Elegance and Compassion in Heian Japan
Elegance and Compassion in Heian Japan
This chapter examines the understanding of sexual partnerships and the practice of love in Heian Japan (794–1185). For aristocrats of the Heian period, sexual partnerships, insofar as these were this-worldly endeavors, participated in the inevitable frustration of all this-worldly desires. However, there was also a tendency to see sexual partnerships, like other social roles, as a matter of interest to the gods. Gods and spirits might intervene to advance a partnership they favored. The discussions include the Heian spiritual world; kinship and marriage among the governing elite; Heian literature; Heian subjectivity; the celestial splendors of the Heian elite; spiritually meaningful love affairs; and the sublime loves of Genji.
Keywords: sexual partnerships, love, spiritual world, kinship, marriage, Heian literature, elite, love affairs, Genji
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