The Heian period is the era in Japanese history extending from the end of the eighth century through the early part of the tenth century. This era is portrayed in the book The Tale of Genji. Edward G. Seidensticker stats that the book describes "the court life of Heian Japan, from the tenth century into the eleventh" (Seidensticker ix). The work was most probably written by Murasaki Shikibu, about whom little is known except that she was a wellborn lady and understood the world depicted in her book. Ivan Morris emphasizes that Heian culture was one set largely by women, and he also describes The Tale of Genji as the "first psychological novel in the literature of the world" (Morris 265). Seidensticker echoes part of this when he also ponders why the literature of the era was dominated by women, something he says is "another problem that exercises the scholars" (Seidensticker x). The Tale of Genji centers largely on court life, though the life of the lower classes is included, and places an emphasis on the characters, who are shown both representing certain social roles and also being conscious of this fact so that they consciously try to represent what they believe their role should be.
The beginning of the Heian period is marked by the move of the capital to Kyoto, or Heiankyo, as it was then known. The Heian era ended with the establishment of a military government in Kamakura in 1185:
Several significant developments took place during this period, among them the deterioration of the institutions and practices established by the Taika Reforms, the decline of imperial authority, the ascendancy of the Fujiwara family, the rise of the court aristocracy and its culture, and, toward the end of the period, the emergence of tax-free manors and military supremacy in the provincial regions (Hane 44).
Hane points out that what were considered the Taika Reforms created a new administrative system that was manifested in the...