Location
DePauw Libraries, Roy O. West Library Wood Study
Start Date
29-11-2023 1:30 PM
End Date
29-11-2023 1:40 PM
Presentation Type
Essay
Description
Through focusing on the patriarchal authority of Heian society, this essay seeks to establish a framework for the Fujiwara reconstructing the Heian political system. The primary idea will be to explain how the Fujiwara utilized poetry and marriage practices to conduct themselves to be integrated into the imperial family. The first section will provide background contextualization regarding aristocratic society, its cultural aesthetic focus, the functionality of the Heian ranking system, and the foundational court government, and explain how all of these aspects relate to the poetry and marriage systems. From there, the discussion will be focused on explaining the structure of romantic relationships in Heian aristocratic society. First, there will be a focus on the importance of poetry during the Heian period, both in its ability to provide a written form of communication and its functionality inside the Heian romantic process. Then the focus will look at the physical relations of marriage practices between the Fujiwara and the imperial family, looking to see how the marriage practices were in favor of the Fujiwara using their daughters as political tools to gain control over the Heian court. By manipulating the social and cultural elements of the Heian poetic and marriage systems of the mid-9th to 11th centuries, the Northern House of the Fujiwara clan was able to successfully take over both the political structure of the court system, alongside reaching the highest placements in the Heian society ranking system.
Included in
Daughters of Sexual Politics: The Fujiwara's rise to regency through romantic poetry and marriage
DePauw Libraries, Roy O. West Library Wood Study
Through focusing on the patriarchal authority of Heian society, this essay seeks to establish a framework for the Fujiwara reconstructing the Heian political system. The primary idea will be to explain how the Fujiwara utilized poetry and marriage practices to conduct themselves to be integrated into the imperial family. The first section will provide background contextualization regarding aristocratic society, its cultural aesthetic focus, the functionality of the Heian ranking system, and the foundational court government, and explain how all of these aspects relate to the poetry and marriage systems. From there, the discussion will be focused on explaining the structure of romantic relationships in Heian aristocratic society. First, there will be a focus on the importance of poetry during the Heian period, both in its ability to provide a written form of communication and its functionality inside the Heian romantic process. Then the focus will look at the physical relations of marriage practices between the Fujiwara and the imperial family, looking to see how the marriage practices were in favor of the Fujiwara using their daughters as political tools to gain control over the Heian court. By manipulating the social and cultural elements of the Heian poetic and marriage systems of the mid-9th to 11th centuries, the Northern House of the Fujiwara clan was able to successfully take over both the political structure of the court system, alongside reaching the highest placements in the Heian society ranking system.
Comments
Prepared as part of Dr. Barbara Whitehead's HIST 490: History Senior Seminar.