Murasaki Shikibu: The Tale of Genji

Murasaki Shikibu''s The Tale of Genji, written in Japan in the early eleventh century, is acknowledged to be one of Japan''s greatest literary achievements, and sometimes thought of as the world''s first novel. It is also one of the earliest major works to be written by a woman. This introduction to the Genji sketches the cultural background, offers detailed analysis of the text, discusses matters...