Abstract
Anaïs Nin, in Volume I of the Diary, referred to her own writing as a ‘sibylline tongue’ when she analysed Henry Miller’s criticism of her early work: ‘Henry fights my parables, my sibylline tongue, my hieroglyphs, my telegraphic and stenographic style.’1 This implies that Miller, as a male reader, had difficulty understanding Nins feminine expression and her sibylline characteristics. Those of her works which have a magical power, such as House of Incest, Stella, Winter of Artifice and especially the short story ‘Birth’ can be viewed within the Japanese sibyl tradition. Such scrutiny can help highlight the mysterious power of Nin’s works.
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Notes
Anaïs Nin, The Diary of Anai’s Nin: Vol. I, 1931–1934, ed. G. Stuhlmann ( New York: Harcourt Brace, 1966 ), p. 319.
Carmen Blacker, The Catalpa Bow: A Study of Shamanistic Practices in Japan (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1975), p. 104. The subsequent quotations in this paragraph and the next are on pp. 104 and 28.
James Leo Herlihy, ‘The Art of Being a Person’, ANAÏS: An International Journal 1 (1983): 68.
Anaïs Nin, The Diary of Anai’s Nin: Vol. V, 1947–1955, ed. G. Stuhlmann ( New York: Harcourt Brace, 1974 ), pp. 258–9.
Nin, House of Incest (Chicago: Swallow, 1958), p. 15. The next quotation is from p. 17.
Nin, ‘Houseboat’, Under a Glass Bell ( Chicago: Swallow, 1948 ), p. 20.
J. Hipskind, ‘Charting Anaïs and Hugo’, ANAÏS: An International Journal 10 (1992), p. 52.
Hanako Kuratsuka, Fujo no Bunka (The Culture of Sibyls) ( Tokyo: Heibonsha, 1979 ), p. 228.
Anaïs Nin, The Early Diary of Anai’s Nin: Vol. IV, 1927–1931 ( New York: Harcourt Brace, 1985 ), p. 286.
Anaïs Nin, ‘Writing and Dancing: From the Unpublished Mon Journal and Note Book, 1930’, ANAÏS: An International Journal 2 (1984): 8.
Anaïs Nin, ‘Birth’, Under a Glass Bell (Chicago: Swallow, 1948), p. 96. The remaining quotations in this paragraph are from pp. 97 and 100.
Anaïs Nin, Winter of Artifice (Chicago: Swallow, 1946), p. 59. The next quotation is on p. 62.
E. Showalter, A Literature of Their Own: British Women Novelists From Brontë to Lessing ( Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1977 ), p. 191.
Mireille Laget, Naissances: L’accouchement avant l’âge de la clinique (Paris: Seuil, 1982). I translated the citation from p. 235 of the Japanese version, Shussan no Shakaishi ( Tokyo: Keiso Shobo, 1989 ).
Anaïs Nin, ‘Stella’ in Winter of Artifice ( Chicago: Swallow, 1946 ), p. 24.
Anaïs Nin, Incest: From ‘A Journal of Love’: The Unexpurgated Diary of Anaïs Nin, 1932–1934 (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1992), p. 384. The same entry appears in Diary: Volume I, but the passage has been edited and rewritten. The description in Incest is both rougher and more natural.
Jeffrey Bailey, ‘Link in the Chain of Feeling: An Interview with Anaïs Nin (1976)’, Conversations with Anaïs Nin (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1994), p. 241. The next quotations are on the same page.
Krishna Balder Vaid, ‘Writing and Wandering: A Talk with Anaïs Nin’, ANAÏS: An International Journal 5 (1987): 49.
Anaïs Nin, The Diary of Anaïs Nin: Vol. VI, 1955–1966, ed. G. Stuhlmann ( New York: Harcourt Brace, 1976 ), p. 325.
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Miyake, A. (1997). Anaïs Nin’s Words of Power and the Japanese Sibyl Tradition. In: Nalbantian, S. (eds) Anaïs Nin Literary Perspectives. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-25505-4_13
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-25505-4_13
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