The Heian period (794-1185) took its name
from the new capital Heian-kyō, "Capital of Peace,"
which we now call Kyoto, a planned city
modeled on Tang Chang'an's pre-lease.
For nearly four centuries, the imperial court
lived in exquisite aesthetic refinement,
while the real political power shifted
to the Fujiwara clan's alignment.
The Fujiwara controlled the regency (sessho)
for child emperors, and the kampaku
for adult emperors. They married their daughters
to emperors, producing grandsons to attack.
Fujiwara no Michinaga (966-1028) was
the peak of Fujiwara power. He had four daughters
married to four emperors. "This world, I think,
is truly my world," he wrote in his quartets.
"Like the full moon, there is nothing lacking."
It was the highest point of the family rule.
After him, the regents would slowly decline,
and the retired emperors would reverse the tool.
During this era, Japanese literature flowered
in a way unique in world history.
Court women writing in kana produced
the masterpieces of Japanese story-mystery.
Murasaki Shikibu (c. 978-1014) wrote
the Tale of Genji (Genji Monogatari),
fifty-four chapters about the amorous adventures
of the Shining Prince Genji, at length contradictory.
This is often called the world's first novel,
certainly the first great psychological novel.
Its portrayal of the court, the aesthetics
of mono no aware (the bittersweet of passing), eloquent.
Sei Shōnagon, Murasaki's contemporary and rival,
wrote the Pillow Book, Makura no Sōshi,
a collection of observations, lists, vignettes
of courtly life — "Things That Make One's Heart Beat Fast," she
wrote, and catalogs of beautiful and ugly things.
Izumi Shikibu wrote passionate love poetry.
Ono no Komachi wrote of love and aging.
The thirty-six Immortal Poets included many women.
Japanese literature was largely women-staging.
This was possible because kana, the phonetic
script, was considered beneath men, who wrote
in Chinese characters (kanji). Women wrote
in kana, and thus wrote in Japanese, every note.
Their work is accessible, vernacular, intimate.
The Chinese writing of men of the same era
is forgotten. The kana writing of women endures.
A strange historical irony, clearer and clearer.
The aesthetic of mono no aware — the pathos of things —
permeates Heian culture. The awareness that
everything is passing, that beauty is fleeting,
that sadness is the proper response to the fact.
Cherry blossoms for a week, then falling.
Autumn leaves for a few days, then brown.
The court love affair of a night, then separation.
Every pleasure carries the taste of loss' gown.
This aesthetic would persist through Japanese
cultural history, from the Heian to the modern,
in the tea ceremony, in haiku, in film,
the foundational mood of the Japanese modern.
Politically, the Heian was becoming hollow.
The capital was all-important to the court,
but outside the capital, the warrior class
was rising, the bushi, who would soon comport.
The Taira and Minamoto clans, both descended
from cadet branches of the imperial line,
had been given military duties in the provinces,
and grew powerful, with retainers in line.
The Hogen Rebellion of 1156 and the
Heiji Rebellion of 1160 brought the bushi into the capital.
Taira no Kiyomori emerged on top,
ruling through puppet emperors, central, capital.
But the Minamoto would return for revenge.
Minamoto no Yoritomo, exiled to the east,
raised the Kanto plain in rebellion.
The Genpei War (1180-1185) began its feast.
The Taira were defeated at Dan-no-ura in 1185,
where the child Emperor Antoku drowned
with the sacred sword Kusanagi at the sea.
(Or did he? Sacred objects sometimes rebound.)
Yoritomo established the Kamakura Shogunate,
the first military government, in 1192.
The emperor remained in Kyoto as symbolic head,
but real power was now in Kamakura's view.
The Heian era was over. The medieval era began.
The refined court aesthetic remained as ideal,
but the ruling class was now the warrior,
with its code of bushido, martial and real.
Stand.