Hateful Things | Sei Shonagon Pdf

Classic Lit Download: Read Sei Shōnagon’s "Hateful Things" (PDF)

If you manage to obtain a legitimate PDF (or scan a physical copy), you will need to cite it properly. Here is an example using MLA style:

Sei Shonagon. The Pillow Book. Translated by Ivan Morris, Columbia University Press, 1967. PDF file.

For the specific section: (Sei Shonagon, sec. 39).

If you use the public domain 1911 translation: hateful things sei shonagon pdf

Sei Shonagon. The Pillow Book. Translated by Annie Shepley Omori and Kochi Doi, 1911. Project Gutenberg, 2020. PDF.

A word of warning: Do not go looking for a modern, perfectly formatted PDF called “Hateful Things.” That is a section, not a book.

Instead, search for:

When you open the PDF, you’ll find that “Hateful Things” is only two pages long. You’ll read it, laugh, close the file—and then spend the rest of the day mentally writing your own list. If you manage to obtain a legitimate PDF

Go ahead. Channel your inner Heian courtier.

Sei Shonagon would approve. She knew that noticing what you hate is just as revealing as celebrating what you love.

Have you read the “Hateful Things” list? Found a good PDF version? Drop your own petty annoyance in the comments below.

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Why a list? Shōnagon was not writing philosophy but zuihitsu—“following the brush.” The list form allows her to move rapidly between scales: from a dog’s bark to a man’s shoelaces to a lover’s intrusion. This episodic, non-hierarchical structure mimics how annoyance actually feels—not as a grand narrative but as a series of small, sharp pricks. The humor arises from the sudden juxtaposition of trivial and serious. She treats a sneeze with the same analytical weight as a social betrayal. That very disproportion is the joke—and the insight.

“Hateful Things” functions as a negative space drawing of courtly etiquette. By stating what she hates, Shōnagon reveals what she values:

| Hated Thing | Valued Opposite | |-------------|----------------| | A messenger who dawdles | Efficiency and clarity | | A letter that arrives misspelled | Careful calligraphy | | A woman who pretends not to see you | Acknowledgment of rank | | A man who leaves his robe untucked | Proper dress | | A mosquito net with a gap | Perfect enclosure |

Each hateful thing is a micro-violation of miyabi (courtly refinement). Miyabi meant not just beauty but absence of roughness—emotional, physical, and social smoothness. A gap in a mosquito net is hateful not because mosquitoes bite, but because the net’s purpose (enclosure) has been defeated by a tiny, visible flaw. Similarly, a person who talks too loudly or sneezes thunderously introduces roughness into the polished surface of court life.