The Murasaki Shikibu Diary

The Diary of Lady Murasaki (紫式部日記 Murasaki Shikibu Nikki) is the title of a collection of diary fragments written by the 11th-century Japanese Heian era lady-in-waiting and writer Murasaki Shikibu. It is written in kana, then a newly developed writing system for vernacular Japanese, more common among women, who were generally unschooled in Chinese. Unlike modern diaries or journals, 10th-century Heian diaries tend to emphasize important events more than ordinary day-to-day life and do not follow a strict chronological order. The work includes vignettes, waka poems, and an epistolary section written in the form of a long letter.

It was probably written between 1008 and 1010 when Murasaki was in service at the imperial court. The largest portion of the diary detail the birth of Empress Shōshi's (Akiko) children. Shorter vignettes describe interactions among imperial ladies-in-waiting and other court writers, such as Izumi Shikibu, Akazome Emon and Sei Shōnagon. Murasaki includes her observations and opinions throughout, bringing to the work a sense of life at the early 10th century Heian court, lacking in other literature or chronicles of the era.

A Japanese picture scroll, the Murasaki Shikibu Diary Emaki was produced during the Kamakura period in the 13th century, and the fragments of the diary serve as the basis for three important translations to English in the 20th century.

At the peak of the Heian period, from the late 10th to early 11th century, as Japan sought to establish a unique national culture of its own it saw the genesis of early Japanese classical literature, which to a large part emerged from women's court literature. Through the rise and use of kana, aristocratic women court writers formed a foundation for classical court literature, according to Haruo Shirane.Kokin Wakashū's first imperial waka collection, published c. 905, set the foundation for court literature. Up to this point, Japanese literature was written in Chinese – traditionally the language of men in the public sphere. It was in the literature of the imperial court that the gradual shift toward vernacular kana writing system was most evident, and where waka poetry became immensely popular. As Shirane explains: "Waka became integral to the everyday life of the aristocracy, functioning as a form of elevated dialogue and the primary means of communication between the sexes, who usually were physically segregated from each other."

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