In Search Of The Perfect Man In Heian Period Essay - 1,572 words

In search of the Perfect Man in Heian Period Sneaking through the court one day I happen to overhear three aristocratic women engaged in a heated debate concerning the issue of attributes of the perfect man. The three women are: Sei Shonagon, Murasaki Shikibu and Mother Michitsuna and they all are representatives of ancient Japanese historical period called Heian. It is no accident that the great figures of Heian Dynasty Japanese literature were women. Founded in 794, the Heian imperial state first mimicked Chinas system of administration by scholars. But by the 10th century, Japan had entered a period of stability under the rule of the Fujiwara clan, who controlled the imperial household by monopolizing the supply of wives, making women key in the exercise of political power. While men studied a distant, disused language-the Chinese classics and poetry-women perfected the art of Japanese vernacular prose.


This was Japan before samurai warriors, before geishas, without Zen Buddhism-or even sushi. It was a Japan whose aristocrats were utterly divorced from the masses of farmers and rural officials whose taxes they consumed. For a few brief generations this privileged nobility was free to focus on the pursuit of beauty-and romantic love-in a life that, by some standards, was decadent or even promiscuous. In this report we are going to talk about the attributes of a perfect man as it was seen by Heian women. One particularly famous female author of the Heian period is known only as the Mother of Michitsuna. The Mother of Michitsuna was an upper class woman unhappily married to a government official named Fujiware Kaneie. As a court lady, she lived a very comfortable, albeit sequestered life.


In her luxurious prison, Michitsunas Mother endured her husbands numerous affairs. Such infidelity was extremely common. Noblemen were encouraged to keep several wives and/or mistresses without fear of rebuke or retribution. Wives existed only to produce children who would carry on the family legacy. Since this attitude was the norm, husbands generally made no effort to hide their activities. Fujiware Kaneie certainly did not, and there was nothing Michitsunas Mother could do about it. She was very dissatisfied with this situation and thus expressed her protest in her poetry.


In her Diary she paid attention to the attributes of a man that any woman of the time period would like. This vision expressed a man figure as a hero that is able to resist the existing situation concerning women and be more polite in relationships with women. One particular aspect that would make a perfect man would be his attitude towards women that as expressed by the poetess should be different of what they had back than. Other critically acclaimed works from the Heian period include Murasaki Shibikus epic novel The Tale of Genji and Sei Shonagons The Pillow Book. These novels were the first of their kind and stimulated interest in the diary genre. Both novels were written in a journal entry format that allowed their authors a vast amount of literary freedom. They were able to write about whatever they chose, free to gossip about their next-door neighbors, to admire the beauty of a poem, or to expound on the rigid social forms encircling Japanese men and women.


Their novels gave Murasaki Shibiku and Sei Shonagon a forum through which they could express their opinions on whatever they desired in a culture where women were not expected to have opinions. Male courtiers had plenty of time for pursuing women as their main duties were attending the emperor and little real administrative work was involved. Typically, high-ranking men were polygamous, with an arranged marriage to a principal wife for political reasons, plus several concubines and freedom to play the field. Seduction was largely a matter of getting behind the ladys screens - if she was unwilling - and then everything else followed pretty quickly. In fact, many of the seductions in the Tale could more accurately be described as rape, and some humorous episodes result on the rare occasions that a lady stubbornly defends her honor. Consequently it is clearly see that women of the Heian time period valued such characteristics of men as being more polished and elegant, especially when dealing with them. Another important attribute of a perfect man as it was expressed in the poetry of the Heian period was the ability of a man to engage in love feeling. Women were in search for this passionate feeling and thus they needed men to satisfy their desires.


Genji was actually representing the ideal form ...................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

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Essay Tags: heian period, heian, new york, japanese, poetry

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