Table Of ContentAllegories of Desire
Esoteric Literary Commentaries
of Medieval Japan
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Harvard~ Y enching Institute Monograph Series, 55
Allegories of Desire
Esoteric Literary Commentaries
of Medieval Japan
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Susan Blakeley Klein
Published by the Harvard University Asia Center
for the Harvard,Y enching Institute
Distributed by Harvard University Press
Cambridge (Massachusetts) and London 2002
© 2002 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College
Printed in the United States of America
The Harvard-Yenching Institute, founded in 1928 and headquartered at Harvard University,
is a foundation dedicated to the advancement ~f higher education in the humanities and so
cial sciences in East and Southeast Asia. The Institute supports advanced research at Har
vard by faculty members of certain Asian universities and doctoral studies at Harvard and
other universities by junior faculty at the same universities. It also supports East Asian stud
ies at Harvard through contributions to the Harvard-Yenching Library and publication of
the Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies and books on premodern East Asian history and litera-
ture.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Klein, Susan Blakeley.
Allegories ofd esire: esoteric literary commentaries of medieval Japan/ Susan Blakeley Klein.
p. em. --(Harvard-Ye nching Institute monograph series ; 55)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN o-674-00956-8 (cloth: alk. paper)
r. Waka--History and criticism. 2. Japanese poetry·-II85-I6oo--History and criticism.
3· Fujiwara, Sadaie, II62-I24I. 4· Buddhism and literature. I. Title. II. Series.
PL728,A2 K54 2002
895·6'r2209--dc2r 2002027643
Index by the author
@ Printed on acid-free paper
Last number below indicates year of this printing
12 II ro 09 o8 07 o6 05 04 03 02
The publisher thanks FontFreak.com for permission to use the design elements~__)::;-
In loving memory of my mother
Abigail Banghart Klein
She is greatly missed
Acknowledgments
I started the research that has come to fruition in this book more than ten
years ago; as with any project as long-lasting as this one, the number of peo
ple to whom I owe a debt of gratitude is beyond count. Usually friends and
family are thanked last in acknowledgments, but I begin with all those
whos~ love and support have made these many years of work possible. A by
no means exhaustive list includes my mother and father, Abigail and Gus
Klein; my brothers, August and Frank, and their families; my friends Mark
Anderson, Sherry Bayouth, Marjorie Beale, Tom Benigson, Julie Burstein,
Deidre Stiff Collier, Jim Fujii and Ellen Radovic, Stuart Harten, Hu Ying
and Michael Phelan, Richard Kroll and Allison Gary, Tom Looser, Mark
Oshima, Anne Sneath Islan, Melly Ivy, Carol Kostik, Anne Salladin, and
Wes Sasaki-Uemura; and my fellow co-counselors Maria Brown, Joanne
Coleman, Suvan and Steve Geer, Keith Glassman, Mary Gonzalez V eleta,
Allan Hansen, Mary Hodgson, Vicki Kain, Kelly Steele, and Sarah Tozer. I
also thank Ohno Kazuo and his family, as well as Nakajima Natsu, Meiji
Setsuko, and Masuda Hiroshi; in differing ways each opened their lives and
took me in during my various stays in Japan, for which I am truly grateful.
Most especially I thank my husband, Joe McKenna, whose love and whimsi
cal humor have supported me through the highs and lows of this project.
Next on the list is my dissertation advisor, Karen Brazell. As a teacher,
mentor, and thoughtful reader, she was a wonderful role model for me
throughout my graduate student years; as a friend, she has continued to
viii Acknowledgments
always be ready with both intellectual engagement and warm support. I also
thank my other dissertation committee members, Brett DeBary, Victor
Koschmann, and Jane Marie Law, for their insightful comments and sugges
tions on the dissertation, as well as their friendly encouragement.
My first foray into the world of medieval commentaries was through
a reading group with Mitani Kuniaki, Richard Okada and Lewis Cook at
Yokohama Shiritsu Daigaku; their lively discussion and helpful guidance to
appropriate texts laid the groundwork for all my subsequent work. In addi
tion, Lewis Cook's extensive knowledge of medieval Japanese commentaries
has made him a remarkable resource over the years, and this book has bene
fited greatly from his critical reading. I made initial contact with Professor
Mitani through the Stanford Inter-University Center for the Study ofJ apa
nese; the teachers there moved me far forward along the never-ending road
to fluency.
I am incredibly lucky to have wonderful colleagues at UC Irvine generally,
but especially so in the East Asian Languages and Literatures Department.
During my first year at UC Irvine, Michael Fuller went beyond the call of
duty and stayed up all night helping me print out my dissertation to meet a
deadline; that was just the first of numerous times he has come to my aid as
scholar and friend. Michael also participated in an interdisciplinary faculty
reading group that gave critical suggestions on my theoretical chapter on al
legory. This group included Chris Beach, Charlie Chub, Alice Fahs, Carrie
Noland, and Kathy Ragsdale; their friendship has also been a continuing
source of support. Steve Carter carefully read various drafts of the manu
script and translations and made excellent suggestions for improvement, but,
more important, he was always available to discuss ideas. I could not ask for
a better or more generous colleague in premodern Japanese literature. In ad
dition, as chair of the department, he bent over backward to make sure that I
had the time and financial support I needed. My friend and colleague in
the History Department, Anne Walthall, painstakingly read the entire
manuscript and made many thoughtful editorial comments. Mindy Han and
everyone in the department office gets a special vote of thanks. And on a
personal note, Dean Karen Lawrence (and the entire BALL department)
stood behind me when my mother was dying, making sure I had the re
sources to take a nine-month family leave to help my father take care of her.
I will always be grateful to everyone at UC Irvine for their kindness in that
difficult time, both to me and my family.
Acknowledgments ix
In terms of research support, Yo shiko Lang, Akiba Satoshi, and Amy
Blumenthal in the interlibrary loan office at Cornell's Olin Library and Pam
LaZarr and Dianna Sahaar at UC Irvine deserve kudos for their tremen
dous efforts to find out-of-print texts and articles in obscure journals.
T oshiko Yokota and Akemi Morioka helped with translations. Junko
Matsuura was a wonderful research assistant; I could not have done it
without her.
Kate Wildman Nakai edited much of the material in Chapter n in its
earlier appearance as an article on Ise monogatari zuino in Monumenta Nip
ponica. William LaFleur, Mack Horton, William Bodiford, and Royall Tyler
have answered queries, discussed ideas, and pointed me in the direction of
Japanese sources. My three anonymous referees provided very constructive
feedback on the structure of the book as a whole, as well as on difficult
points in the translations. John Ziemer has been everything one could ask
for in an editor: knowledgeable, flexible, eagle-eyed, and, above all, patient.
His editing improved the book considerably.
This particular project has enticed me into fields beyond my original
graduate training in literary analysis, notably into the field of esoteric (even
heterodox) Buddhism. I have had a few truly helpful guides as I made my
way into those uncharted territories. Richard Bowring and John McCrae
read early versions of my translation of Ise monogatari zuino and made many
helpful suggestions on that fearfully difficult text. Richard Bowring's work,
in particular, helped inspire my interest in the commentaries originally, and
his input at an early point in the research was crucial for the direction of my
project. James Sanford and Bernard Faure read translations and generously
shared unpublished manuscripts on T achikawa Shingon. Their knowledge
has been invaluable in teasing out the esoteric meanings of the more difficult
commentaries; Sanford's work on spiritual embryology was especially useful.
In terms of financial support, I also have much to be grateful for. First, I
thank the Department of Asian Studies and the Graduate School at Cornell
for all the fellowships and assistantships that initially allowed me to pursue
my interest in Japanese literature. In this respect, Eleanor Jorden played a
crucial role in finding me my first fellowship to study Japanese intensively in
Cornell's FALCON program. My dissertation research in Japan (1987-89)
was undertaken as a Fulbright Graduate Research Scholar; I also received a
Kasumi Kaikan Foundation for Community Services Scholarship during
the summer of 1989. My dissertation was underwritten by the Woodrow
