Masukagami and the Narratives of Constructed Antiguity : Concerning the Transcription of Love Affairs

Abstract

The description of love affairs in Masukagami has been considered as an attempt to depict a world of courtly romance under the influence of The Tales of Genji. Deviding its description into the three categories of "the love between a brother and a sister," "an illicit affair with an imperial princess." and "a scandal concerning the harlem" for analysis, I maintain that the world of Masukagami amply reflects the atmosphere of the narratives of the late Heian period or those narratives written in Kamakura period but deliberately set in the past. Hence I propose a possibility of reading Masukagami as a presentation of dark prophecies about the future of the Daikakuji clan through its narrative world.