Allegories of Desire: Esoteric Literary Commentaries of Medieval Japan PDF
Preview Allegories of Desire: Esoteric Literary Commentaries of Medieval Japan
Allegories of Desire Esoteric Literary Commentaries of Medieval Japan _]),;;; Harvard~ Y enching Institute Monograph Series, 55 Allegories of Desire Esoteric Literary Commentaries of Medieval Japan J;;; Susan Blakeley Klein Published by the Harvard University Asia Center for the Harvard,Y enching Institute Distributed by Harvard University Press Cambridge (Massachusetts) and London 2002 © 2002 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College Printed in the United States of America The Harvard-Yenching Institute, founded in 1928 and headquartered at Harvard University, is a foundation dedicated to the advancement ~f higher education in the humanities and so cial sciences in East and Southeast Asia. The Institute supports advanced research at Har vard by faculty members of certain Asian universities and doctoral studies at Harvard and other universities by junior faculty at the same universities. It also supports East Asian stud ies at Harvard through contributions to the Harvard-Yenching Library and publication of the Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies and books on premodern East Asian history and litera- ture. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Klein, Susan Blakeley. Allegories ofd esire: esoteric literary commentaries of medieval Japan/ Susan Blakeley Klein. p. em. --(Harvard-Ye nching Institute monograph series ; 55) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN o-674-00956-8 (cloth: alk. paper) r. Waka--History and criticism. 2. Japanese poetry·-II85-I6oo--History and criticism. 3· Fujiwara, Sadaie, II62-I24I. 4· Buddhism and literature. I. Title. II. Series. PL728,A2 K54 2002 895·6'r2209--dc2r 2002027643 Index by the author @ Printed on acid-free paper Last number below indicates year of this printing 12 II ro 09 o8 07 o6 05 04 03 02 The publisher thanks FontFreak.com for permission to use the design elements~__)::;- In loving memory of my mother Abigail Banghart Klein She is greatly missed Acknowledgments I started the research that has come to fruition in this book more than ten years ago; as with any project as long-lasting as this one, the number of peo ple to whom I owe a debt of gratitude is beyond count. Usually friends and family are thanked last in acknowledgments, but I begin with all those whos~ love and support have made these many years of work possible. A by no means exhaustive list includes my mother and father, Abigail and Gus Klein; my brothers, August and Frank, and their families; my friends Mark Anderson, Sherry Bayouth, Marjorie Beale, Tom Benigson, Julie Burstein, Deidre Stiff Collier, Jim Fujii and Ellen Radovic, Stuart Harten, Hu Ying and Michael Phelan, Richard Kroll and Allison Gary, Tom Looser, Mark Oshima, Anne Sneath Islan, Melly Ivy, Carol Kostik, Anne Salladin, and Wes Sasaki-Uemura; and my fellow co-counselors Maria Brown, Joanne Coleman, Suvan and Steve Geer, Keith Glassman, Mary Gonzalez V eleta, Allan Hansen, Mary Hodgson, Vicki Kain, Kelly Steele, and Sarah Tozer. I also thank Ohno Kazuo and his family, as well as Nakajima Natsu, Meiji Setsuko, and Masuda Hiroshi; in differing ways each opened their lives and took me in during my various stays in Japan, for which I am truly grateful. Most especially I thank my husband, Joe McKenna, whose love and whimsi cal humor have supported me through the highs and lows of this project. Next on the list is my dissertation advisor, Karen Brazell. As a teacher, mentor, and thoughtful reader, she was a wonderful role model for me throughout my graduate student years; as a friend, she has continued to viii Acknowledgments always be ready with both intellectual engagement and warm support. I also thank my other dissertation committee members, Brett DeBary, Victor Koschmann, and Jane Marie Law, for their insightful comments and sugges tions on the dissertation, as well as their friendly encouragement. My first foray into the world of medieval commentaries was through a reading group with Mitani Kuniaki, Richard Okada and Lewis Cook at Yokohama Shiritsu Daigaku; their lively discussion and helpful guidance to appropriate texts laid the groundwork for all my subsequent work. In addi tion, Lewis Cook's extensive knowledge of medieval Japanese commentaries has made him a remarkable resource over the years, and this book has bene fited greatly from his critical reading. I made initial contact with Professor Mitani through the Stanford Inter-University Center for the Study ofJ apa nese; the teachers there moved me far forward along the never-ending road to fluency. I am incredibly lucky to have wonderful colleagues at UC Irvine generally, but especially so in the East Asian Languages and Literatures Department. During my first year at UC Irvine, Michael Fuller went beyond the call of duty and stayed up all night helping me print out my dissertation to meet a deadline; that was just the first of numerous times he has come to my aid as scholar and friend. Michael also participated in an interdisciplinary faculty reading group that gave critical suggestions on my theoretical chapter on al legory. This group included Chris Beach, Charlie Chub, Alice Fahs, Carrie Noland, and Kathy Ragsdale; their friendship has also been a continuing source of support. Steve Carter carefully read various drafts of the manu script and translations and made excellent suggestions for improvement, but, more important, he was always available to discuss ideas. I could not ask for a better or more generous colleague in premodern Japanese literature. In ad dition, as chair of the department, he bent over backward to make sure that I had the time and financial support I needed. My friend and colleague in the History Department, Anne Walthall, painstakingly read the entire manuscript and made many thoughtful editorial comments. Mindy Han and everyone in the department office gets a special vote of thanks. And on a personal note, Dean Karen Lawrence (and the entire BALL department) stood behind me when my mother was dying, making sure I had the re sources to take a nine-month family leave to help my father take care of her. I will always be grateful to everyone at UC Irvine for their kindness in that difficult time, both to me and my family. Acknowledgments ix In terms of research support, Yo shiko Lang, Akiba Satoshi, and Amy Blumenthal in the interlibrary loan office at Cornell's Olin Library and Pam LaZarr and Dianna Sahaar at UC Irvine deserve kudos for their tremen dous efforts to find out-of-print texts and articles in obscure journals. T oshiko Yokota and Akemi Morioka helped with translations. Junko Matsuura was a wonderful research assistant; I could not have done it without her. Kate Wildman Nakai edited much of the material in Chapter n in its earlier appearance as an article on Ise monogatari zuino in Monumenta Nip ponica. William LaFleur, Mack Horton, William Bodiford, and Royall Tyler have answered queries, discussed ideas, and pointed me in the direction of Japanese sources. My three anonymous referees provided very constructive feedback on the structure of the book as a whole, as well as on difficult points in the translations. John Ziemer has been everything one could ask for in an editor: knowledgeable, flexible, eagle-eyed, and, above all, patient. His editing improved the book considerably. This particular project has enticed me into fields beyond my original graduate training in literary analysis, notably into the field of esoteric (even heterodox) Buddhism. I have had a few truly helpful guides as I made my way into those uncharted territories. Richard Bowring and John McCrae read early versions of my translation of Ise monogatari zuino and made many helpful suggestions on that fearfully difficult text. Richard Bowring's work, in particular, helped inspire my interest in the commentaries originally, and his input at an early point in the research was crucial for the direction of my project. James Sanford and Bernard Faure read translations and generously shared unpublished manuscripts on T achikawa Shingon. Their knowledge has been invaluable in teasing out the esoteric meanings of the more difficult commentaries; Sanford's work on spiritual embryology was especially useful. In terms of financial support, I also have much to be grateful for. First, I thank the Department of Asian Studies and the Graduate School at Cornell for all the fellowships and assistantships that initially allowed me to pursue my interest in Japanese literature. In this respect, Eleanor Jorden played a crucial role in finding me my first fellowship to study Japanese intensively in Cornell's FALCON program. My dissertation research in Japan (1987-89) was undertaken as a Fulbright Graduate Research Scholar; I also received a Kasumi Kaikan Foundation for Community Services Scholarship during the summer of 1989. My dissertation was underwritten by the Woodrow
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