{"id":80,"date":"2008-01-30T15:44:09","date_gmt":"2008-01-30T23:44:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.curlybrace.com\/words\/?p=80"},"modified":"2008-04-08T22:59:02","modified_gmt":"2008-04-09T06:59:02","slug":"the-tale-of-genji-choosing-a-translation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.curlybrace.com\/words\/2008\/01\/the-tale-of-genji-choosing-a-translation\/","title":{"rendered":"The Tale of Genji – choosing a translation"},"content":{"rendered":"

All covers for The Tale of Genji<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I’ve heard about The Tale of Genji, and thought I might like to read it. However, there are a daunting number of translations available! They’re enumerated in the Wikipedia<\/a> article.<\/p>\n

Here’s my rough summary:
\n0) Murasaki Shikibu – the original Japanese author.
\n1) Kencho Suematsu<\/a> – first translation, considered poor quality.
\n2) Arthur Waley<\/a> – many errors and changes from Murasaki’s original.
\n3) Edward G. Seidensticker<\/a> – closer to the original than Waley, but still makes changes.
\n4) Royall Tyler<\/a> – more footnoting explaining cultural aspects.<\/p>\n

There is an excellent review on Amazon<\/a>, which provides direct quotations from several versions of the Tale of Genji on Amazon. Also, this review<\/a> contrasts the Siedensticker against the Tyler version.<\/p>\n

In the end, I think I’m going for either the poetic Seidensticker version, or Waley’s more complex writing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ve heard about The Tale of Genji, and thought I might like to read it. However, there are a daunting number of translations available! They’re enumerated in the Wikipedia article. Here’s my rough summary: 0) Murasaki Shikibu – the original … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-80","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-nihongo"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curlybrace.com\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curlybrace.com\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curlybrace.com\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curlybrace.com\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curlybrace.com\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=80"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.curlybrace.com\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curlybrace.com\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=80"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curlybrace.com\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=80"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curlybrace.com\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=80"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}