An ‘event’ in her day includes observing the frost on the branches of a plum tree or enjoying the beating of the rain on the veranda roof. Typically she asks herself questions, for instance: what is the nicest time of day? In the summer: it’s the night, especially if it’s raining in Spring she prefers the dawn in Autumn, sunset in winter, the morning. We don’t really know where the lovely title of the book came from perhaps she slept with it under her head, occasionally adding a thought or observation by the light of the moon. Sei is disdainful of commoners and can be sharp-tongued at times, but she is also readily moved by the affairs of the close-knit imperial household.Despise the high-status of her job, her daily life was, externally, deeply uneventful: an afternoon’s carriage ride outside the walls of the court compound might be the highlight of a year a day trip to hear a sermon in a temple seems to have been the farthest extent of her travels she spent all most all of her time indoors, in just two or three rooms she saw the same few people month after month her work largely involved keeping respectfully silent, knowing when to bow and remembering the complex titles of various officials.Īnd yet The Pillow Book gives the impression that she had a wonderful time. Accordingly, Sei makes well over 100 lists of things she finds particularly beautiful or interesting (or the opposite) in her diary. This tradition placed importance on aesthetic beauty and finding small instances of “delight” in one’s everyday surroundings.

Sei is sensitive to the quality of okashi, roughly translated “delight,” a significant aspect of Japanese culture during the Heian period during which her diary entries were written. This wins her the respect of her peers, particularly male courtiers like Tadanobu. While in court, she appears to have enjoyed Empress Teishi’s warm regard, in part because of her talent for poetry-Sei describes herself as often having a poem or quote ready for an appropriate occasion.

She seems to have been married to Norimitsu for a brief period. Sei reveals relatively little about her life and relationships within The Pillow Book itself. She would have been in her late twenties when she became a courtier, and she remained in Teishi’s court until the Empress’s death around the year 1000 C.E. She is a gentlewoman in the service of Empress Teishi. Sei Shōnagon is the author of the diary entries that comprise The Pillow Book.

The pillow book shonagon