‘A Poetics of Courtly Male Friendship in Heian Japan’ by Paul Gordon Schalow (Review)

After a rather lean blogging month in May, I’m hoping to get things back on track in June, and that includes cracking on with my chapter-by-chapter journey through The Tale of Genji. Before that, though, perhaps as a kind of warm-up, I’m taking a look at an academic work that explores a particular feature of Heian-era Japan. You see, while many works focus on the relationships between men and women, today’s choice takes a rather different approach – yes, this one’s all about the boys, and how they spent time together all those years ago… ***** I suspect that just reading the title of Paul Gordon Schalow’s A Poetics of Courtly Male Friendship in Heian Japan will be enough for you to decide whether this is a book for you, and there are certainly few surprises in store. As suggested, the book takes us on a journey through Heian-era Japanese literature, with a particular focus on how friendship between noblemen is portrayed in a number of seminal texts: As we shall see, the nobleman’s…