Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-ndw9j Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-08T06:25:23.971Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Japanese Harlequin Romances as Transcultural Woman's Fiction

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 March 2011

Chieko Irie Mulhern
Get access

Extract

My country “is now wholly given over to a d—d mob of scribbling women,” goes one of the most frequently quoted gender-related adages. Japanologists might be tempted to attribute this uncourtly utterance to a learned nobleman of Heian Japan (794–1185) embittered by the outpouring of vernacular narratives from women's writing brushes that were eclipsing male endeavors to emulate Chinese classics, or to an exasperated modern Japanese novelist in reference to the neo-Heian phenomenon, namely, the renaissance of women's literature in postwar Japan. Actually it was Nathaniel Hawthorne (1855:141) who made the now infamous sexist remark in chagrin at American women who were churning out best-sellers in force. Thereafter, this phenomenon abated for a full century, but since the 1960s, Western women writers have made a glorious resurgence, marked by unprecedented degrees of output and worldwide market domination in a genre known as the romance fiction. The title of the first romance series and the name of its publisher, Harlequin, has become something like a generic term with multiple signification.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Asian Studies , Volume 48 , Issue 1 , February 1989 , pp. 50 - 70
Copyright
Copyright © The Association for Asian Studies, Inc. 1989

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

List Of References

Baym, Nina. 1978. Woman's Fiction: A Guide to Novels by and About Women in America, 1820–1870. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Bowring, Richard. 1987. “The Tale of Genji: Its Reception and Uses.” The Asiatic Society of Japan Newsletter, December.Google Scholar
Brownmiller, Susan. 1976. Against Our Will: Men, Women, and Rape. New York: Bantam Books.Google Scholar
Cawelti, John G. 1976. Adventure, Mystery, and Romance: Formula Stories as Art and Popular Culture. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chamberlain, Basil, ed. [1890] 1905. Things Japanese. 5th ed., revised. London: John Murray. Available also as Japanese Things. Vermont and Tokyo: Charles E. Tuttle Company.Google Scholar
Douglas, Ann. 1977. The Feminization of American Culture. New York: Knopf.Google Scholar
Erikson, Erik. 1959. Identity and the Life Cycle. Psychological Issues 1, no. 1.Google Scholar
Fiedler, Leslie A. 1960. Love and Death in the American Novel. New York: Criterion Books.Google Scholar
Frye, Northrop. 1957. Anatomy of Criticism. Princeton: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Greer, Germaine. 1971. The Female Eunuch. New York: McGraw Hill.Google Scholar
Hawthorne, Nathaniel. 1855. A letter to Ticknor, William D. dated January 1855; quoted in Caroline Ticknor, Hawthorne and His Publisher. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1913.Google Scholar
Horner, Matina. 1972. “The Motive to Avoid Success and Changing Aspiration of College Women.” In Barwick, Judith M., ed., Readings on the Psychology of Women. New York: Harper and Row.Google Scholar
Hutchinson, Julie. 1986. “Romance Books Are a Hot Item in Japan.” Boulder Sunday Camera, September 28, p. 3B.Google Scholar
Mizue, Ishida. 1985. “Hiirō wa kō aritai” [The hero must be this way]. Romancelady 12:18–20.Google Scholar
“Love's Tender Tipsheet.” 1981. Publisher's Weekly. January 16.Google Scholar
Mcquillan, Alice. 1985. “Professor from Two Worlds Joins Both in Romance Epic.” Daily Yomiuri, June 26.Google Scholar
Mann, Peter. 1981. “The Romance Novel and Its Readers.” Journal of Popular Culture 15.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Minna no toshokan [Everybody's library].Google Scholar
Modleski, Tania. 1982. Loving with a Vengeance: Mass-produced Fantasies for Women. Hamden, Conn.: Archon Books.Google Scholar
Mulhern, Chieko. 1979. “Japan's First Newspaperwoman: Hani Motoko.” Japan Interpreter (Summer):310–29.Google Scholar
Mulhern, Chieko. 1984. “Japanese Cinderella as a Pubertal Girl's Fantasy.” Southern Folklore Quarterly 44:203–14.Google Scholar
Mulhern, Chieko. 1988. “A Survey of Japanese Women Writers.” In Longman Anthology of World Literature by Women, ed. Marian Arkin and Barbara Schollar. New York: Longman Press.Google Scholar
Mulhern, Chieko. 1989. “Women Writers Past and Present: Comparative Analysis of Murasaki Shikibu and Enchi Fumiko.” Review of National Literatures, Japan Issue.Google Scholar
Mussell, Kay. 1984. Fantasy and Reconciliation: Contemporary Formulas of Woman's Romance Fiction. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press.Google Scholar
Nagourney, Peter. 1982. “Elite, Popular, and Mass Literature.” Journal of Popular Culture 16.Google Scholar
Papashvily, Helen Waite. 1956. All the Happy Endings. New York: Harper and Brother.Google Scholar
Pearson, Carol and Pope, Katherine. 1981. The Female Hero in American and British Literature. New York and London: R. R. Bowker.Google Scholar
Radway, Janice. 1984. Reading the Romance: Women, Patriarchy, and Popular Literature. Chapel Hill and London: University of North Carolina Press.Google Scholar
Russ, Joanna. 1973. “Somebody Is Trying to Kill Me and I Think It Is My Husband: The Modern Gothic.” Journal of Popular Culture 6.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shuppan nenkan '87 [Publishing yearbook, 1987].Google Scholar
Spencer, Jim. 1986. “Japanese Fall for Romances.” Chicago Tribune, September 15.Google Scholar
Chiaki, Sugimoto. 1985. “Datsu-Shinderera monogatari” [Tale of outgrowing Cinderella].” Romancelady 12:16–19.Google Scholar
Seiko, Tanabe. 1988. “Hannari Bunka” [Elegant culture]. Chū ō kōron, June, pp. 36–37.Google Scholar
Trucco, Terry. 1986. “In Japan Cuteness Counts.” Wall Street Journal, February 21.Google Scholar
Yasuo, Ueda. 1984. “Besutoserā no hārekingenshō [Harlequinization of bestsellers].” Shūkan bunshun [Weekly Bunshun], December 27.Google Scholar
Wood, Paul. 1986. “Romancing the Japanese.” Champaign-Urbana News-Gazette, August 29, pp. 21 – 22.Google Scholar
Ichihi, Yanagihara. 1985. “Afterword.” Hidarimawari no warutsu [Left-turn waltz]. Tokyo: Sanrio.Google Scholar

List of the Sanrio New Romances

Rojia, Anbu. 1985. Burū redī ni akai bara (Red roses for the blue lady).Google Scholar
Yumi, Baba. 1985. Fuyu no nokutān (Winter nocturne).***Google Scholar
Yumi, Baba. 1986. Koi to kenjū (Love and handgun).Google Scholar
Yui, Hanano. 1983. Shīkuretto memorī (Secret memory).*Google Scholar
Yui, Hanano. 1984. Monsheri monbaron (Mon chéri, mon baron).Google Scholar
Yui, Hanano. 1986. Kanadian rabu (Canadian love).Google Scholar
Yō, Honami 1984. Tori o yumemite (Dreaming of the bird).Google Scholar
Aya, Kashiwagi. 1987. Hotarubi no bokujō de (At the firefly ranch).*****Google Scholar
Natsuo, Kirino. 1984. Koi no yukue (Where love has gone).Google Scholar
Natsuo, Kirino. 1986. Atsui mizu no yō na suna (Hot fluid sand).Google Scholar
Natsuo, Kirino. 1987. Mahiru no rein (Lane at noon).Google Scholar
Nayuko, Konokimi. 1984. Yasashii tensai (A gentle genius).Google Scholar
Nayuko, Konokimi. 1986. Ichiya no koncheruto (One-night concerto).Google Scholar
Kaoru, Masaki. 1985. Nioibukuro no onna (Woman with the sachet).Google Scholar
Shion, Matsukura. 1986. Yomigaetta densetsu (Legend Resurrected).****Google Scholar
Shion, Matsukura. 1987. Misutī gāru (Misty girl).Google Scholar
Shino, Murotsu. 1985. Aoi suishō (Amethyst ring).Google Scholar
Tomoko, Niikura. 1984. Kōri no mirāju (Ice mirage).Google Scholar
Tomoko, Niikura. 1985. Jōryokuju (Evergreen).Google Scholar
Ai, Nonaka. 1984. Onnatachi no sono (Women's park).Google Scholar
Kiko, Sugino. 1985. Haru wa sepiairo (Spring is sepia-colored).Google Scholar
Ichihi, Yanagihara. 1985. Butō (Dance).Google Scholar
Ichihi, Yanagihara. 1985. Hidarimawari no warutsu (Left-turn waltz).Google Scholar
Ichihi, Yanagihara. 1984. Ōhi no kaidan (Stairway for the queen).**Google Scholar
Ichihi, Yanagihara. 1985. Shiro no tanin (The stranger in the castle).Google Scholar
Ichihi, Yanagihara. 1987. Ra pandera (The panther).Google Scholar