Heian Period in Japan: Feminine Vernacular Literature

Preceded by the Nara Period, Heian Japan was the apogee of Japanese aristocratic culture. This period had a well-defined system of hierarchy and order that contributed a large deal of importance to society at that time. Works of poetry and fiction were valued in society. Despite the integration of Chinese influences into Japanese culture, distinct Japanese nativity still managed to bloom in some works of art. Dissecting the dualism of gender, it was widely accepted that women wrote in traditional Japanese style, termed kana, and men wrote in the “borrowed” Chinese language. What this means is that women were utilizing the “everyday” language of Japanese common people; whereas, men were exercising the more exclusive and “official” language of the Chinese. This is the largest and most comprehensible reason why literature written by women of the time has exceeded it’s lifetime for centuries and allows us the most preeminent portal into the Heian Period of Japanese culture, to view the roles of gender and status.

This period of history produced an abundance of “feminine vernacular” literature. It gives us insight into life as a court lady; a woman nearest the top of a female’s socially stratified existence. Sei Shōnagon is famous for her work The Pillow Book. Sei Shōnagon said it herself in “Women and High Office”, that women had to be, more or less, born into their high status roles; whereas, men had the ability to slither their way up the totem pole through “promotions”. This, in itself, outlines the hierarchical system that typically favoured social mobility in the hands of men. Which explains why men had the luxury of learning to read and write Chinese. Chinese was the language of legal and religious documents, and the un...

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...torians a glimpse into the past. Unlike the archaic Chinese script used by men, the women of the age used kana to elaborate on everyday occurrences, with important details. We are lucky to be blessed with an abundance of thriving and literate female authors that were so close to the courts to provide such unique insight. But, let us not be fooled. The substantial amount of aristocratic perspective cannot make up for the missing gap we find ourselves lacking the ability to fill. Much of the everyday lives of ordinary women of Heian Japan went without documentation. Though, this cannot take away from the beauty of the literature that we do have from this period. Subjective, rather than objective, knowledge can be extracted from within these pieces of poetry and fiction. The interior focus is so ruthless, that it manages to act as a window into the court life of Japan.