Abstract :
This study proposes a reorientation of Ise monogatari’s intertextuality
beyond an exclusively Japanese perspective. The Ise monogatari text we
have today is analysed as a single poetic-prose narrative entity, taking
account of narrative patterns, paronomasia and other linguistic or rhetorical
features. It is argued that Zhuangzi 荘子(J. Sōshi) at a general level appears
to have been used as an ideological pretext to construct a valorized episteme
that grounded knowledge, perception and action in the ultimate immediacy
beyond subjective or conventional distinctions. Further, a detailed analysis
of six core sections proposes that specific passages in Zhuangzi may plausibly
have inspired motifs and material details. The contention is that this
approach, which breaks with the tradition that has long given primacy to historicizing
methods, captures the philosophical coherence of the text without
excluding incremental views of its production.
