In Spring, the Dawn: Sei Shōnagon's Pillow Book, Its Lists and the Court of Empress Teishi

The Pillow Book (Makura no Sōshi) was written by Sei Shōnagon, a court lady who served Empress Consort Fujiwara no Teishi in Japan's Heian period during the 990s and early 1000s; it is a book of observations and musings, and one account gives 1002 as the year it was completed. It is famous because it reads like nothing else of its time: a loose collection of essays, anecdotes, poems and, above all, lists, held together only by the author's taste, wit and moods. A thousand years later it remains one of the best sources on court society of the period and a landmark in the history of Japanese literature, and its plain, charming style is still held up as a model of Japanese prose.

Who was Sei Shōnagon?

We do not know her real name. Court ladies were usually called by nicknames taken from an office held by a father or husband: "Sei" comes from her father's family name, Kiyohara, while "Shōnagon" refers to a government post whose link to her is unclear, since neither her father nor her known husbands held it. Kiyohara no Nagiko has been suggested as her name, but it remains a possibility rather than a fact.

She was born around 966, the daughter of Kiyohara no Motosuke, a scholar and well-known waka poet, and her great-grandfather Kiyohara no Fukayabu was a poet too. The family were middle-ranking courtiers. Around 993 she began serving Empress Teishi, consort of Emperor Ichijō. Contemporaries praised her memory, and she was known for quoting exactly the right classic poem for the moment, in a court where knowing the poetry canon was an essential skill. Little is known about her after Teishi's death; one tradition says she lived her last years in poverty as a Buddhist nun, another that she remarried and had a daughter.

A private notebook that escaped

Sei Shōnagon seems to have meant the writing to stay private. Part of it reached the court by accident: she left it on a cushion she had put out for a visiting guest, who carried it off despite her pleas. A tentative timeline of her life places this around 996, when Minamoto no Tsunefusa, governor of Ise, found and circulated an early draft. The same timeline suggests, with a question mark, that around 994 Teishi's brother Korechika had presented the empress with the paper on which the book would be written. Its dating is not settled, either: another account says it was finished sometime between 1001 and 1010, while she was in retirement.

What is actually in it

There is no plot. The translator Meredith McKinney calls it a "genre-bending miscellany" of short, largely unrelated pieces. Readers usually sort them into three kinds. First come narratives about events she saw at court. Second are her thoughts and opinions on all sorts of subjects. Third, and most famous, are the lists, with headings such as "Hateful Things" or "Things That Make the Heart Grow Fonder". Even the opening line, usually understood as "In spring, the dawn" (haru wa akebono), is open to argument about exactly what it means.

The text we read today is also a little unstable. It circulated at court and survived for centuries in handwritten copies, and scribes may have changed the order of entries and added or cut passages. Four main versions are known; the most widely used, the Sankanbon text, is divided into 297 sections plus 29 supplementary ones. So when two editions number a passage differently, neither is necessarily wrong.

A voice that refuses to be gloomy

The background was not always happy. Teishi's father, Fujiwara no Michitaka, died, and his rival Michinaga then made his own daughter Shōshi a consort and later empress, so that Teishi became one of two empresses at court. Yet Sei Shōnagon writes about court life with apparent lightness, playing down or leaving out hard realities such as Teishi's death in childbirth. In the fashion of the day, writing more passionately would have seemed unstylish. Some readers find this cold; others find it brave. Either way, the bright surface of the book takes on a different color once you know what was happening around it.

Her own key word is okashi, roughly "lovely" or "delightful". Where The Tale of Genji is linked with mono no aware, the gentle pathos of things, The Pillow Book reveals a similar beauty in the world through this more intellectual, quick-witted delight. She is not soul-searching or asking for approval; she is telling you what she likes, what irritates her and what made her laugh.

Opinions on everything

She had views on conversation, preaching and letters. She wanted pure language and correct manners in conversation, but she also recorded sparkling, sociable exchanges among the empress's ladies and the gentlemen who visited. Priests, she suggests, should be handsome and good speakers, because a good-looking preacher keeps your attention on the sermon. She also gave detailed advice on paper, calligraphy and the "morning-after" poem a lover was expected to send. Many readers have called her arrogant; many others simply enjoy how freely and sharply she says what she feels.

The rivalry with Murasaki Shikibu

Sei Shōnagon is often paired with Murasaki Shikibu, author of The Tale of Genji, who served Empress Shōshi. In her diary Murasaki wrote about Sei Shōnagon somewhat scathingly, while still granting her literary gifts. The two women served rival empresses, wrote in the same kana script, and produced two of the founding works of Japanese prose, which makes reading them side by side especially rewarding.

Written in kana

At the time, men usually wrote in Chinese characters, while women wrote mainly in hiragana, and The Pillow Book belongs to that great tradition of women's writing. Its short paragraphs make it relatively easy to read, even for modern Japanese speakers. That makes it a friendly classical text for learners: a single list can be read in a few minutes.

Legacy and translations

The book influenced the Japanese genre of zuihitsu, or "assorted writings", which later includes Kamo no Chōmei's Hōjōki and Yoshida Kenkō's Tsurezuregusa. In English, Arthur Waley published a partial translation in 1928, Ivan Morris the first complete one in 1967, and Meredith McKinney another complete version in 2006. Peter Greenaway's 1996 film The Pillow Book tells a modern story that refers back to her work. And anyone who keeps a list of favorite things in a phone note is, in a small way, doing what she did.

Learn with Sei Shōnagon: Japanese words

Japanese	Meaning	Example
枕草子 (Makura no Sōshi)	The Pillow Book	枕草子を読む。
春 (haru)	spring	春はあけぼの。
あけぼの (akebono)	dawn, daybreak	あけぼのの空。
をかし (okashi)	delightful, charming	いとをかし。
にくきもの (nikuki mono)	hateful things	にくきものを書く。

Try this: Make your own five-item English list called "Things That Make Me Happy", then read 春はあけぼの aloud.