Garden of Paradise. Japanese Identity in Sei Shonagon’s The Pillow Book

"This text focuses on the identity of the Japanese garden as an accomplished aesthetic act, in the manner depicted in the official diary of Sei Shonagon’s, a lady living at the Japanese imperial court, around the year 1000. Nature is sieved through an aesthetics of concentric circles, in which human life turns into a painstakingly pen crafted page, strictly owing to the perfection of artistic integration in the nature. But Nature, and more specifically the garden that Sei Shonagon details with refinement in The Pillow Book, is a specific clue to the concept of Japanese identity. traditional sensitivity in their relationship to the world. With a tendency to integrate with nature or their environment and to depend on others, they favor the relationship to others, as well as that between humankind and the world, which determines their identity. It is through integration into the circumstantial dimension that human beings form themselves and become aware of themselves. It follows that collective identity is stronger and more dominant than individual identity. This human way of being constitutes an essential aspect of Japanese culture and is represented in the architecture of traditional Japanese houses. Reflection on the spatiality specific to the Japanese lifestyle can promote a deep dialogue about human identity between different cultures."