The Japanese Tale of the Heike

The Tale of the Heike (Heike monogatari) is one of Japan’s largest warrior tales (ikusa monogatari). It exists today in numerous variants that narrate the epochal Gempei War (1180-85 CE) fought between the Minamoto (also called Genji) and Taira (also called Heike) clans. The variants are classified in two primary types, those praising the establishment of Minamoto Yoritomo’s shôgunate and those narrating the fall of the Taira clan. Many scholars have focused their attention on studying the numerous extant variant texts in search of a textual history. In particular, work has been dedicated to finding both the author’s ideological position and the version closest to the original form. The question of orally recited texts has been the subject of research by a smaller number of scholars. They focus on written versions of the narrative that appeared around the middle of the fourteenth century and which were the basis for recitations by biwa hôshi, blind raconteurs who accompanied themselves on the biwa lute. Several scholars have focused on how to read these variants written for the biwa hôshi as narrative texts. One fundamental problem faced by scholars examining orally recited texts is the nature of the extant works. Some researchers who have analyzed the surviving tradition of oral performances have doubts about analysis based on written texts, stressing the nontextual nature of performance. They argue that extant Heike texts do not constitute a record of oral performance. The relationship between oral performance and written text therefore continues to be a problematic subject of academic study. (For a comparison of views on orality and the Heike in Japanese, see the works of Hyôd