Table of Contents -- Preface -- A Note to the Reader -- List of Plates -- Introduction: Reading The Genji Scrolls and The Tale of Genji -- Part 1 Reading The Genji Scrolls -- 1 Scripting the Moribund: The Genji Scrolls' Aesthetics of Decomposition -- OVERTURE -- READING INFIRM DEPICTIONS: PORTRAYALS OF ILLNESS AND CALLIGRAPHIC DISTENSION IN THE GENJI SCROLLS' KASHIWAGI AND MINORI -- ART HISTORICAL BACKGROUND -- PAPER DESIGN / CALLIGRAPHY -- SOUNDING OUT THE SCRIPT -- 2 The Narration of Tales, the Narration of Paintings -- UNDERSTANDING NARRATIVE, UNDERSTANDING PAINTINGS -- NARRATING IN THE TALE OF GENJI SCROLLS -- CONCLUSIONS AND AMENDMENTS - THE READER BEYOND THE PLOT -- Part 2 Reading the Genji Texts -- 3 Displacements of Conquest, or Exile, The Tale of Genji, and Post-Cold War Learning -- 4 Person, Honorifics and Tense in The Tale of Genji -- PERSON AND HONORIFICS -- 'き' (KI) AND 'けり' (KERI) -- CONCLUSION -- Part 3 Reading the Genji Romance -- 5 'Kiritsubo': Genji, Spacing and Naming -- INTRODUCTION -- READING THE MEDIEVAL TEXT -- OPENINGS AND PRIOR NARRATIVES -- MOURNING AND MELANCHOLIA -- HOMOGENEITY AND HETEROGENEITY -- MASCULINITY AND FEMININITY -- LANGUAGE AND DESIRE -- 6 Genji and the Gardens of Medieval Romance -- INTRODUCTION -- MEDIEVAL ROMANCE: GLOBAL MARKERS -- HISTORIC GARDENS AND ROMANCE'S DIFFÉRENCE -- THE GARDENS OF GENJI -- ENCHANTMENT AND DANGER IN THE GARDEN -- THE ENCLOSED GARDEN OF JAPANESE ROMANCE -- THE ROKUJO GARDENS FOR ALL SEASONS: A TROPE OF IMPERIAL SAGE-RULERSHIP -- THE GARDENS OF 'MYTHIC' SPRING -- THE 'EARTHLY PARADISE' AND SPIRITUAL PERFECTIBILITY -- EXCURSIONS AND IDYLL ON THE POND -- CONCLUSION -- Appendix -- Bibliography of Japanese Sources -- General Index -- Author Index -- Plates.