three commentaries of the Edo period elevate the work to the Japanese origin of a genre, and yet simultaneously and as a direct consequence relegate that genre to the sidelines, she makes a firm case for a much overdue new reading.--Linda Chance, University of Pennsylvania