Sei Shōnagon is regarded as one of the two great prose authors in Japan’s history, the other being Murasaki Shikibu. Her Pillow Book and Murasaki Shikibu’s The Tale of Genji are Japan’s two great prose classics, and together they form the twin pillars of Japanese literature. The stature of these two women in Japan is difficult to overstate. Literary commentators and some historians tend to make much of the “rivalry” between Shōnagon and Murasaki, based mostly on a rather critical comment Murasaki makes of Shōnagon in her diary. I personally suspect the rivalry is more between the adherents of each work, rather than the women themselves. It is true, however, that both the books and their authors are as different as can be; in style, substance, tone and personality, making comparisons inevitable.
The comparisons aren’t always the nicest. For a literary giant, neither Shōnagon’s book nor Shōnagon herself has always been held in high esteem. She’s been called silly, shallow, frivolous, catty, combative to the point “overt hostility”, snobbish and elitist; even a “spiritual cripple.” Her lifestyle, which seems to have included many affairs, labeled her what people with Victorian attitudes would’ve called a “strumpet” and her feelings for the the empress she served have been criticized as excessively fawning (one scholar went so far as to say it “seems almost pathological”).
Her defenders cite her sparkling wit and intelligence, her style, her keen, clear-eyed, incisive and insightful view into human nature, her joy in things, large and small, that enliven our lives, and her capacity for sensitivity and deep feeling. Her competitive nature is viewed as a strength, not a flaw, and they remark her lack of whining, which (they say) often occurs in the writing of other women in her era.
Sometimes they return the favor by characterizing Murasaki Shikibu as dour, prudish and reserved, and detect in her private criticism of Shōnagon an air of jealousy and sour grapes that they imagine a shy introvert would have for a scintillating woman who (for the most part) seems to have beguiled those around her.
What people generally agree on is that she (Shōnagon) was a complicated person and certainly very well-informed about what was going on at the court. That she was a prose artist of the highest order and her book is a masterpiece, readers have always agreed, regardless of how they feel her. Many Japanese feel that she’s the better writer of the two, contrasting her clear, concise, rhythmic, beautifully lucid writing favorably with Murasaki’s more deliberate style that for all it’s evocative phrasing, tends to employ long, complex sentences that need to be teased apart, which can be heavy going (as, it’s acknowledged, many generations of Japanese students who’ve suffered through them can attest).
But all that back-and-forth aside, let’s just say that they are both extraordinary women and wrote utterly different but complementary works of great literature, and we owe a great deal of what we know about both the lives of of their contemporaries—from what they wore and how they spoke to their many foibles, follies and conceits; their joys and sorrows; their inner thoughts and inner demons—to this pair of geniuses.
Now let’s meet one of them.
Sei Shōnagon was born between 965 and 967. She joined the court as a lady-in-waiting to Empress Teishi in 993, when she would’ve been in her mid to late 20s. She left the court after Teishi’s premature death in 1000, before Murasaki Shikibu and Izumi Shikibu and the other notable women arrived in imperial household, but was known to them and corresponded with at least one, Akazome Emon.
It’s unknown when she began writing The Pillow Book, but the earliest passage we can date is from 994 and it’s clear she kept adding to it after she left the court. It is not a narrative in an usual sense. It’s the earliest example we have of a Japanese genre later referred to as “random notes” or “occasional writings” (zuihitsu in Japanese which, like most Japanese terms, has various translations) where people recorded anything that occurred to them without regard to organization, themes or structure.1 Scholars think it likely the genre was popular in Heian times but no other examples have survived. Preserving such informal personal writing would be a rare event, so the low survival rate is not surprising. In fact, it makes Shōnagon’s book all the more extraordinary.
As a zuihitsu, The Pillow Book is entirely composed of anecdotes, observations, various lists, poems, and snippets that may appear to be the beginnings of a tale. But as Ivan Morris, an early translator of The Pillow Book, says, those never go anywhere. Unlike Murasaki, Shōnagon was no novelist; she was too entranced by the lively world around her and the people in it.
The writing itself resembles the book. Meredith McKinney, a recent translator of The Pillow Book, notes that in classical Japanese, verbs are often time-neutral, nor do they need a subject. So pronouns, like “I”, “me,” “you,” or “we” are not necessary to anchor the experience. While this can be source of confusion (this holds for Japanese poetry as well) she feels it can also allow for a more immersive experience of the prose.
I might not entirely agree; lack of pronouns means they have to be supplied so we can understand it, posing a problem for translators. Morris, in keeping with his time (the 1960s) and his origins (British) relied on “one” to the point where one wonders how many times one can use “one” in one paragraph. But anyway…
McKinney says this time-neutral, subjectless, non-consecutive narrative creates an “entranced historical present” that keeps us in the moment, and I have to agree with that. I also find Shōnagon’s writing often has an almost cinematic quality; it’s as if we’re there with her, seeing what she’s seeing and chuckling (as discreetly as possible) at her murmured commentary. Here are two of my favorite passages of hers (from the Morris translation) in her list of “Hateful Things” (it’s not a short list! 😉):
A lover who is leaving at dawn announces he has to find his fan and his paper. “I know I put them somewhere last night,” he says. Since it is pitch dark, he gropes about the room, bumping into the furniture and muttering, “Strange! Where on earth can they be?” Finally, he discovers the objects. He thrusts into the breast of his robe with a great rustling sound; then he snaps open his fan and busily fans away with it. Only now is he ready to take his leave. What charmless behavior! ‘Hateful’ is an understatement.
…
Indeed, one’s attachment to a man depends largely on the elegance of his leave-taking. When he jumps out of bed, scurries about the room, tightly fastens his trouser-sash, rolls up the the sleeves of his Court cloak, over-robe, or hunting costume, stuffs his belongings into the breast of his robe and then briskly secures the outer sash— one really begins to hate him…
Love it! 😊
In later centuries, a pillow book came to refer to a sex manual, usually illustrated, that was given to the (presumably) virgin bride on her wedding night to acquaint her with the “proceedings” (shall we say 😉). Shōnagon’s Pillow Book has no such erotic content or purpose.
How her book came by its title is obscure. In Japanese, it is Makura no Shōshi, “Notes from the Pillow.” Shōnagon (whether she called it exactly that or not) gives her own explanation: Teishi had a large amount of valuable paper and asked her ladies what they should do with it. At the time, the men were busy copying a classic Chinese history. Shōnagon suggested: “Give it to me and I will make a pillow.” Teishi, intrigued, replied, “Then it is yours” and handed over the paper. Perhaps Shōnagon was referring to paper courtiers kept in their sleeping places to record private thoughts or zuihitsu.2 She claimed the book began as a private journal and was revealed “accidently.” (The circumstances she gives seem dubious). Another idea is that she was making a pun about providing a “pillow” for the “bed” of the men’s book. Whichever, she created one of the most lasting works in history.
As is commonplace for women of this period, little that can be substantiated is known about her life, and what is known comes mainly from her own book. She was the daughter of a provincial governor, may have been married and may have had a child, but these details are not included in The Pillow Book. As is typical, Sei Shōnagon is not her given name: Sei is the Sino-Japanese rendering of the first character of her family name, Kiyohara. Shōnagon (like Shikibu) is a court title, usually translated as “junior counselor.” Her given name may have been Nagiko, according to one unverified tradition.
At court she was noted for her lively personality, her sparkling—if, at times, rather biting—wit, a keen eye for foibles, trenchant commentary that made her book so popular, and a penchant for affairs. Next to nothing is known of her life after she left court. The date of her death is unknown; the last documented reference to her is from 1017.
As with Ono no Komachi and even Murasaki (who was consigned to Hell by Buddhists who felt her highly evocative writing would lead people astray), later tradition gives her a bad end: poverty stricken and miserable. As I’ve already pointed out (but doubtless will continue to; it bears repeating) how sadly typical of this is of the way female genius is treated, at many times and in many places.
I think we should honor her (and her sisters) all the more for that.
Source
BTW: The first English translation of The Pillow Book was done in the late 1920s by Arthur Waley, and he only did select parts totaling about a quarter of the text. He also translated the Tale of Genji around the same time and is largely responsible for putting it on the map in our society. He’s widely admired and honored for that, but I can’t say his translations have stood the test of time. He took great liberties with the text and the scholars of Japanese literature I’m familiar with (and in one case, know personally) while appreciating what he accomplished, don’t think much of his translations. But he did get the ball rolling and we’re thankful for that.
Ivan Morris notes that zuihitsu was still a respected genre in his day and includes some of the most highly regarded works of Japanese literature.
Beds in the sense we know them were unknown in Heian Japan, as was the popular futon. Heian courtiers slept on a raised platform that might be enclosed by curtains and was usually piled with robes instead of blankets or the like. They had wooden “pillows” with drawers where they could keep paper to record notes and stray thoughts. These “zuihitsu– like” collections, it seems, were generically called “pillow books” because this.