Structure
The novel is traditionally divided in three parts, the first two dealing with the life of Genji, and the last dealing with the early years of two of Genji's prominent descendants, Niou and Kaoru. There are also several short transitional chapters which are usually grouped separately and whose authorship is sometimes questioned.
- Genji's rise and fall
- Youth, chapters 1–33: Love, romance, and exile
- Success and setbacks, chapters 34–41: A taste of power and the death of his beloved wife
- The transition (chapters 42–44): Very short episodes following Genji's death
- Uji, chapters 45–54: Genji's official and secret descendants, Niou and Kaoru
The 54th and last chapter "The Floating Bridge of Dreams" is sometimes argued to be a separate part from the Uji part by modern scholars. It seems to continue the story from the previous chapters, but has an unusually abstract chapter title. It is the only chapter whose title has no clear reference within the text, but this may be because the chapter is unfinished. (This question is more difficult because we do not know exactly when the chapters acquired their titles.)
Read more about this topic: The Tale Of Genji
Famous quotes containing the word structure:
“Agnosticism is a perfectly respectable and tenable philosophical position; it is not dogmatic and makes no pronouncements about the ultimate truths of the universe. It remains open to evidence and persuasion; lacking faith, it nevertheless does not deride faith. Atheism, on the other hand, is as unyielding and dogmatic about religious belief as true believers are about heathens. It tries to use reason to demolish a structure that is not built upon reason.”
—Sydney J. Harris (1917–1986)
“For the structure that we raise,
Time is with materials filled;
Our to-days and yesterdays
Are the blocks with which we build.”
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1809–1882)
“With sixty staring me in the face, I have developed inflammation of the sentence structure and definite hardening of the paragraphs.”
—James Thurber (1894–1961)