In 1925, Virginia Woolf reviewed Arthur Waley\u2019s translation of Lady Murasaki\u2019s The Tale of Genji, a Japanese classic supposedly written around 1000. The second chapter of Murasaki\u2019s novel reveals to the reader her aesthetics and aesthetic of novel-writing, which, I would like to suggest, appealed to Woolf\u2019s pacifism, feminism and aesthetics and encouraged her to explore her own themes and Modernist method of writing. Lady Murasaki\u2019s aesthetic sensibilities were shared by her contemporary and rival, Sei Shonagon, well known for her masterpiece, The Pillow-Book, part of which Waley translated in 1927. Theirs could be summarized as heightened sensibilities which perceive the exquisite in the trivial or the ordinary. The attitude to discover things that matter in the seemingly trivial and common, poetic prose style, keen sensibilities and pictorial descriptions conscious of colour scheme\u2014these characteristics are something in common between the two female Japanese authors, although Lady Murasaki\u2019s characteristics lie in her sense of \u201ca(h)ware\u201d \u2014an impassioned response to beauty\u2014whereas Sei Shonagon\u2019s in her sense of \u201c(w)okashi\u201d\u2014an intellectual response to beauty.<\/p>\n
The two authoresses\u2019 aesthetics or approach to beauty is subjective, and I would like to suggest that it is, in nature, close to what Walter Pater termed as \u201cstrangeness in beauty\u201d and \u201csweet\u00a0strangeness,\u201d and, therefore, something that Woolf as well as other Western readers can identify. My presentation is an attempt to introduce to the audience the aesthetics and sensibilities which the two terms\u2014aw(h)re and (w)okashi\u2014represent, to clarify the connection between Woolf\u2019s and the two Japanese authoresses\u2019 sensibilities, aesthetic and aesthetics, and to throw light on the development of Woolf\u2019s Modernist aesthetics and method.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In 1925, Virginia Woolf reviewed Arthur Waley\u2019s translation of Lady Murasaki\u2019s The Tale of Genji, a Japanese classic supposedly written around 1000. The second chapter of Murasaki\u2019s novel reveals to the reader her aesthetics and aesthetic of novel-writing, which, I would like to suggest, appealed to Woolf\u2019s pacifism, feminism and aesthetics and encouraged her to […] Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-635","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-events","category-lunchtime-seminars"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/projects.history.qmul.ac.uk\/emotions\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/635","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/projects.history.qmul.ac.uk\/emotions\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/projects.history.qmul.ac.uk\/emotions\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/projects.history.qmul.ac.uk\/emotions\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/projects.history.qmul.ac.uk\/emotions\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=635"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/projects.history.qmul.ac.uk\/emotions\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/635\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":638,"href":"https:\/\/projects.history.qmul.ac.uk\/emotions\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/635\/revisions\/638"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/projects.history.qmul.ac.uk\/emotions\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=635"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/projects.history.qmul.ac.uk\/emotions\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=635"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/projects.history.qmul.ac.uk\/emotions\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=635"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}