World Significance of Genji Monogatari

Doris Bargen's A Woman's Weapon : Spirit Possession in The tale of Genji, opens as follows:

Murasaki Shikibu is to Japan what Homer is to Greece, Shakespeare is to England, Goethe is to Germany & the T'ang poets are to China.

I would add to this: what Cervantes is to Spain, what Cicero is to Rome, what Balzac is for France, & what Tolstoi is to Russia. That is, an indispensable book, large in content, substance, scope & significant: and essential for a truly cultured place in our world.

This by way of improved understanding of our first course text, the very famous Madame Butterfly.