Murasaki Shikibu begins the Tale of Genji

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Inside the Heian court's lattice of silk screens and perfumed poetry, a lady-in-waiting dipped her brush and began a prose narrative that would run to more than a thousand pages. Scholars still argue whether the shining prince's world-weary elegance is literature's first true psychological novel. Its influence on Japanese aesthetics, from painting to theater to modern fiction, remains immeasurable.