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Monogatari (Japanese: 物語; [monoɡaꜜtaɾi]) is a literary form in traditional Japanese literature – an extended prose narrative tale comparable to epic literature. Monogatari is closely tied to aspects of the oral tradition, and almost always relates a fictional or fictionalized story, even when retelling a historical event. Many of the great works of Japanese fiction, such as the Genji Monogatari and the Heike Monogatari, are in the monogatari form.
The form was prominent around the 9th to 15th centuries, reaching a peak between the 10th and 13th centuries.[1] Monogatari was the court literature during the Heian era and also persisted in the form of archaic fiction until the sixteenth century.[1] The Fūyō Wakashū (1271) indicates that at least 198 monogatari existed by the 13th century. Today, only 24 exist.[2]
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Scholars describe monogatari as long prose narratives, typically in a third-person mode, produced among the aristocracy from the early tenth century into the Kamakura period.[3] They developed with the rise of court-based vernacular literature written in kana (wabun), a shift closely associated with women at court; many celebrated monogatari were authored by women such as Murasaki Shikibu.[4] Vernacular historical monogatari such as Eiga Monogatari and Ōkagami also adopt kana and present dynastic history through distinctive narrative frames and voices.[5]
Monogatari prose is commonly interwoven with waka; in the uta-monogatari subgenre the poems themselves structure successive episodes.[6] The centrality of poetry is evident in The Tale of Genji, which embeds 795 waka within its narrative.[7]
From the late Heian into the medieval period, some monogatari—especially the gunki monogatari—developed in tandem with performative traditions. The Heike Monogatari circulated in multiple textual lines and was chanted by itinerant blind lute priests (biwa hōshi) to the accompaniment of the biwa (heikyoku).[8][9] The most influential performance version, the Kakuichi-bon, was dictated by Akashi Kakuichi in 1371 and long served as a standard for recitation and scholarship.[10] The Heike recitation art (Heike-biwa) flourished in the Muromachi period and, though now rare, continues to be documented and reconstructed by performers and researchers.[11]
The genre is subdivided into multiple categories depending on their contents:
Stories dealing with fantastical events.
Stories drawn from poetry.
Aristocratic court romances.
Historical tales that emerged during the late Heian period, flourishing until the medieval age.[12] These narratives were commonly written in kanbun (hybrid form of Chinese) or wabun (Japanese).[12] Two of the most notable of this monogatari included the Eiga Monogatari and Ōkagami, which both narrated the story of Michinaga, the renowned Fujiwara regent.[12]
Military chronicles and stories about war.
Anecdotal tales.
Pseudo-classical imitations of earlier tales.
When European and other foreign literature later became known to Japan, the word monogatari began to be used in Japanese titles of foreign works of a similar nature. For example, A Tale of Two Cities is known as Nito Monogatari (二都物語), One Thousand and One Nights as Sen'ichiya Monogatari (千一夜物語) and more recently The Lord of the Rings as Yubiwa Monogatari (指輪物語) and To Kill a Mockingbird as Arabama Monogatari (アラバマ物語).
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