The Epistemology of Space in The Tale of Genji

Although The Tale of Genji is today the quintessentially Japanese national classic, its engagement with China shapes the tale on virtually every page. This essay argues that Murasaki Shikibu was keenly interested in philosophical questions of how humans experience space and that China played a pivotal role in formulating and engaging these questions. As a Heian woman she had no access to the world of Chinese-style poetry composition or the Confucian Academy, but she deploys China as a marker of spatial or temporal difference that inspires her probing of fundamental questions: How can spaces convey moods and structure human experience? How can a woman narrate inaccessible male spaces? This essay shows how philosophical questions about the experience and description of space drive the tale’s plot and character portrayal and how this “epistemology of space” is predicated on the manifold presences of China at the heart of the Genji’s brilliant narrative art and psychological depth.