SOURCE: “Retrospection in Japanese Prose Literature,” in A History of Japanese Literature, Volume Three: The High Middle Ages, translated by Aileen Gatten and Mark Harbison, edited by Earl Miner, Princeton University Press, 1991, 284-96.

In the following excerpt, Konishi explains that much of the reputation of the Izayoi Nikki stems from its external circumstances, not the intrinsic merit of the text.

… Isayoi Nikki is a record of Abutsu's journey to the shogunal seat in Kamakura to respond to a series of lawsuits challenging her son Tamesuke's inheritance (see ch. 8). The author does not, however, write of legal matters or of her anxieties over Tamesuke's prospects. If one were to read the text of the nikki without knowing the identity of the author, one would probably conclude only that the work is a travel record made up of waka and prose.

The Nijō-Reizei lawsuits, however, had become a cause...