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- Title
WOMEN'S ROLES AND SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS AS THEY APPEAR IN CLASSICAL JAPANESE TEXTS.
- Authors
Waniek, Iulia
- Abstract
Anthropologist and sociologist René Girard, once dubbed by his colleague Michel Serres, "the new Darwin of the human sciences", used literature to substantiate his theories on such topics as the causes of conflict and violence, or on the role of imitation in human behaviour. He held the belief that literary texts contain a literal truth about human behaviour, and in his work I found a confirmation of my own belief that literature can contribute to the discovery of a continuing human truth. The sources for our knowledge about women's education and gender consciousness in Japan's early history are, besides the first law codes and early histories, the diaries and other literary works created by women beginning with the tenth century AD. Laws give us some principles but literary works add details which help us understand the real situation, sometimes very different from, or even opposed to the legal provisions. My essay will highlight some details from literary works of the classical Japanese tradition (from the 10-th to the 18-th century) which show how women felt and thought about themselves and their relations with men. I will show how women of high rank had a relatively high position prior to the influence of Confucianism and how both social classes and genders were divided behaviour-wise and even spatially in the Imperial palace, by using the data provided by various literary texts.
- Subjects
SELF-consciousness (Awareness); MARRIAGE customs &; rites; WOMEN'S education
- Publication
Cogito (2066-7094), 2017, Vol 9, Issue 1, p120
- ISSN
2068-6706
- Publication type
Article