源氏

Genji (源氏) is a compound of Gen (源, source, origin — the Sino-Japanese reading of the Minamoto clan name) and ji (氏, clan, family). The full name means 'of the Minamoto clan.' Minamoto no Hikaru (光源氏, Hikaru Genji — Shining Genji) is the protagonist of Murasaki Shikibu's Genji Monogatari (源氏物語, The Tale of Genji), written approximately 1008 CE. His name encodes his status: brilliant (hikaru = shining), but of the Minamoto clan, which means he has been demoted from imperial prince to commoner.

The plot of Genji turns on this demotion. Genji's father, the emperor, loved Genji's mother above all his consorts — dangerously so. Rather than allow the resulting scandal to destroy the court, the emperor removed Genji from the imperial line by giving him the clan name Minamoto and reclassifying him as a commoner. Genji is brilliant, beautiful, musically gifted, and politically neutered — he can move through the court but cannot be emperor. The name Genji is both an honor (Minamoto was a great clan) and a deprivation.

Murasaki Shikibu (the author's name is itself a court nickname — her real name is unknown) was a lady-in-waiting at the court of Empress Shoshi. She wrote in Chinese-influenced kana script, creating a narrative of psychological depth, seasonal imagery, and erotic subtlety that had no equivalent in world literature at the time. The tale is in 54 chapters, covers multiple generations, and depicts the interior lives of its characters with a specificity that would not appear in European fiction for another seven centuries.

The tale's global reception came slowly. Arthur Waley's English translation appeared 1921–1933, bringing Genji to Western literary attention. Virginia Woolf reviewed it. Royall Tyler's more complete translation appeared in 2001. The tale has never been out of print in Japan since the 11th century. Genji as a name has become a metonym for classical Japanese literary culture — the novel, the aesthetic period, and the prince who could not be king.