SOURCE: An introduction to The Izumi Shikibu Diary: A Romance of the Heian Court, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1969, pp. 3-125.

In the following excerpt, Cranston offers background on early Japanese court literature (including the different varieties of nikki and their position relative to other genres of literature), and discusses the work of Izumi in the context of her predecessors and her peers.

Gi; … Description =~ S… Description

The Izumi Shikibu nikki¹¹⁰ is a work in one kan purporting to describe the beginning of Izumi's relationship with Prince Atsumichi. It is fairly short, occupying forty-six and one-half pages in the Iwanami Nihon koten bungaku taikei edition. It covers a time span of about nine months. The opening scene, when Izumi receives her first message from Prince Atsumichi, takes place shortly after the tenth of the fourth month of Choho 5 (1003); the last—the day when the Prince's consort leaves him...