여성에 의해 여성에 의해 재구성된 일본 헤이안(平安) 문학 -닫혀진 일본, 닫혀진 여성, 그 안에서 열린 일본문학-

Abstract

This paper examines the driving force of the flourishing of literature during the Japanese Heian period, with consideration given to the literature, society, and culture at large. The Heian period was when thinking through literature was a norm and the value of culture in general was emphasized. Heian literature shaped and completed its distinct characteristics earlier than any other literary period throughout the world history, and at the center of its driving force were the women writers. In the Heian period, when people were subject to hereditary social classes and male bureaucrats held control over the closed society, women were victims of arranged marriages and had to passively depend on men in order to communicate with outside world. Ironically, however, such a closed society and class system which put women on the periphery opened up a new way of communication for women in the form of women's literature. The suppression felt by women under the rigid class system came to be reconstructed by way of literary expression, and their lives' ordeals were expanded to their views of the external world in its entirety. These were embodied through unique and straightforward ways of expression that could be found in female writings and allowed freedom in their literary activities. It can be said that Heian literature was reconstructed by women writers who couldbloom out of the closed social structure and class system.