SOURCE: "Poetic Practice" and "Consolidations, New Developments, and Decline" in Japanese Court Poetry, Stanford University Press, 1961, pp. 198-220.

[In the following excerpt, Brower and Miner discuss the diction. rhetorical techniques, syntax, subjects, themes, and tone of the Kokinshu.]

… Poetic Language and Imagery

The different conventional modes illustrate the complex adjustment of personal response to social environment which is basic to the age. One will fail to understand either the good or the inferior poetry of the period unless one realizes that it produced poem after poem which was at once personal and conventional—or that the great poems of the age are not the songs of Romantic poets singing in the wilderness of their own originality but a personal lyricism in a social context. By comparison with Western poetry, this description is perhaps appropriate for the whole history of Japanese poetry down to modem times, but the particular combination was never more acutely a determinant than in the early classical period. Combined with the intensifying of technique within a narrowed range, the blend of personal lyricism and a social milieu makes it extremely difficult to isolate such aspects of poetic practice as diction, rhetoric, imagery, tone, theme, and styles. But in so far as they are separable, we shall deal with them in turn.

Some separate discussion of the diction of poetry in the early classical period is necessary, if only because the language of serious poetry for centuries afterward is almost wholly founded upon the precedent of the Kokinshū and the imperial anthologies that directly followed it. Like the Man 'yōōshū, the Kokinshū has a relatively limited vocabulary, something over 2,000 words, of which rather more than a hundred are not to be found in the Man 'yōōshū. While this lexicon is probably no larger than that of Anglo-Saxon poetry or Renaissance sonnets (The Cid has about 1,200 words), it must be remembered that it was developed for an almost restrictedly lyrical form, in a language whose agglutinative inflections often require extensive paraphrase in English, and whose words came to be a vehicle of connotations as much as denotation. And in order to maintain the native rhythms in a purity of style, it excluded all Chinese loan-words—words that were sometimes dormant, sometimes active in the minds of many writers as they composed Japanese poems, just as Latin lay in the minds of our poets till the end of the last century.

The poets were highly conscious of language as one of the determinants of their art. Often, indeed, a poem achieves its significance not by a strikingly new observation, but by the purity, the beauty, or the splendor of its diction, rendering translation even more difficult than usual. Although appropriate diction is but one of Narihira's many accomplishments, it is the language in cadences of Virgilian resonance more than anything else which makes his art so appealing. He and Komachi often fill the third and fifth lines with liquid, inflected adjectives or verbs that develop the sounds of preceding words with a perfected lyricism. The following poem by Narihira, for example, is one that will never have a wide appreciation among foreign readers, but its pure diction and lovely rhythms will always appeal to the Japanese. The major pause at the end of the third line anticipates the strong conclusion, in which the "o" and "k" sounds of the preceding line are given a new direction; the first and fourth lines have slightly longer pauses and their grammatical structure is similar, except that each of the two nouns in the fourth line has one more syllable than the corresponding noun in the first line (KKS, I: 53).

 … If cherry flowers
Had never come into this world,
 The hearts of men
Would have kept their tranquil freedom
Even at the brilliant height of spring.

Such purity of language can only be achieved by poets with a strongly decorous concept of diction. If Chaucer is to our poets "the well of English undefiled," the poets of the Kokinshū are even more the source of pure poetic language to the rest of the Court tradition. Even the assured language of Narihira and Komachi was refined, especially by the choices exercised by compilers like Tsurayuki and by the judges at poetry contests, who often came to rule out diction that was not to be found in the first three imperial anthologies. No doubt there is something alien in this reverence for linguistic precedent from which the modem Western sensibility shrinks instinctively. We remember the glorious coinages and free-wheeling indifference to usual meanings and grammatical functions of a Rabelais or a Shakespeare, and feel there is something stultifying about a determined poetic diction. But surely it is a matter of degree. The example of refinement in diction from Ronsard or Dryden onward reminds us of similar tendencies in the West. And if we are to condemn the Japanese poets for restricting themselves to purity of aristocratic diction, what must we say of Wordsworth and his efforts to employ the speech of rural folk or of Burns and his Scots? As always, it is not the ideal that is so important, but the practice, and when a Pope, a Gray, a Wordsworth—or a Narihira, a Tsurayuki, or a Tomonori—achieves a diction that is pure by whatever legitimate standard and able to express the important interests of the age, it is folly to complain. Only in later centuries, when all experiment ceased, when the diction of the Kokinshū was no longer expressive of the interests of the age, ought we to condemn the standard of precedent in language.

Both the new words that appear in the Kokinshū and the words retained from the preceding age are those which do express the interests of the age. They are words that name the things the poets enjoyed seeing or experiencing, or their actions, or their attitudes toward their world. There were, it seems, three standards for admission of words to the poetic vocabulary. They had to be purely Japanese, since Chinese loan-words disrupt the sinuous fluidity of the verse and make poetry sound like prose. A "new" word had also to be one of common knowledge or sufficiently similar to other accepted words so as not to cause shock. And finally, a word had to have a degree of elegance about it—in sound, in connotation, and in propriety. Very good poems might be written in unusual diction, but although their quality was recognized, they were placed in the category of "unconventional poems" (haikaiuta). Experimentation with diction which was inadmissible by such standards of elegant good taste was disastrous for a poet. When, for example, the official reader at the poetry contest at the Teiji Palace began to recite one of the poems on the hototogisu—

 … Across the fields,
The Morning Fields of Kataoka,
 Reverberates—

the company roared so with laughter at "reverberate" for this bird's song that the reader was unable to finish his recitation.

The new words that appear in the Kokinshū naturally had their effect upon the imagery of the poetry. Some are images for natural phenomena that have now gained poetic attention. "Autumn mist" (akigiri), "spaces between the rocks" (iwama), "robe of haze" (kasumi no koromo), "cricket" (kirigirisu), "moonlight" (tsukikage), "patches where the snow has melted" (vukima), and "the whole night" (yomosugara) are but a few. "Threads" (itosuji), "transferred scent" (utsurika), and "summer clothes" (natsugoromo) are among the new images that come from the daily life of the Court. Since such images as these are highly typical of the poetry of the age, we find it possible to draw several inferences that seem to us pertinent for the poetic practice and the underlying assumptions of the age. The new imagery from daily life is the imagery specifically of Court life, or, like the "jeweled seaweed," it has an elegance which precludes Okura's homely image of the destitute man's kettle filled only with a spider web. Poetry is, as in the preceding period, an art form developed and determined in style by the Court, but the Court poets no longer bother to project their feelings outside or "below" their own refined world.

The natural images that make their first appearance in the Kokinshū are even more significant. On the whole, they are finer or smaller and represent more detailed observation than is characteristic of the earlier age. They confirm the impression one has from the poetry as a whole that the poets stood, as it were, closer to the objects they describe and saw them in greater detail. It does not seem difficult to explain why the poets of this period drew into closer contact with their environment and observed it more intimately. The subjective cast of their art required that the observing sensibility deal with objects easily grasped as wholes, rather than sublime sights soaring above comprehension. When we come upon such a new image as "a robe of haze," we see the poet attributing a subjective quality of beauty and intimacy to natural phenomena; or again, the new words for night and the increased use of old images of night suggest the nocturnal activities of the courtiers in that most subjective of all normal human experience, love. A poem by Ariwara Yukihira (818-93) exemplifies this new subjectivizing of nature (KKS, I: 23).

 … The robe of haze
Now worn by Spring must indeed be
 woven
 Of threads of gossamer,
For the slightest breath of the mountain
  wind
Seems to rend it into shreds.

Along with these developments, comparable new imagistic techniques appear that suggest the increased subjectivity of the age. The evidence available to the senses often is treated as if it were contradictory, as in Takamura's poem on the similarity of the appearance of snow and plum blossoms. Often, too, the senses are divided—hearing from sight or sight from smell—in highly subjective ways. Ariwara Motokata (888-953), for example, found no visible evidence that spring had come to the mountains, but his sense of smell declared it must be so (KKS, II: 103).

 … Far, far away,
Those mountain slopes where the mist
 Rises with the spring,
But the soft approaches of the breeze
Are laden with the fragrance of the
 flowers.

More often than in the earlier period, the imagery of the poetry of the age appeals to this less measurable, more subjective sense of smell. It is also characteristic that many of the images of sight represent visual confusions (of snow and plum blossoms, for example), or something only half seen or even beyond sight, as in the famous anonymous poem on dawn at Akashi Bay (KKS, IX: 409).

 … Dimly, dimly
In the morning mist that lies
 Over Akashi Bay,
My longings follow with the ship
That vanishes behind the distant isle.

Not only is the ship just faintly seen, but it is watched for subjective reasons—it carries away the person whom the speaker loves. Perhaps the ultimate in such indirect technique is the poem by Lady Ise (fl. ca. 935) on the cherry trees of her native village (SIS, I: 49).

 … How I long to hear
Whether the flowers have yet fallen—
 If only there were someone
Come fresh from my native village
To tell me of the cherry blossoms there.

The cherry trees do have a real existence, but their reality is most important for its impingement upon the poetic sensibility, and there is no person at all to tell her of them. Yet this is only half the story. The headnote says that the poem was written on looking at "a scene of people going flower-viewing, painted on a folding screen at the palace." Lady Ise and other members of Court are assembled to see and appreciate the screen, and in this social context and from the stimulus of a work of art her memories and feelings are stirred for the distant, less elegant, quasi-pastoral scene of her province. One does not question the sincerity or the beauty of the poem, but it is a new thing for poets to be impelled to reverie by art.

There are other indications of the subjective handling of imagery. No small number of the new words in the Kokinshū are adjectives like "thin-hearted" or "lonely" (kokorobososhi), which often express attitudes and emotions, not imagistic qualities of objects. These new adjectives and pre-existing ones are, in addition, more often used to give the imagery a stronger coloring of human emotion than in the earlier period. Moreover, the imagery is often so directed toward generalization, though not abstraction, that it loses its imagistic concreteness. Narihira's lament "Composed When I Was Weak with Illness" (KKS, XVI: 861) does not have a single image that can be apprehended by the senses.

 … Though formerly I heard
About the road that all must travel
 At the inevitable end,
I never thought, or felt, today
Would bring that far tomorrow.

"Road" may be visualized, but here it is of course a metaphor for death. The poem is a complete generalization, and as such carries the subjective tendencies of the age further than most poems. It is indeed one of the most perfect lyrics in Japanese and it is deservedly well known, but its techniques have the stamp of its age so markedly that such poems would not be written again for centuries, when the effect of unimagistic writing was to be far different.… If it is an extraordinary example in quality as well as technique, it is nonetheless typical of an age in which reality exists not in the rapport of poet and nature, but in the significance of the external world to the consciousness of the poet.

Rhetoric and Syntax

Poetic rhetoric is inextricably bound up with other aspects of poetry, since it involves the techniques for handling imagery and diction to express meaning. It is all the more important for an age like the early classical, in which aristocratic standards of decorous, elegant, and spirited writing make the manner of expression of paramount importance. One of the most striking and characteristic rhetorical techniques of the age is the pun and, with it, the closely related technique of the pivot-word (kakekotoba)—which we will remember is the use of a sequence of sounds in two senses, often through differing divisions and through the voicing or unvoicing of certain sounds. Poems employing this technique run the gamut in quality from the poems on the names of things with their topics buried in word-play, to some of the most consummate and moving poetry of the age. Ono no Komachi was by all odds pre-eminent among the poets of the age in her ability to use words and sounds meaningfully in different senses, with the result that her poems have a breathless intensity seldom equaled in Japanese poetry. Following is a prose rendering of one of her most famous poems (KKS, XV: 797).

… A thing which fades without its color visible is the flower of the heart of a man of the middle of the world (i.e., of this world).

About all the prose rendering shows is one aspect of the structure, although in reverse. The "of phrases represent the four possessive particles (no) of lines three and four. With the particles functioning in Japanese order, Komachi orders her poetic materials by limiting the range of attention ever more narrowly and climactically as she ferrets out the changeful culprit— world, middle, man, heart, flower—and having found it exclaims, ni zo, "in it!" The climax of discovery is only partially a triumph for the speaker, since happiness is forestalled by the sense of misery she feels to be inflicted upon her by her lover's faithlessness. This is to say that the subject of the poem is love, which is treated with a generalization of its nature from the vantage point of the speaker's unhappy experience.

The subject of love emerges by implication from the diction (hito, "person," "lover"; kokoro, "heart," "mind," both with traditional connotations of love), but it is primarily the rhetoric that develops the implications into active meanings. The first, second, and fifth lines are made to begin with words bound together by the technique of association (engo). Colorfades-flower is clearly a cluster of similar concepts, even in English, and it functions in the poem to provide a strand of subdued imagery by the association of the concepts, even though their immediate contexts would, in English poetry, forestall any connection. The effect of the association and of the words connoting love in the fourth line is to show that neither iro, utsurou, nor hana ("color," "fades," "flower") is purely imagistic. The imagistic strand takes on a metaphorical character as vehicles whose tenor concerns love. The implied meaning of "fade" is therefore "grows untrue," "changes for the worse"; and "flower" becomes a symbol for the attractive yet transient nature of man's affection for women: the association shows that it is the flower of the heart of man which fades. Of the three associated words, however, it is the first whose function is the most significant. Iro is used in richly different senses. It refers most limitedly to the color that fades, the color of the symbolic flower of man's heart. Since the fading is metaphorical and the flower symbolic, it should be clear that color, too, must be taken in more complex senses. By perfectly normal usage in classical Japanese, iro may mean coloring in the sense of passion, so anticipating the fourth line in suggesting that the subject dealt with is love and, in particular, that the situation behind the outburst is a love affair now grown one-sided. Iro may also mean face or appearance, which is opposed in the poem to kokoro, the inner mind, the actual state of the man's feelings.

The complexity of Komachi's rhetoric can be appreciated by anyone who seeks to break the poem into divisions. Syntactically there are pauses at the ends of lines one and two, but they are bound together into a unit integrated by the association of words (iro, utsurou) in parallel positions and by the logic of the poem, since they tell what will be defined in the next three lines. Lines three to five are bound tightly together by the sequence of possessive particles leading to conceptually ever narrower elements. They are also joined less obviously to the first two lines. The crucial first word of the poem is played off against three words in the last three lines. It associates with hana ("flower"), as we have seen. In its secondary meaning of passion it combines by traditional connotation with hito ("person") to mean the man beloved by the speaker. And in its tertiary meaning it plays as appearance in contrast to the inner reality (kokoro).

Another rhetorical technique fuses the whole poem, a harmony and yet a reversal of states of mind for which the only English term is irony. The poem is ironic because what ought to change in a lover or any living thing, its appearance, remains constant; whereas that which should be so essentially the nature of the thing as its inner being has faithlessly altered. The irony is presented by a woman of intense passion, suffering from anger and fired by pride. Such motives lead her in her suffering to discover the cause—the faithless lover who protests a fidelity that he uses to mask his indifference—and lead her to a further ironic discovery that only appearances are real, that the vowed-for reality is only sham. Surely only Komachi would write a poem unifying all of these meanings into one out-burst of passion:

  Find mutability
In that being which alters without fading
  In its outward hue—
In the color, looks, and the deceptive flower
Of the heart of what this world calls man!

From such a building on the multiple meanings of one sound sequence (iro), it is not a far cry to Komachi's extraordinary dexterity in the use of pivot-words. The most complex of her poems employing the technique, which is to say the most complex of all poems employing it, is one in which she moves from emotional calm to frenzied passion within the compass of five lines (KKS, XIX: 1030). It might be read at first to mean:

… On a moonless night when we have no chance to meet (because you cannot see the way to my house, I sleep, but) I awake longing for you so much that my breast excitedly heaves and my heart burns within me.

This reading conveys the play upon tsuki, "moon" and "chance," and something of the excitement of the poem. But the poem also has the most remarkably sustained and powerful imagery fused in its four word-plays in pivot-words. We must redefine the word clusters, for they have two simultaneously apprehended meanings, in order to understand the poem fully. (The italics indicate sounds with double meanings.)

 … On such a night as this
When the lack of moonlight shades your way
 to me,
 I wake from sleep my passion blazing,
My breast a fire raging, exploding flame
While within me my heart chars.

We should also note in passing the superb emotional paradox that the darkness of the night is the cause of the searing flames. The technique of kakekotoba is here perfected art: not only does it enable Komachi to transcend the tanka form by creating, as it were, four new words, but the double meaning is also a tonal vehicle expressive of the most intense experience of the inner depths of the heart.

It will be recalled that in the preceding age the pivot-word was normally the technique of juncture in poems with prefaces (jo). We have been able to find very few unequivocal examples from the early classical period of this older rhetorical use of pivot-words. One of them is a poem very much in the older manner by Sone no Yoshitada, in which the juncture is a pivot-word in the fourth line (GSIS, I: 42).

 … Spring seems to have come
Within the short space of a single night,
 Short as a single joint
Of the roots of the reeds that sprout
Luxuriantly in the Inlet of Mishima.

Hitoyo no hodo ni means both "in the interval of a single joint" and "in the interval of a single night." The old-fashioned flavor of the poem lies in the weakness, the obviousness, of the metaphorical relation between the sprouting reeds and spring. There is a relation, but the last two lines of the Japanese (the first two of the translation) represent a single statement separable from the rest. In the characteristic poems of this period, the pivot-word functions not so much for juncture as to give increased complexity to what is already a poetic unit.

Another example of a poem employing a preface joined by a pivot-word to the statement will perhaps suggest why the technique was altered in this age. The poem (anonymous, KKS, V: 286) ought to be compared with Hitomaro's envoy to his poem on the death of Prince Takechi (MYS, II: 201), which it so much resembles. The italicized words are the pivot-words at the juncture. (Hitomaro's poem is first.)

 … Just as the waters
Pent-up by walls in Haniyasu Pool
 Do not know where to flow,
So now the courtiers of the Prince
Are trapped with no direction to their
    lives.

 … Wretched my plight,
So like the drifting maple leaves
 Scattered in their fall
Before the gusts of autumn wind
And impotent to fix a course.

Hitomaro's world is the public world of city construction and Court business. The Kokinshū poet talks of himself and finds that the external world is relevant to the speaker only in terms of his personal response. Hitomaro's technique is therefore not unlike an epic simile that refers to what all men know, whereas the Kokinshū poet tends to assimilate the metaphorical vehicle into the emotional tenor. The result, for the poetry of this period, is that most of the metaphors are fused with other elements of the poem, not isolated by division into preface and statement. The typical poem of the age employs a simile, a metaphor, or an allegory in which the poem is not divided, in which the immediacy of subjective response to a stimulus is more instantaneous.

Two possibilities of the use of the old rhetorical techniques in fresh ways are shown by Tsurayuki. In a poem very greatly admired by later poets, he employs a jo in his first three and a half lines (KKS, VIII: 404).

 … Like my cupped hands
Spilling drops back into the mountain pool

 And clouding its pure waters
Before the satisfaction of my thirst,
So have I had to part from you too soon.

The preface extends through the word akade ("not satisfying"), which is employed as a pivot for what goes before and what follows. The old technique, the country setting, and the dipping hands to scoop up water all suggest an older, pastoral scene of somewhat rustic simplicity. If the parting is to be considered one from a woman loved, as some commentators have suggested, the element of pastoralism is considerably strengthened. Tsurayuki has employed a venerable technique which itself helps raise the image of a simpler past.

An even finer poem to our minds employs a pillow-word (makurakotoba) for somewhat similar effect. The quasi-pastoral element is made clear by comparison of the subject of the poem with its headnote: "Composed and Presented in Obedience to the Imperial Command" (KKS, I: 22).

 … Do those girls set out
On some excursion for young shoots,
 That they so gaily beckon,
Waving their white linen sleeves
Toward the green fields of ancient
    Kasuga?

The italicized phrase represents a complex of techniques that distinguishes this poem from the two preceding poems. Shirotae no is a pillow-word for sode, "sleeves." But Tsurayuki uses the original meaning of the expression, "white hempen," in a literal way, while at the same time keeping the elegant amplification of the pillow-word associations. His phrase therefore means, "girls waving to each other their white-hempen sleeves." But the syllables furihaete also have a separate, pivotal significance: "deliberately," "on purpose." The effect of this, along with hito ("persons") in the last line, is to separate the poetic speaker from the girls. He wonders why they set out in just the way they do (a very male point of view toward the mysterious antics of young ladies), and wishes they would invite him to participate.

The first words of the poem help us to understand still more. Kasuga is just outside the ancient capital of Nara, not in the Heian capital at Kyoto where the poet is. The word perhaps carries something of the associations of its written characters meaning "spring day," but these overtones are minor compared to the fact that the place name tells us that the poet has created an entirely fictional situation. He represents himself as an observer of the old capital at Nara in its former days. The quasi-pillow-word function of shirotae no now appears in its full significance, to help convey the feeling of the past; and its literal meaning suggests (in a way that does not in the least destroy the poem's elegance) that the girls are perhaps of a lower social class. What we really have is a pastoral poem that creates an idyllic past.

One dimension of the poem remains. The poem was composed at imperial command and is therefore formal, although not precisely public in our sense. Tsurayuki's idyllic re-creation of the past is both a reminder to the emperor of the romantic of the nation's past and, since the vehicle is pastoralism, a suggestion that today all are sophisticated and advanced enough to feel that slightest degree of condescension which lingers in our appreciation for the pastoral. The essential appeal of the poem lies in contrasts of speaker and girls, of past and present, and of two capitals, and in tone it has the charm of a painting by Watteau or Sir Joshua Reynolds. The gentle calm of the poem is accentuated by a quality of the distant and unknown which Tsurayuki's pillow-word has conveyed. How complex the art is can be gauged by its subjectivity. Tsurayuki is the man who presents the poem, the poet who composed it, and, by virtue of a fictional pose, the observer of the past.

Along with the pivot-word, there are some other techniques new to this period or redefinitions of old techniques which characterize the poetic interests of the age. As Tsurayuki's poem shows, pillow-words were still used, but to somewhat different effect. The technique itself suggested the traditional and elegant to the poets of the period. Sometimes the use of pillow-words seems to achieve no more than the appearance of elegance, but there usually appears to be an attempt to relate the literal meaning of the expression (and literal meanings were often made for old pillow-words by "folk etymology") to the poem by means of metaphor. This tendency can be seen most clearly in poems in which new pillow-words seem to be employed, as in the complaint of an anonymous woman to a faithless man whose higher rank enabled him to play a wide field in his amours (KKS, XV: 754).

 … Have I been forgot
Because I am one who does not count
 To such a one as you,
Who may choose from women as countless
As the gaps of weaving in a flower basket?

The first line of the original (and the last of the translation) is a pillow-word for me. It is typical of the age that me—which means both "eyes" and "interstices in the weaving"—functions (with narabu hito) by a word play to mean "women ranged before the eye." Perhaps the comparison of number develops into a metaphor—all these flowering beauties are in his basket, but the speaker has been left behind, no longer worth picking. In any case, the pillow-word has been given a personal significance, a role in a private poem that is more characteristic of this than of the preceding age.

Besides these redefinitions of old techniques, some more-or-less new techniques characterize much of the poetry of the period—association (engo), simile, and allegory. Association is a variety of word play which in some ways resembles the pivot-word, since it functions by giving two readings to a single sound sequence; but it differs in that a word later in the poem is given a meaning different from its immediate context by association with, or echo of, an earlier word. We shall render a poem by Tadamine, italicizing the associated phrases (KKS, VI: 328).

 … The white snow falls
Ever deeper on the mountain village—
 To what loneliness
Must even the thoughts of that man fade
Who dwells amid the drifts that bury all.

Omoikiyu means "become nothing under the pressure of sad thoughts," but the element kiyu is a verb, meaning "fade" or "melt," which associates in both meanings with the "white snow" mentioned at the beginning of the poem: snow melts (kiyu), but only after it has buried everything under white drifts that cause the sharp outlines of the landscape to fade away (kiyu). Although this association acts as an ingenious method of binding the poem together, it represents more than ingenuity alone. The juxtaposition of omoi ("think") and kiyu shows both that the villager suffers a growing loss of identity and sense of isolation and that he knows the snow will melt and bring a desired springtime. The result is an irony of pathos: the snow will melt, but not until the villager has "faded away" because of loneliness. In this poem, in Komachi's poem on the faithless hearts of men, and in other fine poems, association is a characteristically Japanese means to a significant literary end.

The problem of the new technique of similes in the poetry of the period is an extremely intractable one. The agglutinative inflections, the fluid syntax, the attributive verbs, and the elusive particles—not to mention such techniques as that of the preface—often force the translator to use awkward similes where the Japanese poet is happily taking a more graceful path. There are some "signs" of similes resembling our "like" and "as": a verb or adjective with an attributive inflection followed by gotoku or goto, or a noun followed by the possessive particle no and gotoku or goto, or sometimes even by the particle alone, is an explicit comparison. Many other poems suggest comparisons by means of other constructions in which the technique of comparison is fairly obvious, but without a sign for the simile. If we may call these "implied similes" and add to them overt similes, we are ready to discuss this use of metaphor in the period.

Like the pillow-words, and like similes in Western rhetoric, the comparisons in this period are employed for amplification—by comparison something is made lovelier, dearer, and so on. The analogy with the pillow-word is useful, because the similes almost always observe the pillow-word order of preceding what they amplify, as if Burns had said, "Like a red, red rose is my luve." An anonymous bit of advice on love illustrates the technique (KKS, XIII: 652).

… If you choose to love,
Feel it only in deep reaches of the heart;
 Never let it show
Where its color will catch all people's eyes
Like robes dyed purple with the violet
  grass.

Lines three and four of the Japanese use the simile of clothes dyed a bright purple to convey the care that is necessary in matters of the heart. Another poem with an implied simile is Lady Ise's composed "At a Time When She Was Unhappy in Love." It is superior both in technique and in a convincing passion which finds expression only by her comparing herself to the fields she sees being burned over to increase the yield the next year (KKS, XV: 791).

 … If only the resemblance
Of my fleshly body to the fields
 Withered dry by winter
Meant that the way we both are seared by
 fire
Would bring me also the awaited spring.

Once the comparison is established by the particle to, the metaphor is extended throughout the poem, almost to the point of becoming allegory.

As we remarked in the preceding chapter, allegory worthy of the name is exceptional in the early literary period, but from the generation of Ōtomo Yakamochi on, the increasingly private nature of poetry led to allegory as an elegant and useful vehicle for poems of private discourse. The human mind takes as much pleasure in saying things indirectly as in saying things well, and we may suppose that this was one of the pleasures of allegory in private exchanges. In addition, the fear of exposure in the hazards of love affairs at the Heian Court led lovers to explore the benefits of ambiguous allegory—a fact that explains why some of the poems in the private anthologies are extremely difficult to understand. A further pleasure to be gained from allegory was one that comes from indirect reference to something intimately private—the sharing of knowledge about the significance of a certain place, for example, is a satisfaction all lovers know. Fortunately, the headnotes and various words often suggest allegory in poems whose hidden meanings might otherwise escape us. Such words as "person" (hito), the "heart" (kokoro) of something, "thought" (omoi), and various adjectives indicating sadness often give us the key to unlock a love allegory. This private allegory is often untranslatable, even when we possess its key, because the significance given objects is too wholly personal. But it may readily be found by leafing through the sections on love in such an anthology of the period as the Kokinshū, paying special attention to those poems with headnotes like "Sent to —

Private allegory may also be found in poems on other subjects. What appears on the surface to be description, for example, may turn out to be allegory. A post-script tells us that an anonymous poem is not purely descriptive, but a woman's lament for the loss of her husband (KKS, IX: 412).

 … How they cry
As they wing off to the north!
 It seems the geese
Have lost one from the number
Which flew here with them in the fall.

The woman had taken a trip with her husband to the provinces, where he died, leaving her to return to the capital alone and to symbolize her grief in the crying of the geese.

Allegory is also to be found among the formal poems of the period, which, like informal poems, tend to be descriptive in appearance. The rarity of description employed as an end in itself shows that the complex minds of these poets tended to disdain poetry that only re-created a scene. For them, the external world held its prime significance only insofar as it was shaped by the human sensibility. Eight such apparently descriptive poems were "Written on a folding screen placed behind the seat of Lord Fujiwara Sadakuni, Colonel of the Right, when his sister The Lady of the Bedchamber gave a celebration in honor of his fortieth birthday." Two of the poems are on spring, one on summer, three on autumn, and two on winter—all by the most eminent poets of the day. The most famous is one by Mitsune (KKS, VII: 360):

 … With the autumn wind
Blowing through the ageless pines
 Of auspicious Suminoe
Are mingled the elated voices
Of the white waves out to sea.

The waves represent the guests; the inlet of Suminoe carries connotations of the shrine of the god of Sumiyoshi (literally, "auspicious" or "good life") there; pines are a symbol of longevity; and the autumn wind is a symbol of advancing but kindly age. So tonally apt are the images-become-metaphor that for centuries the poem was a model of its kind.

Rhetoric, imagery, and even the structure of Court poetry are closely related to the syntax employed. Narihira's poem on the seemingly changed moon … shows in its opening lines how similar syntactical forms might suggest parallelisms of thought and imagery, and Komachi's long series of possessives in her poem on the changeful heart of man … shows how the syntax orders the structure into progressive units. The crucial poetic role of syntax is of course not limited to this period of Japanese Court poetry, nor even to Japanese poetry as a whole, but the characteristic features of its syntax tell us a great deal about the special nature of the poetry of the early classical period. Japanese scholars have shown that whereas the tanka in the Man'yōōshū normally employ a syntax demanding pauses after the second and fourth lines, the syntax of tanka poetry in the early classical period normally involves caesuras after the first and third lines. The fact is not to be disputed, but no one seems to know quite how to account for it. Whatever the explanation, the effect is certainly pleasing and the fact of importance to the practice of poetry. Such organization lends the tanka a structural pattern of three units of increasing length. The first line presents a short movement of five syllables; the next two a larger movement of twelve; and the last one a still longer movement of fourteen. The pattern is by no means inviolable, but it seems to provide a familiar structure, to arouse expectations that in English poetry are provided by the latent metrical pattern or by the division of sonnets into patterns determined by rhyme schemes.

The tripartite rhythm of lengthening units is usually played off against other syntactical qualities. Sometimes a poet calls attention to the division with a pivot-word—the effect is at once to intensify the sharpness of the caesura with increased attention and to smooth it over by double or overlapping syntax.… More typically, the divisions are harmonized by making the poem consist of a single, complete, and naturally ordered sentence. By comparison with the frequently stiffened syntax of the early literary period with its recurrent parallelism, or with the fragmented syntax of mid-classical poetry, the poets of this age employed a purer, simpler, more lyrical syntax. Such purity combines with the tendency to use highly inflected verbs and adjectives, which often fill the entire third or fifth line, to produce poems whose sounds and cadences are of uncommon beauty. When such sounds and cadences are in addition made the vehicle of rich meaning, the result is a kind of perfection for which there is no comparison. In certain respects it is not so much Narihira's richness of meaning as his aural, syntactic perfection that makes him by far the most difficult of the Court poets to render without feeling one has the words right and everything else wrong.

It is just at this point—when syntax merges with sound, language, imagery, and rhetoric—that the true genius of the period seems to us to lie. In subsequent poetry, the unity of the poem is more intellectual, more artful, and often, to speak the truth, more significant. But except for some sporadic examples, Japanese Court poetry was never again to achieve the beauteous integrity of early classical poetry. It is such excellence of a craft of beauty which shows how positive the ideals of elegance, refinement, decorum, and courtliness truly were, for all of the somewhat negative connotations such terms have in our post-Romantic day. To give point to such generalizations, we may inspect in greater detail a poem long famous for its beauty of sound, imagery, and atmosphere (KKS, IX: 409).

 … Dimly, dimly
In the morning mist that lies
  Over Akashi Bay,
My longings follow with the ship
That vanishes behind the distant isle.

Part of the magic of the poem is attributable to its mystery—the pallor of dawn, the mists, the isle-hidden ship, and the relationship of the person on the ship to the speaker of the poem. But the poem's real beauty is so much a part of the language that it can more readily be declared than explained. Only in Japanese might one play upon a place name: Akashi is the name of the bay, but is also used to mean "dawned." The assonance of Akashi/asagiri, with asagiri picking up the r sound of ura; the rising excitement of the fourth line, with its combination of "island"-"hide"-"go" into a single verb modifying "ship" in the next line; and the perfect assonance of the last line, picking up and redefining the five o sounds of the first; all of this in a single lovely sentence with the usual caesuras is felt either deeply or not at all.

The pure lyricism of this anonymous poem is characteristic of the greater poetry of the age as well, although the great poets achieve their stature by adding thought and feeling of a higher order. In a technical sense, the higher order of poetic expression normally was achieved by means of the rhetorical devices, the wit, the complex tones, and the metaphysical interests of the age. But whether great or mediocre, the poetry of the early classical period possesses some quality that sets it off from all other periods. Against the repose of early literary poetry, the profundity of mid-classical poetry, and the intensity of late classical poetry, we would set the essential assurance of this age. During this period the Court was at its zenith. There was no need to look to the future with dread nor to the past with anything more than the slight nostalgia of Tsurayuki's dream of a rather simpler bygone day. The assurance might well have vanished had the courtiers been aware of their favored historical position. As it was, it would be the lot of later poets to look back with grief over their present to the earlier day as a norm of value, a day when, as Tsurayuki said in his Preface to the Kokinshū, all living beings seemed inclined to song, a day when the duties of military officers were to wait upon the emperor and to write poetry, not to cast the nation into civil strife.

The rhetoric of poetry—in the larger sense of its normative syntax and the disposition of elements—is the readiest indication of the poetic character of the age, whether we consider the pivot-word, the highly inflected verbs, the reasoning conceits, or syntactic integrity as particular signs. It was rhetoric in this sense that gave the age its means both of achieving aims of beauty and value and of exploring the subjective reaches of human experience. It is no accident that the greatest single Japanese literary work, the Tale of Genji, should have been written in this period, for it reflects the temper of the age by exploring—in a prose studded with poems and itself a marvel of lyric beauty—the same subjective complexities as the poetry, so creating a literary kind without comparison until the modern novel. The rhetoric of poetry in the first classical period is, therefore, the true vehicle of its thought and its greatness. It enabled poets to find a way to transcend the brevity of the tanka form and to convey subjective experience. The difference between this age and its predecessor can almost be represented in the older use of parallelism, a technique admirably suited for lyric narrative and public poetry, and the new use of the pivot-word, a technique ideal for short poems that explore the manifold richnesses of the human sensibility.

Subjects, Themes, and Tones

In the early classical period, the important subjects, the predications about them (themes), and the attitudes toward them (tones) are, in general, of a narrower range than those of the early literary period, and of a greater complexity within the narrowed limits. As we have seen, poetry is almost entirely private, the triumph of lyricism is absolute, and the mind of the poet rules over reality, with the result that we can diagram the subjects of poetry in this age into a few divisions.

1. NATURE AND "THE WORLD
2. HUMAN AFFAIRS
   1. Parting and travel; Love; Death
   2. Beauty; Reality and Appearance; Truth
   3. Formal subjects (Congratulations, etc.)
3. TIME

In B, we have three groups of subjects, treating different aspects of human experience. The first of these consists of personal experiences, the second of experience of the outer world and its significance, and the third of social or ritual experience. One of the surprises of this literary period is that poems with the single subjects of nature are all but impossible to find. Time and again one comes upon poems that seem merely to describe, only to have closer examination show that they are allegories, or descriptions of screens, or intended to convey some metaphysical truth. And what is true of nature is true of "the world" (yo no naka); it, too, functions as a substantive means for a differing thematic end. We have, therefore, placed nature and "the world" above the three areas of experience that are usually the avenue to the expression of these themes. We have also separated time from other subjects, since it is the ground and being of almost all the literature of the age. The poets often wrote of time, but it is less a subject than a condition of reality that involves poet and subject matter, poet and other men, theme, and attitude.

The point upon which all these subjects converge is the subjective consciousness of the poet, and the proper mode of poetry was therefore lyricism. To say this is hardly to announce a discovery—but rather to make explicit in modem Western terms what is implicit in every sentence of Tsurayuki's Preface to the Kokinshū. In prose as lyrical—as marked by such contemporary techniques of comparisons, pivot-words, and even pillow-words—as the poetry he describes, Tsurayuki makes it clear that the response of Japanese poets to their subject matter is lyrical and subjective: "The poetry of Japan has its roots in the human heart."

The readiest way to show the force of generalizations about the subjects of poetry in the period is to examine poems with various subjects, themes, and tones, and of varying quality. The first, by Kiyowara Fukayabu, is one of the most purely descriptive poems we have been able to find. There is no surviving evidence to show that it contains an allegory or refers to some screen or picture. It is a poem about nature, specifically, "On Autumn" (GSS, VI: 322).

 … On the autumn sea,
The waves rise and fall, each in turn
 Washing the reflection
Of the floating moon—yet its appearance
Remains unaltered by the lapping waves.

The subject here is patently an event in autumn, and the imagery conveys it in lovely detail. The point, however, is one that the perceiving sensibility gives the scene: considering what is happening, the moon should change and does not. The poet chooses to focus upon the "color" (iro) of the moon, and as we have seen, iro means "appearance" and "form" as well as "color." The basic theme, then, is appearance and reality, with the "appearance" of such a flickering, altering thing as the reflection of the moon (itself inconstant) on waves in constant motion proving to be more steadfast than the "reality" of its being subjected to forces of change. The poem is more charming than profound, but we would mistake Fukayabu's intent and the character of the age if we failed to see the way in which his sensibility has shaped the subject into an intellectual theme.

The relation of nature to the perceiving sensibility is even clearer in Ono no Komachi's famous poem on growing old (KKS, II: 113).

 … The color of these flowers
No longer has allure, and I am left
 To ponder unavailingly
The desire that my beauty once aroused
Before it fell in this long rain of time.

The "color of flowers" (hana no iro) is clearly a symbol for "my physical being" (wa ga mi), and the natural imagery is sustained to the end by pivot-words. Furu means both to "grow old" and to "fall" as rain. Nagame means to "gaze" or to "think abstractedly," and "long rain." By establishing a symbol and developing it at length by means of pivot-words, Komachi has managed to suggest—in the very act of statement— the relation between nature and herself. Her view of nature and her attitude of what might be called passionately resigned despair are part of one brilliant poetic whole.

A poem by Narihira shows how "the world" might be brought into the subjective lyricism of the age (KKS, XIII: 646).

 … Through the blackest shadow
Of the darkness of the heart I wander
 In bewilderment—
You people of this twilight world,
Explain: is my love reality or dream?

It is extremely difficult to convey the force of kokoro no yami without destroying the imagery. The term, "darkness of the heart," anticipates the juxtaposition of yume utsutsu, "dream, reality," in the fourth line. A love affair seems to give rise to mixed emotions, while the experience is so intense that the speaker has lost his ability to distinguish appearance from truth. Such generalization of his experience into quasi-philosophical terms is appropriate to the appeal he makes to the people about him, asking them to help him resolve his confusion. The appeal is all the more subtle for Narihira's address, yohito, which means "you, I, everyone." Although he asks for advice, he points out that the people about him—who might very well censure him for the "darkness of his heart"—are as much in the psychological and moral dark as he. As a result, his bewilderment over appearance and reality is all the greater, and his love is shown to be even more intense than the imagery originally had suggested. The reference to the world about him is, then, only a means of conveying the depth of his subjective experience.

Death and love are perhaps the two most fertile subjects for lyric poetry. To take a poem with imagery somewhat like that in Narihira's poem, Izumi Shikibu's verses supposedly composed on her deathbed give us an idea of the handling of this subject (SIS, XX: 1342).

 … I now must set
"Out of darkness on yet a darker path"—
  O blest moon,
Hovering upon the mountain rim,
Shine clearly on the way I take ahead.

This is clearly an allegory, and the personal relevance is unmistakable. It is interesting to notice the way in which natural imagery of darkness, mountain, and moon are applied to her situation. We have placed the second line of the translation in quotation marks because Izumi Shikibu echoes the Lotus Sûtra (VII): "Long night adds its curse to our lot: Out of darkness we enter into darkness" (Arthur Waley's translation). Since the poem was "Sent to His Eminence Shōkū," his priestly teaching is symbolized by the moon, and michi ("the way") also has religious overtones. The poem is both a prayer and a message, a literal statement of the need for light and an allegory for the need of enlightenment. And once more it is the mind of the poetic speaker which unifies the diverse elements into a whole.

Mitsune's poem "Composed While He Watched the Snow Falling" (KKS, VI: 329) is somewhat similar in imagery, but different in approach. He chooses to generalize about life and death by means of description.

 … How sad this road
Covered over with the obscuring snow,
 Where not a person passes,
Where not a trace remains to mark the
 course
Of travel through a world of fading hopes.

The last two lines of the Japanese grow increasingly subjective. Atohaka mo naku ("without an after-trace") must also be parsed haka mo naku ("unstable," "transitory"). Omoikiyu means "become nothing under the pressure of sad thoughts," and as we know kiyu ("fade" or "melt") is the familiar association for yuki ("snow") in the first line. What seems mere description is really an allegory for the speaker's life, and it would not violate the spirit of the poem to any great degree if the first line of the translation were extended to read, "How sad this road, my life."

One more poem seems to us worth quoting for what it shows of this creation of theme and tone by subjective handling of materials, not so much for the poem's quality as for the way it illustrates a variety of treatments characteristic of this age and foreshadows the direction poetry would take in the next period. The priest Sosei (fl. ca. 890) purports to convey a personal experience which shows how much the speaker appreciates the beauty of chrysanthemums (KKS, V: 273).

 … In what seemed a moment,
As I gazed on the dew-laden chrysan-themums
 By the mountain path,
How many ages passed by in that instant
When my clothes were soaked and dried?

On face value the poem baldly presents a rhapsody over flowers, but Sosei had other business in mind than passing himself off as such a bewildered person. Behind this poem lies the Taoist legend of the woodcutter who saw some immortals playing chess in the mountains one day. He decided to watch the game a little while, and as at last he turned to depart, he discovered he had watched them so long that the shaft of his axe had rotted away. By echoing this legend, Sosei's hyperbole loses its extravagance. The headnote tells us still more: "On the appearance of a person making his way through the chrysanthemums to arrive at the palace of an immortal." In other words, the poem is written about a picture, and the words are represented as those of the man in the picture. This, too, has the effect of making hyperbole rather more acceptable. Sosei has managed to render a simple affirmation into art, but to leave behind the opinion that he, too, is a great lover of chrysanthemums— as well as a very clever man. This effect is pleasing, even if the play of an instant and several centuries is not a wholly moving treatment of the subject of time. The true center of the poem is an attitude rendered through complexly related allusions.

In our comments on these poems, we have not sought to convey the variety of tones in the poetry of the period, because the dominant attitude is the highly subjective response which we have seen expressed in different ways. Irony, humor, remorse, affirmation, regret—and a great range of other personal attitudes— are expressed in the poetry of the age, but all are part, as it were, of an overriding expression of personality, and the particular emotion is apt to be involved with the general subjective attitude. Such subjectivity in a social milieu helps determine the particular poetic cast of the age. The proliferation of these dual qualities makes the inferior poems of the age almost indistinguishable from each other. The best poets grew in the same environment and created highly individual poems in varying personal styles.…

Notes

Japanese Scholarship

No serious study of any aspect of Japanese literature can be undertaken without reliance upon the many excellent standard editions of texts, literary histories, and critical writings of Japanese scholars. We wish to list here with a few words of comment the principal Japanese works we have drawn upon, together with certain translations and other works in Western languages from which we have quoted or which we believe to be of special interest to our readers. We have not attempted to give a bibliography in extenso of works on Japanese Court poetry. Representative bibliographies of important editions, compilations, monographs, and periodical articles may be found in such works as Asò Isoji, ed., Kokubungaku Shomoku Kaidai (Tokyo: Shibundō, 1957), a useful annotated bibliography of works on Japanese literature; and at the end of the chapters on waka in Hisamatsu Sen'ichi, ed., Nihon Bungakushi (6 vols. Tokyo: Shibundo, 1955-60), which is the most recent and up-to-date of several important histories of Japanese literature. New and important editions, textual and historical studies, and essays on many aspects of our subject continue to appear in great numbers. The Western student will find that among these abundant studies, some are more useful for his particular purposes than others, and perhaps a brief account of the history and concerns of Japanese literary scholarship relating to Court poetry is in order.

If scholarship is the effort to preserve literature and to render it intelligible to successive ages, then Japanese scholarship may be said to have an ancient and all but continuous history. The first collections of poetry were made some thirteen centuries ago; prose glosses and commentaries are but slightly younger. If by criticism we mean theories of poetry, canons of style, and literary judgments, Japanese criticism has a history dating back to the oldest extant anthologies. To a degree unknown in the West, the creators, readers, and critics of Court poetry were the same men and women. With the decline of the Court and of Court poetry in the late fourteenth century, there was for a time a parallel alling-off in scholarship and criticism as well. Rigid orthodoxy, haughty claims to poetic prestige by certain families, and futile conceptions of poetry as family property led the latter-day descendants of the great Court poets to preserve the great achievements of the past as secret—and lifeless—family treasures rather than to make them live anew. Consequently, in the later centuries of the feudal period the creative work of scholarship and criticism was carried on largely outside the Court, among the classes of warriors, priests, and commoners—the classes that produced the important poets of the renga and the greatest of the Kokugakusha or National Scholars of the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries. The National Scholars began the monumental task of reconstructing, re-evaluating, and re-interpreting the literary heritage of the Court, beginning with the earliest chronicles of the eighth century; if it is true that their nationalistic and sometimes naive predilections led them to some strange conclusions, it is also true that the best modern editions and detailed commentaries of such great collections of Court poetry as the Man'yōōshū the Kokinshū, and the Shinkokinshū are based solidly upon their accomplishment.

At the same time, many of the National Scholars, and certain influential poets and critics of the early years of this century, have been hostile to the reactionary schools of Court poets surviving in their day, criticizing them sharply for clinging to their secret traditions without showing any signs of poetic creativity. As the Court nobility gradually lost prestige and power, most scholars assigned the sophisticated decadence they saw in their own day to what had in reality been a vital culture centuries before: looking at the corpse, they could not imagine the life it had once possessed. Such a prejudice on the part of many National Scholars combined with their nationalistic, anti-Chinese views to encourage them in their efforts to glorify the remote past before the great age of the Court and the New Learning from China—to seek in the age of primitive song and a naïvely construed Man'yōōshu the true, unadulterated products of Japanese literary and moral greatness. Their attitudes have survived in different forms and among various groups down to the present day; they were particularly widespread during the years of this century prior to World War II, partly owing to the Japanese experience of modern nationalism and partly because confirmation for these views was easily found in certain Western Romantic and post-Romantic ideals of primitivism, simple directness, and artless realism.

This is not to suggest that the Japanese have failed to appreciate their own best poetry. Such historical considerations help explain, however, why only the three greatest anthologies—the Manyōōshū, the Kokinshū, and the Shinkokinshū—have been studied in detail by any appreciable number of Japanese scholars, why it is that there are as yet scarcely any reliable exegetical commentaries on the other imperial anthologies or on most of the private collections of the poets. Moreover, the historic concern of Japanese literary scholars with certain limited aspects and segments of the Court tradition helps explain why such an important literary phenomenon as the integration of anthologies and sequences by the principles of association and progression has only recently been rediscovered and remains as yet almost wholly unknown to students of literature.

But if the coverage of the whole range of Court poetry by moden Japanese literary scholarship has varied in range and depth, its volume has been immense and its achievements impressive. The greatest accomplishments—apart from the exegesis of texts—have been in the related fields of philological, textual, and historical studies, concerns that stem directly from the interests of the National Scholars. Virtually all of the major works of the "classical" past have been subjected to intense scrutiny: their authenticity, age, and authorship have been sharply questioned and vigorously debated; their original form, relation to other works, and growth as texts have been established with increasing precision; their linguistic and orthographic peculiarities have been isolated and explained. The increased technical skill shown in these studies derives in part from the influence of Western methods of textual criticism, in part from the experience of generations of Japanese scholars.

In addition to these concerns there is an admirable tradition of what might be called intuitive or taste criticism that derives from the diaries, miscellanies, and critical writings of the Court. Finally, there is a line of theoretical inquiry pursued by some of the most distinguished modern scholars—an effort to establish the meaning and essential character of such esthetic concepts as beauty and form, or to determine what is characteristically medieval about medieval literature—which owes a great deal of its nature and method to German conceptualist scholarship of the last century.

As for our own use of Japanese materials, since our overriding concern has been with the poetry itself, we have used secondary materials (apart from reference works) to a far lesser extent than editions of the great anthologies, private collections, records of poetry contests, and the critical writings of the Court poets, although we have of course been careful to consult the best literary histories and summaries of recent scholarship, drawing from them much valuable historical and factual information. Owing to the nature of our study, we have had least occasion to use the more theoretical writings of Japanese scholars. We do not question the value of such studies, but we have usually found them too remote from the problems of practical criticism that have claimed our attention. To say this is only to emphasize that we have used a modified form of Western literary criticism in our study—a method which has been largely untried as yet by scholars of Japanese literature in Japan. In a sense, then, we have relied continuously upon Japanese scholarship, without following it in some of its most characteristic methods and emphases. Our results have been closer to evaluations by Japanese of their poetry than might have been expected, although we have often appreciated the great writers for rather different reasons, even as some poems seem more or less significant to us than to the Japanese.…

Principles and Forms of Citation Used in This Book

Our general method of citation is set forth in the note on p. 5, but certain refinements and exceptions may be noted here.

1. References to such collections as Kōchū Kokka Taikei (K. Taikei), Nihon Kagaku Taikei (NKGT), and Katsuranomiyabon Sōsho (Katsura Series) include the title of the particular work quoted from, unless it is clear from the context. Thus Samboku Kikashū in K. Taikei, XIII, 633" means that the poem in question is in the Samboku Kikashū (the personal collection of Minamoto Shunrai) and is printed in Kōchū Kokka Taikei, Vol. XIII, p. 633. "Shinsen Zuinō in NKGT, I, 116" means that the prose passage quoted or referred to is in the Shinsen Zuinō (a poetic treatise by Fujiwara Kintō), and is printed in Nihon Kagaku Taikei, Vol. I, p. 116.
2. References to Zoku Kokka Taikan (ZKT) give the number of the poem as indexed in that work. Thus: ZKT.: 15,364.
3. The poems and songs quoted from works other than the Man 'yōōshū in Chapter 3 are numbered as in Tsuchihashi and Konishi, Kodai Kayōshū (Anthology of Ancient Song), not as indexed in Kokka Taikan. Poems from the Ise Monogatari are numbered as indexed in Kokka Taikan.
4. A list of all abbreviations used in the text is given below; imperial anthologies that are described in the Appendix, but from which we have not chosen poems, are not included.

Before listing the primary and secondary sources that we found especially useful or from which we have quoted, we should describe a few principles of bibliographical citation that we have adopted.

1. A work is published in Tokyo unless another place of publication is given.
2. Both Japanese and Western surnames precede given names.
3. Articles, reference works, and non-literary histories are not listed unless they are of unusual importance or we have quoted from them.
4. Translations from Japanese into Western languages are not given unless we have quoted from them, or they possess historical or literary significance for Court poetry.

Bibliographical information for these works is supplied under the appropriate categories below.

SOURCES

One work is of such importance as an index for the Man yōōshū and the twenty-one imperial anthologies that it must be given special notice here: Matsushita Daizaburo and Watanabe Fumio, Kokka Taikan (The Great Canon of Japanese Poetry). 2 vols. Kyōbunsha, 1903, and often reprinted.

The reader should note that descriptions of the Manyōōshū and the twenty-one imperial anthologies can be found in the Appendix, pp. 481-87.

PRIMARY SOURCES

I. Collections and Indexes

A few major collections and indexes constitute the materials we have used most intensively. As we have noted, the two volumes of Kokka Taikan are indispensable as an index for the Man 'yōōshū and the imperial anthologies, but they contain other materials as well. Vol. I prints texts not only of these collections, but also of the poems in the Kojiki, the Nihongi, and the other chronicles and belletristic historical writings of the Court period, and of the poems in the principal diaries, miscellanies, travel accounts, and novels of the Heian period. The poems are printed and numbered in the order in which they appear in the original works. Vol. II consists of an index by lines, arranged in the order of the Japanese syllabary, to the poems in Vol. I. At the time the work was first compiled (1903), some of the materials indexed were not available in the best texts, and we have therefore in some instances (as with the Kojiki and the Nihongi) referred to better editions, provided we knew them to be easily available to specialists.

As a working text, Vol. I of Kokka Taikan is useful. Although the poems are printed in triple columns in rather fine print, this very feature is an advantage for sequential reading of the poems in the imperial collections and for the study of their techniques of integration; and although individual poems must be checked against more recent and reliable editions, the student will in general find that the more he studies Court poetry the more he will use this convenient work.

A second index also deserves special comment: Matsushita Daizaburō, Zoku Kokka Taikan (The Great Canon of Japanese Poetry Continued). 2 vols. Kigensha, 1925-26. Intended as a supplement to Kokka Taikan, this work collects the poems from the personal collections of more than one hundred important Court poets as well as poems found in certain unofficial anthologies and records of poetry contests. Unfortunately, the numbering system differs from the one in Kokka Taikan: the poems are numbered sequentially from the beginning to the end of the index rather than in separate series for each work. Since a total of 41,076 poems are printed, and the manner in which the numbers are indicated is somewhat confusing, the index is extremely cumbersome to use. It is not commonly cited by Japanese scholars, and although we have used it as a working text, we have for the most part not cited it.

Of the special collections devoted to the waka, the most important is: Kōchū Kokka Taikei (The Great Compendium of Japanese Poetry, Collated and Annotated). 28 vols. Kokumin Tosho Kabushiki Kaisha, 1927-31. In this work, Vols. I-XIV are devoted to the period covered by our study. A brief summary of their contents is as follows:

Vol. I: collection of ancient songs and poems, including the songs in the Kojiki and the Nihongi, kagura, saibara, Azumaasobiuta, and rōei.

Vol. II: the Man'yōōshu.

Vols. III-VIII: the twenty-one imperial anthologies.

Vol. IX: unofficial anthologies and records of utaawase.

Vols. X-XIV: personal collections of important poets of the early and mid-classical periods.

In addition, Vol. XXIII contains a rather sketchy and incomplete index of poets, which nonetheless provides some useful biographical information; and Vols. XXIV-XXVIII are a complete index to the poems. Although "collated and annotated," the texts are not wholly reliable, and the annotations are skimpy and occasionally inaccurate. We have, however, used the work constantly; not only does its format make it convenient to use, but more important, apart from the Kokinshū and Shinkokinshū, it contains the best available annotated texts of the imperial anthologies. In citing poems from personal collections and the like, we have used Kokka Taikei in preference to Zoku Kokka Taikan.

In the Shinkō Gunsho Ruijū, or Classified Series of Collected Texts, Newly Collated (24 vols.; Naigai Sho-seki Kabushiki Kaisha, 1928-37), a modem edition of the older Gunsho Ruijū, Vols. VII-XIII are devoted to the waka. These volumes contain more than 400 separate items: private anthologies, personal collections of the poets, texts of utaawase, critical and polemical writings, and the like. Originally compiled by the great National Scholar Hanawa Hokiichi (1745-1822), a num-ber of the items were copied from poor texts, and some are of doubtful authenticity, but as our citations in the text show, the collection is very valuable and we have used it extensively. The same may be said of the continuation, Zoku Gunsho Ruijū (19 vols.; Keizai Zasshisha, 1902-12), of which Vols. XIV-XVII contain some 200 items.

Representative of the exciting new materials currently appearing in Japan is the Katsuranomiyabon Sōsho (18 vols. to date; Yōtokusha, 1949-60). These materials were formerly in the library of the now defunct Katsura family of Princes of the Blood descended from Emperor Ogimachi (1517-93), and are in the possession of the Imperial Household. When complete, the series will comprise more than a hundred items, largely waka, renga, and fiction. The manuscripts are mostly seventeenth and eighteenth century copies of much older works, but they are said to be unusually reliable, and many of them are unique copies of materials formerly treasured in the Imperial Family and noble houses and since destroved or lost. We have found such personal collections as that of the "Yamada Priest" (II, 83-88) and the Daini Takatō Shū (II, 253-311) of extraordinary value for the evidence they give of survivals, cross-currents, and pre-figurings within the great periods of Japanese Court poetry.

The most important collection of critical and polemical writings and guides to composition by the Court poets is: Sasaki Nobutsuna, ed. Nihon Kagaku Taikei, or Great Compendium of Japanese Poetic Writings (6 vols.; Bummeisha, 1935; recently reprinted; supplement by the Kazama Shobō). Vols. I-V cover the period of our study; they contain more than eighty items, of which a few are variants of the same texts. Valuable introductions to the individual works are provided in the prefaces to each volume, but there are no exegetical notes, and many of the texts are extremely difficult. We have, however, studied the most important of these works with the help of Professor Konishi, and have cited them extensively in Chapters 5-7.

Some of the other large series of classical texts contain good annotated editions of the most important anthologies and private collections, although different collections tend to duplicate the same items. The older Kōchū Nihon Bungaku Taikei (25 vols.; Kokumin Tosho Kabushiki Kaisha, 1925-28) contains in Vols. II and III texts of the principal diaries and utamonogatari of the Court period, and in Vol. XXV a useful index to all the Japanese poems that appear in the various prose works in the series. The more recent Nihon Koten Zensho (83 vols. to date; Asahi Shimbunsha, 1946-60) and the monumental Nihon Koten Bungaku Taikei (51 vols. to date; Iwanami Shoten, 1957-61) are collections of poetry and prose from earliest times to the mid-nineteenth century. They contain a number of items important to the study of Court poetry—editions of the Man 'yōōshū, Kokinshū, and Shinkokinshū, personal collections of certain major poets, diaries, utamonogatari, and records of utaawase. The separate volumes of these and similar series are edited by different people, and their quality tends to vary; but with respect to the Man'yōōshū, for example, the Nihon Koten Bungaku Taikei edition (as yet incomplete, edited by the eminent scholar Takagi Ichinosuke and others) offers unquestionably the best text of the Man 'yōōshū produced to date, and also has excellent exegetical notes embodying the results of the latest scholarship. We have used the published volumes of this edition intensively in our study, and have listed it separately below along with additional works of this and other similar series that have been particularly helpful to us.

2. Single Works

(a) Primitive Period

We have used as our basic text for this period: Tsuchihashi Yutaka and Konishi Jin'ichi, eds. Kodai Kayō, shū. Iwanami Shoten, 1957. In Nihon Koten Bun-gaku Taikei. This is the most recent and authoritative edition and is provided with excellent notes and commentary.

(b) Early Literary Period

The following excellent annotated editions of the Manyōōshū have been used:

Kubota Utsubo, ed. Man'yōōshū Hyōshaku. 12 vols. Tokyodo, 1950-52.

Takagi Ichinosuke, Gomi Tomohide, and Ōno Susumu, eds. Man'yōōshū. 3 vols. to date. Iwanami Shoten, 1957-60. In Nihon Koten Bungaku Taikei.

Takeda Yukichi, ed. Man 'yōōshū Zenchūshaku. 16 vols. Kaiz sha, 1948-51.

Tsuchiya Fumiaki, ed. Man 'yōōshū Shichū. 20 vols. Chikuma Shobō, 1956.

We are also indebted to the monumental study and exegesis of the poems of Hitomaro: Saitō Mokichi. Kakinomoto Hitomaro. 5 vols. Iwanami Shoten, 1934-40.

(c) Early Classical Period

Four annotated editions of the Kokinshū, particularly the detailed exegeses of Kaneko and Kubota, have been especially helpful:

Kaneko Genshin, ed. Kokinwakashū Hyōshaku. Meiji Shoin, 1927.

Konishi Jin'ichi, ed. Kokinwakashū Dai Nihon Yū benkai Kōdansha, 1949. In Shinchū Kokubungaku Sō"sho.

Kubota Utsubo, ed. Kokinwakashū Hyōshaku. 2 vols. 11th printing. Tōkyōdō, 1957. Rev. ed. 3 vols. Tōkyōdō, 1960.

Saeki Umetomo, ed. Kokinwakashū. Iwanami Shoten, 1958. In Nihon Koten Bungaku Taikei.

Hagitani Boku, ed. Tosa Nikki. Asahi Shimbunsha, 1950. In Nihon Koten Zensho. An excellent exegetical edition of Tsurayuki's travel diary.

Minegishi Yoshiaki, ed. Utaawaseshū. Asahi Shimbunsha, 1947. In Nihon Koten Zensho. A valuable collection of the records of important poetry competitions with helpful notes.

Miyoshi Eiji, ed. Kōhon Shūishō to Sono Kenkyiū. Sanseidō, 1944. A detailed study of the text of Kintō's Draft of the Shūishū.

Yamagishi Tokuhei, ed. Hachidaishūshō 3 vols. Yū, seidō, 1960. A modern edition, with biographical and other indexes, of Kitamura Kigin's (1624-1705) Notes on the Collections of Eight Eras. Kigin's annotations on the poems of the first eight imperial anthologies are so brief and sometimes misleading that the text is of limited value to the novice, but the indexes are very useful.

(d) Mid-Classical Period

We are indebted to the exegeses in three annotated editions of the Shinkokinshū, particularly to the detailed commentaries of Kubota and of Shionio and Ōmachi.

Hisamatsu Sen'ichi, Yamazaki Toshio, and Gotō Shigeo, eds. Shinkokinwakashū. Iwanami Shoten, 1958. In Nihon Koten Bungaku Taikei.

Kubota Utsubo, ed. Shinkokinwakashū Hyōshaku. 2 vols. 9th printing. Tōkyōdō, 1946-47. The student should take special note that only the poems the editor attributes to the generation of the compilers are included in this edition.

Shionoi Masao and Ōmachi Yoshie, eds. Shinkokinwakashū Shōkai. Meiji Shoin, 1925.

Itō Yoshio, ed. Sankashū. Asahi Shimbunsha, 1947. In Nihon Koten Zensho. An annotated edition of the priest Saigyo's personal collection.

——. Saigyō Hōshi Zenkashū. Ookayama Shoten, 1935. The complete poems of Saigyo.

Matsuda Takeo. Kin 'yōshūno Kenkyū. Yamada Shoten, 1956. An important detailed study of the history and structure of the Kin'yōshū. (See the note on the principles of association and progression in the integration of anthologies and sequences above.)

Nose Asaji. Roppyakuban Utaawase, Kenjō Chinjō. Bungakusha, 1935. A good edition of the records of an important poetry competition, together with the official protest against the decisions of the judge, Fujiwara Shunzei, by the Rokujō poet, the priest Kenjō.

Sasaki Nobutsuna, ed. Chūko Sanjo Kajinshū. Asahi Shimbunsha, 1948. In Nihon Koten Zensho. An edition of the personal collections of some important women poets.

Saitō Mokichi, ed. Kinkaiwakashū. Asahi Shimbunsha, 1950. An annotated edition of Minamoto Sanetomo's personal collection.

Sekine Yoshiko, ed. Samboku Kikashū no Kenkyū to Kōhon. Meiji Tosho Shuppan Kabushiki Kaisha, 1952. A detailed textual study of Minamoto Shunrai's personal collection.

(e) Late Classical Period

Apart from the texts in the series and collections cited above, there are no important modern editions of materials from this period.

SECONDARY SOURCES

1. General

Hisamatsu Sen'ichi. Nihon Bungaku Hyōronshi. 5 vols. Shibundo, 1936-50. The standard history of Japanese critical concepts.

——, ed. Nihon Bungakushi. 6 vols. Shibundō, 1955-59. The most up-to-date detailed history of Japanese literature. Compiled from the work of many contributors, the individual chapters vary greatly in quality. Contains useful summaries of recent historical scholarship and bibliographies.

Konishi Jin'ichi. Nihon Bungakushi. Kobundo, 1953. A highly stimulating essay on Japanese literature that contains much new information.

Minegishi Yoshiaki. Karonshi Gaisetsu. Shun'yōdō, 1933. A useful short history of Japanese poetic theory and criticism.

Ōta Mizuho. Nihon Wakashi Ron. 2 vols. Iwanami Shoten, 1949-54. A history of Japanese poetry from the theoretical point of view.

Takano Tatsuyuki. Nihon Kayōshi. Rev. ed. Shunjusha, 1938. A detailed history of Japanese song and its performance by a distinguished authority.

Tsugita Jun. Kokubungakushi Shinkō. 2 vols. Meiji Shoin, 1932-36. The most useful of the older, shorter histories of Japanese literature.

2. Special Studies

Doki Zemmaro. Kyōgoku Tamekane. Seikō Shobō, 1947. A short biography of the important late classical poet.

Fuj'ioka Sakutarō. Kamakura-Muromachi Jidai Bungakushi. Kunimoto Shuppansha, 1935. A history of Japanese literature in the Kamakura and Muromachi periods.

——. Kokubungaku Zenshi: Heianchōhen. Iwanami Shoten, 1923. A history of Japanese literature in the Heian period.

Igarashi Tsutomu. Heianchō Bungakushi. 2 vols. Tō, kyōdō, 1937, 1939. A detailed history of Heian literature.

Inoue Toyoshi. Gyokuyō to Fūga. Kōbundō, 1955. A very brief study of late classical poetry, but one of the few works on the subject.

Ishida Yoshisada. Fujiwara Teika no Kenkyū. Bungadō, 1957. A detailed biography of the great mid-classical poet Fujiwara Teika.

——. Tonna, Keiun. Sanseidō, 1943. Short biographies of two conservative late classical poets.

Kaneko Hikojirō. Heian Jidai Bungaku to Hakushi Monjū. Baif kan, 1943. An important, detailed study of the influence of the Chinese poet Po Chü-i on Japanese literature in the Heian period.

Kazamaki Keijirō. Shinkokin Jidai. Hanawa Shobō, 1955. A valuable compilation of articles on the poetry, poets, and ethos of the age of the Shinkokinshū previously published elsewhere.

Kojima Yoshio. Shinkokinwakashū no Kenkyū. 2 vols. Hoshino Shoten, 1944, 1946. A detailed study of the history of the text of the Shinkokinshū and the circumstances of its compilation.

Konishi Jin'ichi. "Chūsei ni okeru Hyōgensha to Kyō, jusha," Bungaku, XXI (1953). An important article on the relation between poet and audience in the classical periods.

——. "Chūseibi no Hi-Nihonteki Seikaku," Bungaku, XXI (1953). On the importance of Chinese concepts to the formation of the medieval esthetic.

——. "Gyokuyōshū Jidai to Sōshi," in Jōkō Kan'ichi, ed., Chūsei Bungaku no Sekai. Iwanami Shoten, 1960. On the influence of Sung poetry in the late classical period.

——. "'Hie' to 'Yase,'" Bungaku Gogaku, No. 10 (1958). On the concepts of "coolness" and "slenderness" in the poetic of the renga and their relation to the ideals of mid-classical poetry.

——. "Kokinshūteki Hyōgen no Seiritsu," Nihon Gakushiin Kiyō, VII, No. 3 (1949). A vluable article on the importance of Chinese poetry of the late Six Dynasties in the formation of the esthetic of the early classical period.

——. "Michi no Keisei to Kairitsuteki Sekai," Kokugakuin Zasshi, LVII (1954). On the development of the concept of poetry and the other arts as a "way of life" in the medieval period.

——. "New Approaches to the Study of the Nō Drama," Tōkyō Kyōiku Daigaku Bungakubu Kiyō, V (1960). An article (in English) showing, among other things, the influence of the poetic ideals of Fujiwara Teika on the theories of the No dramatist Zeami.

——. "Shunzei no Yūgentei to Shikan," Bungaku, XX (1952).

——. "Ushintei Shiken," Nihon Gakushiin Kiyō, IX (1951).

——. "Yōembi," Kokugo Kokubun, XXII (1953). These last three articles are important studies of the major esthetic ideals of the mid-classical poets Shunzei and Teika.

Kyūsōjin Noboru. Kenjō, Jakuren. Sanseidō, 1942. Short biographies of two important mid-classical poets.

Man'yōōshū Taisei. 22 vols. Heibonsha, 1953-56. A valuable compilation of articles by many scholars on various aspects of the poetry and life of the age of the Man'yōōshū. Includes a reprint of the important index to the Man'yōōshū originally published in 4 vols. by Masamune Atsuo, Man 'yōōshū Sōsakuin (Hakusuisha, 1929-31).

Minegishi Yoshiaki. Utaawase no Kenkyū. Sanseidō, 1954. A convenient survey of the history and extant texts of the poetry competitions.

Minemura Fumito. "Yūgembi no Keisei Katei," Tōkyō Ky iku Daigaku Bungakubu Kiy, I (1955). A study of the development of the ideal of mystery and depth in mid-classical poetry.

Murayama Shūichi. Fujiwara Teika. Sekishoin, 1956. A biography of Teika.

Nose Asaji. Yūgen Ron. Kawade Shobō, 1944. An important monograph on the history of the concept of yūgen.

Omodaka Hisataka. Man 'yōō Kajin no Tanjō. Heibonsha, 1956. Essays on the poets of the Man-'yōōshū.

Ōnishi Yoshinori. Yūgen to Aware. Iwanami Shoten, 1939. A study of two important esthetic ideals of classical literature.

Orikuchi Shinobu. Kodai Kenkyū, II: Kokubungakuhen. Ōokayama Shoten, 1929. A study of the origins of Japanese literature in folk custom and religion by a controversial scholar and poet.

Sasaki Harutsuna. Eifuku Mon'in. Seikatsusha, 1943. A brief sketch of the life of ex-Empress Eifuku together with her collected poems.

Sasaki Nobutsuna. Jōdai Bungakushi. 2 vols. Tōkyōdō, 1936. A detailed history of the literature of the primitive and early literary periods.

Takagi Ichinosuke. Yoshino no Ayu. Iwanami Shoten, 1941. Valuable essays on the social origins and literary characteristics of poetry in the primitive and early literary periods.

Takeda Yukichi. Jōdai Kokubungaku no Kenkyū. Hakubunkan, 1921. A short but distinguished study of early Japanese literature.

Taniyama Shigeru. Yūlgen no Kenkyū. Kyōiku Tosho Kabushiki Kaisha, 1943. A monograph on the esthetic of yūgen, most notable for its chronology of the life of Fujiwara Shunzei.

Yamada Yoshio. Renga Gaisetsu. Iwanami Shoten, 1937. The most important single work on the renga.

Yoshizawa Yoshinori. Kamakura Bungakushi. Tōkyōdō, 1935. A useful history of Kamakura literature.

TRANSLATIONS, WORKS QUOTED, AND OTHER WORKS IN WESTERN LANGUAGES

For detailed bibliographies of translations from Japanese literature into Western languages see:

Borton, Hugh, et al. A Selected List of Books and Articles on Japan in English, French and German. Rev. ed. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1954.

Japan P.E.N. Club. Japanese Literature in European Languages. No pub.,? 1957.

Aston, W. G. Japanese Literature. 2d ed. London: William Heinemann, 1899. A typical "Victorian" treatment of Japanese literature.

——. Nihongi, Chronicles of Japan from Earliest Times to A.D. 697. 2 vols. Transactions and Proceedings of the Japan Society, London, Supplement I, 1896. A pioneer translation, still a standard work.

Benl, Oscar. Die Entwicklung der japanischen Poetik bis zum 16. Jahrhundert. Universität Hamburg, Abhandlungen, LVI, No. 31 (1951). A study of Japanese critical and esthetic concepts based on the work of Hisamatsu and other Japanese scholars.

Bonneau, Georges. Le Monument poétique de Heian: le Kokinshū. 3 vols. Paris: Librairie Orientaliste Paul Guenther, 1933-35. Translations, of high quality, of the prefaces and famous poems of the Kokinshū, together with a romanized text of the complete collection.

Chamberlain, B. H. Japanese Poetry. London: John Murray, 1910. A typical "Victorian" treatment of Japanese poetry, but a pioneer work.

——. Translation of "Ko-Ji-Ki" or "Records of Ancient Matters." 2d ed., with annotations by W. G. Aston. Kobe: J. L. Thompson, 1932. Still a standard work.

Jenyns, Soame. A Further Selection from the Three Hundred Poems of the T'ang Dynasty. London: John Murray, 1944.

Keene, Donald, ed. Anthology of Japanese Literature. New York: Grove Press, 1955. The best anthology in English of older Japanese literature; contains fine translations of waka and of the first 50 stanzas of the renga "Three Poets at Minase."

——. Japanese Literature: An Introduction for Western Readers. London: John Murray, 1953. Stimulating essays on important aspects of Japanese literature, including poetry, by a recognized Western authority.

Lattimore, Richmond. The Iliad of Homer. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1951.

——. The Odes of Pindar. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1947.

MacCauley, Clay, trans. Hyakunin-Isshu and Nori no Hatsune. Yokohama: Kelly and Walsh, 1917. Perhaps the best of several translations of the popular short anthology, Single Poems by One Hundred Poets, attributed to Fujiwara Teika. Miyamori, Asataro. Masterpieces of Japanese Poetry, Ancient and Modern. Maruzen Co. Ltd., 1936. Contains many poems by Court poets, often with helpful notes.

Nippon Gakujutsu Shinkōkai. The Man'yôóshû: One Thousand Poems. Iwanami Shoten, 1940. Good translations of a generous selection of poems.

Philippi, D. L. "Four Song Dramas from the Kojiki," Orient/West, Vol. V, No. 1 (1960).

——. "Ancient Japanese Tales of Supernatural Marriage," Orient/West, Vol. V, No. 3 (1960).

Pierson, E. J. The Manôśû 10 vols. to date. Leyden: E. J. Brill, 1929-58. The published portion of a projected complete translation of the Man 'yōōshū "from the linguistic point of view" and with some strange characteristics.

Reischauer, Edwin O., and Joseph K. Yamagiwa. Translations from Early Japanese Literature. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1951. Translations of important works of the Court period with many helpful notes and appendixes.

Sadler, A. L. The Heike Monogatari. 2 vols. Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan, XLVI, 2 (1918) and XLIX, 1 (1921).

Sansom, George. A History of Japan to 1334. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1958. This and the author's other distinguished historical writinigs that deal with the period covered by our study have been indispensable to us. Our terminal date (1350) practically coincides with that of this volume.

——. A History of Japan, 1334-1615. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1961.

——. An Historical Grammar of Japanese. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1928. A valuable study, particularly helpful to the student.

——. Japan: A Short Cultural History. Rev. ed. New York: D. Appleton-Century, 1943.

Seidensticker, Edward G. "On Trying to Translate Japanese," Encounter, XI (1958).

Tsunoda, Ryusaku, Wm. Theodore de Bary, and Donald Keene, eds. Sources of the Japanese Tradition. New York: Columbia University Press, 1958. A valuable compilation of translations, with excellent introductions, from important source materials in religion, philosophy, esthetics, and political and social thought.

Waley, Arthur. Japanese Poetry: The "Uta." Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1919. Line-by-line translations from the Man'yōōshū and early imperial anthologies with notes on grammar.

——. The Tale of Genji. One vol. ed. Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1935. A beautiful translation of Japan's greatest novel by the distinguished translator from the Chinese and Japanese.

Yasuda, Kenneth. Minase Sangin Hyakuin: A Poem of One Hundred Links Composed by Three Poets at Minase. Kogakusha, 1956. A complete translation, with an introduction, of the best known of the renga.

Yokoyama, Masako. "The Inflections of 8th Century Japanese," Language, XXVI (1950), Supplement. A valuable descriptive study.

Yoshida Kaneyoshi [Kenkō]. "The Tsuredzuregusa of Yoshida no Kaneyoshi." Trans. George Sansom. Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan, XXXIX (1911). A complete translation of an important classic.