Japanese class blog

要約

2006-12-03T18:13:00.000-08:00

3 Tanabata poems in the Man’yōshū

There are 133 tanabata poems in the Man’yōshū, including both tanka and chōka and dating from the second period (the latter half of the early Man’yō period) up until the end of the fourth period; the anonymous poems in book 10 that make up about half of the tanabata poems in the Man’yōshū are thought to belong to the second and third periods.
Most MYS tanabata poems that focus on the herdsman describe a man who rows a boat across a river to see his love; poems focusing on the weaver maid describe a woman weaving her cloth at the loom, and are more concrete than those about the herdsman.
However, portrayal of the weaver maid in the MYS does differ from Chinese sources. The Chinese weaver maid is very active; she crosses the river of heaven, she weaves, she abandons her weaving in frustration to go riding – while the herdsman is the one who is left to look longingly after her departing carriage. The sighs of the lonely weaver maid in MYS poems could be uttered by the herdsman in a Chinese poem. Yamanoue no Okura uses Chinese-style expressions in his poems, but it’s still the herdsman who rows his boat across the river of heaven; Ōtomo no Yakamochi has one poem which mentions ‘tanabata’ boarding a boat, but this probably refers to the herdsman.
The Chinese version of the lovers’ meeting, with its bridge of birds and so forth, is more aristocratic, while the MYS version reflects the experience of an earthly couple. While kanshi in the Kaifūsō mimic their Chinese sources, the MYS poets worked to create their own tanabata version that was closer to reality.
Some tanabata poems describe the anticipation of waiting for the one moment of meeting each year; others bemoan the nature of the river of heaven as an obstacle (most Chinese sources describe it as a shallow river; MYS poems vary in that aspect). In describing the moment when tanabata finally comes, some poets adopt the weaver maid’s perspective (often stressing her weaving skill and demure nature), while others speak for the herdsman, often focusing on his anticipation when the long-awaited time of meeting has almost arrived.
The night of tanabata is generally described in Chinese poems in terms of the autumn wind and also the moon, which became linked to tanabata; one kanshi in the Kaifūsō also reflects a similar tie to the moon, but in some problematic tanabata poems featuring the moon they seem to originally have been poems on waiting for the moon that became confused with the tanabata topos; rather than using the moon as part of the sky scenery, it is the only aspect described, or the moon is personified, or it is simply a poem describing the faint crescent moon in the clouds. Although these are properly poems on the topic of the moon in the sky on 7/7, rather than poems on tanabata per se, they emerged from the treatment of the moon in tanabata kanshi.
How do the lovers cross the river of heaven? Some MYS poems have them use a bridge; in the fantastical Chinese legend, this bridge is made of magpies flocking together, an image which is copied in Japanese kanshi, along with the splendid carriage which the weaver maid rides across the bridge. But most MYS poems, in contrast, use a boat as the means of transportation; the few examples with bridges involve the weaver maid making a bridge with the treadle of her loom, rather than a bridge of birds. This is because the form and expressions of kanshi and waka are different, and also because waka poets tend to be more realistic; in waka, the lovers are described as normal earthly people, and the poets avoid Chinese-style extremes of fantasy. We have the herdsman rowing his boat across the river, rather than the kanshi-style weaver maid riding her splendid, supernatural carriage across a bridge of birds.
In many waka, following Chinese precedent, the character for ‘year’ is used as an abbreviation for the idea that the lovers can only meet once a year.
Some poems describe the feelings of the weaver maid hearing the sound of the herdsman’s oars, either from her perspective or that of an outside observer; some describe the lovers’ feelings when they must condense a whole year’s love into one night of meeting, or when they hear the cock crow for dawn. Many poems in the MYS and Kaifūsō deal with the sadness of beginning the rest of the year once more after the joyful night of meeting.
One waka on the latter topic provides an example of the creation of new waka language based on a Chinese poem on the same topic. Another example of this phenomenon stems from the mitate in Chinese poetry between clouds and the trailing clothing of the weaver maid; the waka example based on this conceit portrays the weaver maid in a more impressive, Chinese-style way and is probably the work of a poet who was deeply versed in kanshi.
Many tanabata waka focus on the concept of love and longing that cannot be exhausted or fulfilled in such a short time (related to the identification of love as desperate longing). These descriptions of sad parting express both the Manyō poets’ own feelings and feelings found in Chinese poetry; overall, however, the personal touch of the Manyō poets is clearly seen in the particularly deep feelings and the emphasis on realistic rather than fantastical images (the herdsman rowing his boat rather than the weaver maid in her splendid carriage). With the addition of other elements like a ferryman, MYS tanabata poems create a whole tanabata world, which draws partially on Chinese poetry but also remains faithful to earthly reality in many points.
Some MYS tanabata poems, rather than simply drawing their expressions and imagery from Chinese poetry, draw on earlier Japanese sources (using the Kojiki term for the river of heaven, for example). Some also use tanabata as a pretext for expressing the poets’ own feelings. Some poems in the Kokinshū imitate this style of expressing emotion, but are less direct and more formulaic.
Ancient-period tanabata poetry is collected in the MYS and the Kaifūsō. The Kaifūsō poems do not deviate from their Chinese models; the MYS poems, while drawing on the same Chinese materials, express their own poetic mood and in some aspects avoid being coloured by foreign influence. There is a theory claiming that MYS poems about crossing rivers spring from a combination of river-crossing poems in the Shijing and the tanabata legend, but at least some poems should be seen as rather reflecting MYS poets’ own experiences. While incorporating foreign influence, in other respects these poems reject that influence; in contrast to that of the Kaifūsō kanshi, the world of tanabata poems in the MYS projects Chinese stylistic elements upon Japanese ones, creating a mixed literature.

要約、質問

2006-11-26T12:36:00.000-08:00

2 Tanabata kanshi

Along with the adoption of the tanabata festival (which occurred alongside the adoption of other Chinese seasonal festivals), banquets were held at court involving the composition of tanabata poetry, and tanabata poems therefore became well-known among the aristocracy and government officials. The Chinese legend subsequently became known among the common people, as is shown by a poem from the Hitomaro Kashū that has a question-and-answer format, suggesting influence from popular song, and reflects the sentiments of ordinary men and women meeting their lovers.
One reason that tanabata poetry could become customary was that politicians and literati joined together in poetry banquets like the famous one held by Ōtomo no Tabito that gave rise to many poems in the Kaifūsō. There are six tanabata poems in the Kaifūsō, including one by Fujiwara no Fuhito.
The major Chinese sources for tanabata poems are the Yu tai xin yong, the Wen xuan (these two overlap by a few poems), and the Yi wen lei ju. Analyzing the tanabata poems from the Kaifūsō, it is clear that they closely adhere to poems from these sources and do not deviate from the Six Dynasties tanabata poem framework (or occasionally, in some details, Tang dynasty models). Some poems also allude to various popular stories about tanabata, which themselves appear in the Yi wen lei ju.
In summary, kanshi on the subject of tanabata borrow not only poetic language and phrasing but also content from Chinese sources – the Yu tai xin yong, the Wen xuan, and particularly the Yi wen lei ju.

質問：
１１３４ページの最初の所の笑話や故事ですが、知らない言葉が多すぎてしらべても見つからなかったから話の意味があまり分かりません。大切のポイントじゃないかもしらないけど、どういう話ですか？

要約、質問

2006-11-12T18:39:00.000-08:00

3 Poets writing about Chao Heng

Wang Wei’s representative work – Wang Wei wrote a famous poem for Nakamarō, which was included in the Tang Poetry Selections and helped make that collection popular in Japan.

A glance at a miracle – Wang Wei’s poem describes Nakamarō’s journey over the sea back to Japan, yet evidence suggests Wang Wei himself had never seen the sea.

The position of Xiaoshu – As shown by the accompanying note to another poem presented to Nakamarō (this one by Chu Guangyi), Nakamarō at one point held the official position of Xiaoshu, or book editor; there are conflicting theories as to what exact position in which bureaucratic department this corresponded to, but regardless it seems to have been a fairly high-status position concerned with the editing and collecting of classical texts.

Treading the elite path – Another poem presented to Nakamarō seems to be a parting poem as he was returning to Japan, but gives his official title as much lower than it should be at that time – apparently it was written when he tried and failed to gain permission to return with an earlier Japanese delegation. Nakamarō’s progression of official titles shows that, unlike most Japanese students in China who returned home and were successful there, he had been elevated to the bureaucratic fast track in China.

The position of Buque – Nakamarō (through the patronage of a high-ranking person) held several positions that were on the usual track to high official status, including that of Buque – due to the mistaken substitution of ‘left’ for ‘right’ in several sources, there has been debate about which department he was affiliated with, but by examining the poem discussed in the last section this can be determined.

Is ‘Chao Ju Qing’ Kibi no Makibi? – The reference in a poem to ‘Chao Ju Qing’’s return to Japan has been thought based on common character substitutions to refer to Nakamarō’s Chinese name, but another theory points out that the elements of his name were also used by other Japanese diplomats, notably Kibi no Makibi – since the note on Nakamarō in the Complete Tang Poems seems to rely on the first theory, it should be re-examined.

4 Songs of the ‘Heavenly Plain’

A waka composed upon boarding the boat – Nakamarō wrote a waka on leaving China (possibly from modern-day Ningbo in Zhejiang province; there are competing theories), which was adapted by Ki no Tsurayuki in the Tosa Diary.

Various traditions – In the 180 years between when Nakamarō wrote this waka and Tsurayuki’s mention of it in the Tosa Diary, various traditions became associated with it (for example, the idea that Nakamarō wrote out the content of his waka in kanji and was surprised when his Chinese friends understood and appreciated it), and further details were added by Tsurayuki to further his own agenda.

Translations of the poem – Several kanshi attributed to Nakamarō appear in Chinese collections, but they seem to be translations of his famous waka.

The fate hinted at by a pheasant – When the four ships were leaving to return to Japan, a pheasant flew in front of the first one, which Nakamarō was on, which was taken as a bad omen and delayed departure by a day – and indeed, once the inferiorly-constructed ships set out, they became scattered, and although the other three separately reached Japan, the first ship was blown south and ended up in Vietnam; Nakamarō was forced to return to Chang’an after all.

Li Bai’s elegy – Li Bai wrote an elegy for Nakamarō; Nakamarō was friendly with both him and with another fellow hermit, to whom Nakamarō gave a cloth coat; we can see that Nakamarō was friendly with men of letters both within and without bureaucratic society. Nakamarō lived through the An Lushan rebellion and served two more emperors after Xuanzong, attaining a rank equivalent to that of prime minister before his death; within the flourishing, multicultural world of the High Tang, he was the only Japanese person to attain such status and the first to participate in international society.

質問：
「驚異のまなざし」ということは本当に ‘glance at a miracle’ ですか？ニュアンスは何でしょうか？

雉は本当に ‘pheasant’ ですか？（海の鳥じゃないから、ちょっと変だとおもったんですが。）

要約、質問

2006-10-22T20:51:00.000-07:00

Abe Nakamarō and the poets of the Tang

1 Poems by Japanese collected in the Zentōshi

A great collection of 49,000 poems – In the Qing dynasty, a huge Tang poetry collection (the Zentoushi) was made, intended to be a complete collection; there were some omissions, rectified by an Edo period Japanese kangaku scholar in a sterling work of scholarship called the Zentoushi.

Only two Japanese – Two Japanese poets appear in the Zentoushi; one is Prince Nagaya, who had a kanshi embroidered on a gift of one thousand Buddhist robes sent to China in the first Japanese embassy during the reign of Tang Xuanzong, and the other is Abe no Nakamarō.

Nakamarō’s poem – The other Japanese poem included in the collection is in a standard Chinese regulated verse form, and was written by Nakamarō on departing to return to Japan after 35 years in China.

The situation at departure – [This section outlines the content of each ku in Nakamarō’s poem; for example, the first ku is alludes to the fact that due to his position in the Chinese court, Nakamarō was not permitted to return to Japan for many years, but finally was able to return along with the departing Japanese delegation as a messenger sent by China.] In conclusion, the source of Nagaya’s poem is clear, but the sources of Nakamarō poems other than this one are more problematic.

2 Four ships – students sent to study in China

A sudden large-scale delegation – The eighth delegation to China that Nakamarō accompanied, falling during flourishing cultural eras in both Japan and China, was of an unprecedented size – four boats instead of two, and 557 people. Delegations to China involved the exchange of tribute goods for gifts from the Chinese emperor, and allowed delegates to bring materially and especially culturally valuable goods back into Japan.

The treatment of students sent to study in China – When students departed to study in China the Japanese emperor supplied them very generously with gifts to account for their travel and living expenses, and they even frequently had followers and servants accompany them; it is clear that the Chinese cultural knowledge they brought back was highly valued.

Dying abroad on Chinese soil – The eighth embassy to China included several well-known figures, including ? as well as Nakamarō; ? returned to Japan with the ninth embassy and took up a political career, but even when Nakamarō managed to secure permission to leave China with the tenth embassy, the ship was forced to turn back by stormy weather, and he ended up dying on foreign soil.

Inviting scholars and studying – Foreign delegates, including students, usually lived at the bureau responsible for hosting foreigners; the students often invited scholars to go there and teach them, but the scholars who would go were of comparatively low rank.

Nakamarō goes to Taigaku – Nakamarō, alone out of the students, actually attended one of the three highly prestigious schools of classics and went on to a government position; although the Chinese government made a practice of treating foreign delegates well, this was an unprecedented case and the reasons for his special treatment are unclear.

Did he pass the imperial examination? – Although some scholars (based on Song dynasty sources) argue that Nakamarō must have passed the imperial examinations, it is more likely that he gained his official position through the backing of a powerful friend (passing the examinations was not compulsory until the Song dynasty), and then the account was embellished by later chroniclers.

Given important positions in official circles – Nakamarō was awarded unusually high official ranks, on a par with famous poets and literati like Han Yu and even Bai Juyi, showing that he was highly valued and respected in the government.

質問：
pg. 62のことですが、「音を踏む」というのは何の意味ですか？

要約、翻訳

2006-10-15T19:40:00.000-07:00

3 The Wakanrōeishū and Bai Juyi

A distinctive structure

The Wakanrōeishū, which appeared about 120 years after Chisato’s kudai waka collection and the Shinsenman’yōshū, is unique; these previous collections either collection waka in response to kanshi or vice versa, in an almost translation-like relation, but the Wakanrōeishū arranged independent poems in two languages together by topic – apart from its own direct successors, there are really no other examples of this anywhere in world literature, and it points to the distinctive two-layered structure of Japanese intellectual life.
The Wakanrōeishū was supposedly compiled by Fujiwara no Kintō, a statesman whose political ambition was thwarted by his powerful cousin Fujiwara no Michinaga and who instead became an arbiter of poetry – his status was such that even Sei Shonagon was intimidated by him, as shown by an anecdote in the Makura Sōshi where he challenges her to finish reciting a kudai waka. This anecdote also shows that kudai waka were still important in this period, and doubtless also influenced the Wakanrōeishū.

Putting kanshi and waka side by side

The Wakanrōeishū consists of couplets from kanshi (both Chinese and Japanese) and waka, arranged by topic (broadly divided into seasonal and miscellaneous categories). This organization might appear similar to the arrangement of waka and kanshi together in kudai waka collections, but in this case the waka are independent, and kudai waka (including any works by Chisato) are deliberately not included.

New characteristics

Interestingly, although there are a few exceptions, the kanshi included are almost all in two-line segments, maintaining a balance of content between waka and kanshi (unlike the Shinsenman’yōshū). Tekku (collections of couplets selected from kanshi) already existed at this time, including the Senzaikaku compiled by Ōe no Koretoki (which has some organizational similarities to the Wakanrōeishū and might be considered its precursor) and also similar collections drawn from of Japanese kanshi. However, the Wakanrōeishū was novel in its combination of kanshi lines with waka.
Another new characteristic of the Wakanrōeishū is that Bai Juyi’s poems are almost oppressively numerous. Bai Juyi is one of the great poets of the High Tang, along with Li Bai and Du Fu; most of his lifespan fell within the early Heian period in Japan. Unlike Li Bai and Du Fu, he became very popular within his own lifetime, and this led to his almost exclusive popularity in Japan. Most of the kanshi in Chisato’s Kudaiwaka are Bai Juyi’s, and it is clear from many sources that his popularity approached fever-pitch.

Speed of transmission

About 150 years after Bai Juyi’s death, it is clear from the comments of Sei Shonagon that his popularity had become legendary. It is known that during Bai Juyi’s life, Japanese messengers often sought out his new works; an anecdote about Emperor Saga’s knowledge of a Bai Juyi poem, if true, suggests that this poem was known in Japan surprisingly quickly – less than three years after its composition. More verifiably, it is known that Fujiwara Takemori presented a collection of poems by Bai Juyi when the poet was only sixty-seven. There is also proof that the complete, self-edited collection of Bai Juyi’s works reached Japan the year after his death.

Egaku Shōnin brings it back

Bai Juyi compiled all of his work up to that point when he was fifty-three; he then added to it, until when he was sixty-eight he split it into four parts, which he divided between his own home and three temples. In 844, in the era of suppression of Buddhism under Tang Wuzong, one Japanese monk named Egaku Shōnin visited the Suzhou Nanchan Temple and was able to copy their version of Bai Juyi’s complete works; he returned with it to Japan in 847, the year after Bai Juyi’s death. That copy has not survived, but many versions recopied and storied in many places in Japan do remain, all crediting Egaku Shounin for the original document.

The reason that collections of superior lines were popular

In the Senzaikaku, emphasis on Bai Juyi is huge; in the Wakanrōeishū it is even greater and the percent of his poems reaches sixty percent of the Chinese poems in the collection. Although Japanese kanshi outnumber Chinese, the most frequently selected Japanese poet (Sugawara no Fumitoki) has only 44 poems included, compared to Bai Juyi’s 139 – the numbers clearly show how much Bai Juyi was respected in the early Heian period.
Kawaguchi suggests that superior-line collections originally came from Chinese collections that took the function of textbooks, but even if that was originally the case, it is hard to see a textbook-like function as reason for the popularity of such collections; the popularity of the collections on their own merits is a Japanese phenomenon, probably linked to the popularity of recitation. Two factors seem important when examining superior-line collections; the fact that the spread of Chinese learning had become a mass phenomenon, and the fact that (as the popularity of the waka and haiku into modern times attests), Japanese people characteristically like short poetic forms.
The works of Bai Juyi and the Wenxuan are often cited as the foundations of court cultural education around the year 1000, but these works are composed of so many volumes it is hard to believe that everyone read them; rather, most people might know their titles, but actually read only excerpts (which would also save on the time and expense of hand-copying texts). By reading two lines of a kanshi, readers could get a taste of the poem, and in any case many two-line selections could stand alone. Almost all contemporary quotations are from lines included in these collections.

The spread of Chinese scholarship among women as well

The passage of the Makura no Sōshi in which Sei Shōnagon alludes to the Mt. Xianglu poem by Bai Juyi is often cited in favour of Shōnagon’s status as a woman of talent, but actually all of Empress Teishi’s attendants would have been familiar with these lines – what distinguished Shōnagon was her quick thinking in raising the blind. This shows that by this period, Chinese learning was spreading even among women.
These lines by Bai Juyi appear in both the Senzaikaku and the Wakanrōeishū, though it’s impossible to say whether the female attendants read them there. The Senzaikaku was compiled around a half-century before the Makura no Sōshi, so Shōnagon might have read it, but the Wakanrōeishū may if anything have been compiled slightly after the Makura no Sōshi; but regardless, there were certainly many superior-line collections extant at the time, and the attendants must have become familiar with Chinese poetry through such collections.

4 Sei Shōnagon and Murasaki Shikibu

The level of basic attainments

As for Sei Shōnagon’s level of familiarity with Chinese texts, the Makura no Sōshi contains 24 examples of direct use of Chinese poems, but since 14 of these appear in the Wakanrōeishū and 3 more in the Senzaikaku (one of which, the Xianglu example, is emphasized), the total is 16 examples. (??? I don’t understand his logic here.) Four examples are from the popular Changhenge and Pipaxing (which were popular in other forms), and then there are examples of phrases drawn from Chinese poems that had already become commonly used in waka. In conclusion, it is unclear whether Shōnagon had read the works of Bai Juyi.
In one section of the Makura no Sōshi, the attendants play a game of guessing character radicals; this shows that by this time, kanji were no longer known only by men, but had become part of basic education even for women. Such a game did not require unusual learning, and indeed was too easy and trivial for Sei Shōnagon to enjoy it.
But in the end, Shōnagon quotes the Lunyu once and the Shiji three times, but all the quotes are from the most popular passages; it cannot be said that she had a high-level foundation in Chinese studies.

Murasaki Shikibu’s personal criticism

In the Murasaki Shikibu Nikki, there is a passage criticizing Sei Shōnagon and her limited Chinese learning, which stand out since it comes just after less critical passages on Izumi Shikibu and Akazome Emon – no doubt compared to the latter two women famed for their Japanese learning, Murasaki Shikibu disliked Shōnagon’s showing-off her Chinese learning. Shikibu did not make these comments out of simple jealousy; the Chinese references in her own Tale of Genji suggest that she may even have read the complete works of Bai Juyi, so naturally self-praise from someone of Sei Shōnagon’s background would annoy her.
This is not just a personal problem, but reflects conflict between different academic lineages; the main branch of Sei Shōnagon’s Kiyohara family were famous scholars of Chinese, while in her side branch, her great grandfather was a Kokinshū poet and her father was an editor of the Gosenshū.

Poems on dreaming of Bai Juyi

For her part, Murasaki Shikibu was the daughter of well-known kanshi poet Fujiwara no Tametoki, a grandson of Sugawara no Michizane who studied with the top kanshi poet of his time, Fujiwara no Fumitoki (who had more poems included in the Wakanrōeishū than any other Japanese poet), and who himself had at least thirteen poems included in the contemporary kanshi collection Honchōreisō. That same collection also contains a poem by compiler Takashina no Moriyoshi on the topic of seeing Bai Juyi in a dream, as well as poems by Nakatsukasa no Tomohira and Fujiwara no Tametoki on the same topic with the same ending syllables in each line ( probably based on a now lost second poem on the same topic by Moriyoshi); Tametoki’s poem even likens the dream of Bai Juyi to Confucius’ dream of the Duke of Zhou from the Lunyu. There is also a story dating slightly earlier about Ōe no Asatsuna dreaming of Bai Juyi – altogether, these cases show how much Bai Juyi was respected among Heian scholars of Chinese.

The concealment of scholarship

Murasaki Shikibu, as well as being the daughter of one of these China scholars, also studied with her father alongside her brother, and studied so quickly her father lamented that she was not a boy. However, while serving the emperor Ichijō she hid this scholarly knowledge, trying not to let on that she could write even simple characters, and only teaching the Empress Shōshi the works of Bai Juyi in secret. After taking such pains, perhaps she also resented Sei Shōnagon flaunting her own more limited knowledge. But Sei Shōnagon’s level of scholarship, along with other examples like Empress Shōshi studying Bai Juyi and the kanji radical game, show that the age when kanji belonged solely to men was well past; the popularity of collections like the Wakanrōeishū, too, can be seen as signs of the popularization of Chinese poetry.

Section summaries:
3 このセクションは和漢朗詠集の特色と秀句選との関係を述べて、こういう選集を通して白楽天の流行したことのいろいろな面を紹介します。

４このセクションは清少納言と紫式部の対する関係を平安学問の中の別分かれや平安女性の漢籍を読むことを通して説明します。

Translation (pg. 134, last paragraph in section):
Since after that the Hakushi monjū was expanded once again right before he died and became seventy-five volumes, this book, as the complete work, was one step short of the final edition, but even so the fact that this almost complete version with the correct lineage, edited by Bai Juyi himself in his later years, was so quickly introduced to Japan, has been clearly shown. And the fact that Egaku borrowed this almost complete collection, painstakingly hand-copied it, and brought it back with him, is indeed the only reason Bai Juyi could be so respected in Japan.

Revised translation

2006-10-10T06:56:00.000-07:00

The result was probably that the self-respecting poets who managed to revive and establish the so-called Kokinshū era that was a period of fully flourishing Japanese poetic culture following on from the Man’yōshū era – as a reaction against the period of flourishing Chinese writing after the Kounin era, stemming from the swelling spirit of ethnic self-awareness – out of their passion that we should call respect and affection…and other similar sentiments towards the purity and independence of that Japanese poetry, …were heartfeltly trying to get rid of, avoid, and conceal the customs and control of the Chinese poetic writings that were foreign literature, and also the ignorance of direct imitation of those poetic writings.

要約、翻訳、質問

2006-10-08T15:47:00.000-07:00

Pages 100-124

1 Chinese-style poems and waka; line-topic waka

The poems of Ōe no Chisato
Ōe no Chisato is the author of one of the most well-known waka about the moon, which was originally based on two lines of a poem by Bai Juyi (which was inspired by the loneliness of a woman looking at the moon after her husband’s death). Since these two lines were also the basis of at least one other poem and were separately included in the Wakan Rōeishū, they were widely known. At this time, taking lines from Chinese poems as topics for composing new poems was popular, especially among Chinese literature scholars like the Ōe family.

‘Composer unknown’
Interestingly, line-topic poems from Ōe no Chisato’s personal collection, when included in the Kokinshū and the Gosenshū, do not have his name attached, but are listed as ‘composer unknown’. It seems clear that the compilers of the Kokinshū were proponents of waka as separate from Chinese-style poems.

Japanese spirit and Chinese learning

Around ten years before the Kokinshū, the practice of sending ambassadors to China was discontinued; this also reflects the spread of ‘wakon kansai’ (‘Japanese spirit and Chinese learning’) spirit among intellectuals of the time. This spirit resulted in line-topic poems based on Chinese poems being excluded or designated as ‘composer unknown’ in the Kokinshū. In later imperial waka collections, since the status of the waka was already well-established, composers and even the original lines of Chinese poetry were included; the oppositional relationship between waka and kanshi was already established in the minds of the intelligentsia.

The line-topic trend

In the ninth century, line-topic poems were widely popular, as shown by the range of examples available. One famous example by Ariwara no Narihira is based on two lines from a Bai Juyi poem (the same two lines were included in the Wakan Rōeishū and became the topic of many poems). Kokinshū compiler Ki no Tomonori also wrote a line-topic poem based on two lines of another poem by Bai Juyi.

How we should look at sources?

In the case of Ooe no Chisato’s line-topic poem collection the poems’ sources are clear, but in many cases it’s not clear whether a topic was inspired by a Chinese poem or simply happens to be similar. For example, one poem by Sakanoue Korenori has been said to be based on a famous Chinese poem by Li Bai (on the conceit of mistaking moonlight for frost); but this poem may have been unknown in Heian Japan, and was certainly not popular. Li Bai’s poems had been introduced by 891, but only via a small selection of his poems, and these were not well-known – in Heian collections, his poems remained very rare.

Li Bai or Bai Juyi?

Another of Ōe no Chisato’s line-topic poems is based on a Bai Juyi poem, which (like Li Bai’s poem above) uses the conceit of mistaking moonlight for frost. It has been suggested that it also took Li Bai’s poem as a source, which might imply that other poems also draw on Li Bai’s, but still Bai Juyi’s poem is probably the more important source.

“The years pass, and people…”

Ki no Tomonori wrote another poem that is clearly inspired by a Bai Juyi poem; however, his poem also follows two lines of a poem by Liu Xiyi very closely. It is not certain whether Liu Xiyi’s poetry was read in Heian Japan, but it seems possible that at least these two lines of his poem were known independently.

2 Waka and kanshi; the Shinsenman’yōshū

The appearance of the Kaifūsō

Between Ōe no Chisato’s imperially commissioned line-topic poem collection and the earlier Kaifūsō collection, there were major changes in the relationship between Chinese-style poetry and waka. The Kaifūsō showed that Japanese intellectuals were expressing themselves through Chinese-style poetry, but at the time it was compiled, Chinese literature studies already had quite a long history, and there had already been people like Abe Nakamaro who served as officials in China. Even waka could only be written down because of the use of Chinese characters. Because the development of written culture in China was so early, rather than creating their own writing systems, all of the surrounding peoples came to know the act of recording language first through Chinese characters – and Chinese literary culture inevitably followed the writing system.

Self-lamenting works

However, since they couldn’t deny the influx of Chinese literary culture or abandon their own native types of linguistic behaviour, Japanese intellectuals fell into a two-sided pattern of literary activity. This is clearly shown in the period between the Kaifūsō and the Man’yōshū; many Man’yōshū poets contributed to the Kaifūsō. This is exemplified by the tradition (whether or not he actually wrote both poems) that Ōtsu no miko wrote one kanshi and one waka to lament his own death.

Power relations between kanshi and waka

About one-third of Kaifūsō poets also have poems in the Man’yōshū; since the selection of poems for the Kaifūsō was almost entirely random (?), this implies that large numbers of intellectuals were writing both kanshi and waka. The main difference was that waka could be composed and enjoyed by anyone, whereas kanshi required training and knowledge of writing (so was seen as a higher level of accomplishment). The effects can be seen in the ninth century imperial collections; there were three official kanshi collections, while there were no more waka collections until the Kokinshū in the tenth century. By the second half of the ninth century, along with the collapse of the Tang dynasty, the emphasis on Chinese culture was waning, replaced by a new emphasis on Japanese identity. It is of interest that Ōe no Chisato’s line-topic poem collection appeared at this turning point in the power relations of kanshi and waka; the appearance of the Shinsenman’yōshū, compiled of kanshi composed on topics drawn from waka, is equally interesting.

A one-of-a-kind experiment

Although there are other examples of kanshi composed with waka as the topics, the Shinsenman’yōshū is unique in amassing hundreds of these poems. However, although the waka used as topics are excellent, the kanshi themselves are often technically flawed; the interest of the collection is largely historical – in relation to Ōe no Chisato’s line-topic waka collection, as a waka collection that comes between the Man’yōshū and the Kokinshū, or because of its structural features. Also, like the Man’yōshū, it is written entirely in Chinese characters (even though by the time of its compilation hiragana were already established).

Bad balance

Although the kanshi in the Shinsenman’yōshū have been attributed to Sugawara no Michizane (who also supposedly compiled the collection), it is hard to imagine him composing such mediocre examples of the form. In most similar anthologies, each waka is paired with only two lines of a kanshi, which encapsulates about the same amount of content; in this one, each waka is paired with all four lines of a kanshi poem, creating a sense of imbalance and requiring the composer to fill out the extra lines with unnecessary content.

The difficulty of writing kanshi

The Shinsenman’yōshū was a fascinating experiment; though it ended in failure, its example is still thought-provoking. Many famous line-topic waka are recognized as great creative efforts inspired by Chinese poems; the comparative mediocrity of the Shinsenman’yōshū poems shows the difficulty of taking inspiration from waka and composing kanshi. Although creativity is hard to define, language certainly plays a part, and it is natural that Japanese poets would have more difficulty composing in Chinese than in their native language – yet Japanese intellectuals continued to put forth great effort in that direction.

Attempted translation of the quoted passage on page 104-top of 105:
We should say that the self-respecting poets who managed to revive and establish the so-called Kokinshū era that was a period of fully flourishing Japanese poetic culture following on from the Man’yōshū era – as a reaction against the period of flourishing Chinese writing after the Kounin era, stemming from the spirit of ethnic self-awareness that had been languishing in despair – respected and cherished the purity and independence of that Japanese poetry… Was it not the case that, because of all that, the result was that they heartfeltly tried to avoid the customs, the control, and also the shamelessness of direct imitation of the Chinese poetic writing that was foreign literature?

質問：
１１８ページの三行目には、「。。。ほとんど全くouranに過ぎます」という文があるけど、ここには「Ｘに過ぎます」というイヂオムは何の意味ですか？

１０月九日

2006-10-02T10:42:00.004-07:00