Pathway to Japanese Literature

I. The Path to Tanka's Composition

The establishment of the tanka form did not date back to the distant "pre-Man'yōshū" era.
The era spanning from the late Asuka period to the Fujiwara period was, in reality, a period of labor during which this antiquated five-phrase, thirty-syllable rhythmic language with its variable cadences was brought into conscious awareness.

It was also during this period that the method of *nagame*—the contemplative recitation of call-and-response phrases accompanied by lively musical beats—became crystallized into two and a half stanzas.
And gradually, the progression that would replace those original long poems became noticeable.
In the Kojiki and Nihongi—particularly the Nihon Shoki—and in the volumes preserving the ancient form of the Man'yōshū, those developments can be seen as clearly as if held in one’s hand.
Such trends projected onto the ritual songs (court poetry) of ancient chants preserved in the palace.
Even court poetry that clung to tradition began shortening itself of its own accord.
And thus, the vigorous form of tanka among the people rode on this momentum.

Thus recognized as an independent vocal form, tanka devised within itself two parts—the original songs and concluding verses from rebellious auxiliary chants—using meditative recitation to bridge rhythmic intervals.
This was why the form evolved from "5-7・5-7・7" to "5-7・5-7-7," and then—even before the establishment of Heiankyō—developed into patterns perceptible as "5-7-5・7-7."

The vocal consciousness—where the fifth line of the second stanza was repeated at the conclusion of the first stanza and the opening of the second—manifested through syllabic rhythm, gradually transforming both poetic phrasing and compositional approaches. Though repetitions and inserted musical interjections could be freely employed, the awareness of primary pauses settled into the “5-7-5-7-7” structure. This transformation was induced by sedōka’s rhythmic patterns—rooted in collective chants that persisted as influential predecessors to folk songs—which encouraged both the third line’s structural detachment and its conceptual implications. Compounded further by the recurring tendency of final-line rebellion that became tanka’s differentiating principle, the dynamic force of added seventh-beat flourishes established a recitative style following the “5-7-5-7-7-7” syllabic pattern. Yet in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, this concluding line consisted merely of repetitive phonetic echoes unrelated to thematic development.

As songs came to be recorded, these improvisational repetitive expressions were discarded, and the complete "5-7-5-7-7" syllabic rhythm came to be perceived. When it reached this stage, the distinction between sedōka and tanka in vocal music became unclear. And thus, the old recitation method of tanka—still practiced—with its "5-7-5-7-7" syllabic rhythm instead migrated to sedōka, resulting in patterns like "5-7-7-5-7-7" or "5-7-7-5-77". In some cases becoming “5-7–7-5–77,” and eventually even poetic phrasing following what might be called the “5–77–577” pattern emerged.

Tanka, having been liberated from vocal music to become a creative work and expand its literary consciousness, owed this very liberation to vocal music itself.
I locate the apparent cause of this separation in *en'yū sokuji*—banquet improvisation.
The practice of “commanding-attention recitations,” born from banquets in newly constructed halls and celebrations at temporary lodgings during travels, gradually gave rise to landscape poetry as a distinct form.
The melancholic recitations of assembled guests tempered the previously acknowledged ferocity of lyrical expression, redirecting it from universal hyperbole toward self-contemplation.
At this critical moment arrived the methods of Chinese courtly banquets, accompanied by exquisitely crafted literary phrases extolling imperial virtue through depictions of garden ponds.
The foremost requirement for cultural life was now defined as reforming court rituals and assemblies in the manner of advanced nations.

They translated *utagaki* (song-and-dance gatherings) as *tōka* (stomping dances), even renaming the spring ritual dances passed down through the court—originally called *kotohogi no murofumi*—as *tōka*. As the primary reason for recitative chanting flourishing in the Heian capital, one must first note the refinement of elegant diction in tōka's rhythmic "chants." Yet even at the zenith of Tang-style influence, tōka's nightly lyrics and melodies still interwove ritual songs with incantations.

The same circumstances observed in tanka—where recitative chanting abnormally stimulated an elongated syllabic awareness and a resplendent yet haunting tonality, thereby prompting mixed Japanese-Chinese prose—manifested here too; beyond the lavish purification banquets held as ritual feasts in court and aristocratic life, foreign-style banquet rituals came to be incorporated. Not limited to tōka, such revelries—whether wine gatherings or waterside feasts—featured impromptu call-and-response singing and likely included competitive exchanges reminiscent of utagaki contests. Clear traces of such poetic dialogues between men and women remain visible in the Man'yōshū. Amid these developments, solitary reciters without partners gradually multiplied. Through accumulated repetition of such efforts in banquet settings emerged a literary attitude that deliberately spurred creative impulses already budding before tanka's formal establishment.

II. Nara Period Tanka

Tanka from the Nara Period—setting aside questions of their value—included many works that could be treated as such literary compositions.
Among Yamabe no Akahito's works, there existed a group seemingly from his later period in which literary consciousness was exposed excessively.
They extracted portions from nature that evoked a certain technique and presented them.
The force that encountered these was not passion but the wit that humanized nature.
They were phenomena that merely met the universal tastes of the educated class—seasonal changes imprinting themselves upon tranquil lives—and the human affairs entwined with them.

However, it could be clearly recognized that the true consciousness of "beauty" began with Akahito's works.
The discovery of "beauty"—that was no small matter.
But he altered nature for beauty's sake, and at times even falsified life itself in pursuit of it.
When Akahito could finally express his individuality, he had already lost the traditional elegance and vigor he had previously demonstrated.
He humanized nature and imparted ordinary human emotions.
To expel the easily coarsening wildness from courtly life, the "song-heart" he brought must have been tremendously useful.
The court life of the mid-Heian period onward—which took elegance as its aim—was both foreshadowed and guided by him.

In the spring field, I came to pick violets—
In the field marked for gathering spring herbs tomorrow, yesterday too, today too, the snow keeps falling—
On the old branches of bush clover in Kudara Field—waiting for spring, has the warbler that came to dwell here sung its song? (Man'yōshū, Book 8)
These may be beautiful, but they only touch upon matters of taste.
As the jet-black night deepens, by the clear riverbank where catalpas grow, plovers cry again and again.
At the treetops on Kisa-yama’s edge in Miyoshino Field, how clamorous the voices of birds resound here! (Man'yōshū, Book 6)

Where had the contemplative vision that once shone so vividly gone—that pure spiritual vigor engulfed in serene cadences? The former constituted an imitation of Kurohito, while the latter, though yearning for Hitomaro, carved out an independent spiritual domain. They remained untroubled by literary pretensions.

In the "travel poems" modeled after Hitomaro, beneficial influences were freely incorporated until distinction between the two poets grew impossible. They emanated from individuality while evoking universal melancholy. When examining later elegant poems, one finds shared aesthetic sensibilities and sensory appeals displayed—yet glimpses of individuality now lingered only in technique's peripheral shadows. The verse *"On the old branches of bush clover in Kudara Field—waiting for spring, has the warbler that came to dwell here sung its song?"* appears unified through pure rhythmic discipline. Yet this "warbler that came to dwell here," born not of lived experience but fantasy, fosters a tainted sensibility within its content.

Such fantasies arose from an attitude that had deteriorated—an attitude that, while listening to the unceasing cries of plovers by night’s bed, meditated on the “clear riverbank where catalpas grow” seen by day.
The one who first expressed the profound emotions of solitary midnight meditation and contemplation was Takachi no Kurohito.

By the latter half of the Nara period, chōka had already become thoroughly classicized.
Yamanoue no Okura’s long poems that gave form to social consciousness and curses of daily life lacked vigor and were poor in rhythm; even at the cost of losing passion to perfect syllabic structure, their frequent use of prolonged phrasing exemplified a flawed approach that reduced all that was good in “life” to a hollow concept.
When moving to the envoy, they became as effortlessly fluid as if newly born; many regularized even somewhat narrative-style structures.

But even those tanka poems were, in some respects, attempting to emulate the literature of previous generations.
This could be observed from how Ōtomo no Yakamochi and others diligently collected ancient poems, as well as Yakamochi himself struggling with his own creative works.
On the folk song side—where poetic forms lived and moved—having already undergone a period of formal destruction, they were beginning to transform once again into somewhat longer free verse.
The first line tended to become a conventional site for pillow words, place names, and modifiers; formally, the linkage between the second and third lines grew rigid, with the first line forming a somewhat detached connection while beginning to anticipate syllabic rhythm.
This could also be described as a social tendency that had begun probing that direction.
Since it could be empirically demonstrated that the Heian period’s “7-5” basic syllabic rhythm was already awakening, one might reasonably conclude that folk songs had gradually distanced themselves from the tanka form.
And in the Eastern provinces, which lagged behind trends, the tanka form still flourished as folk songs—a state mirroring the Nara period’s zenith.
As Man'yōshū Volume 14 recorded this phenomenon, Volume 20’s Azuma-uta shows how certain easterners—though compelled to compose in formulaic patterns—had reached a state where lyrical expression became possible.

Thus, when considering folk songs other than the Eastern Songs, we find a jumbled coexistence of two types: older textual forms predating tanka’s establishment—which had already begun taking shape and decaying even before the Ōtsu Palace era—and those from the Nara capital’s zenith or decline that diverged from tanka, approximating earlier structures while exhibiting sparse stanzas and a loosening of syllabic constraints. Subsequent works also adopted a long-form style unaccompanied by envoys.

Considering this point, it could be said that tanka did not develop significantly among the common populace; rather, forms such as katauta, sedōka, and short chōka began to emerge as “combined songs,” which court poets then perceived alongside other generative motivations and solidified into ōuta. If the katauta rhythm was chanted at a slightly quicker tempo, one could also recite tanka’s syllabic meter. As factual evidence, within the katauta dialogues of the Jinmu-ki, there remain instances where one side is katauta while the other approaches tanka form.

The Nara court’s reverence for ancient poetry stemmed from their sanctification of ritual and banquet verses; they undoubtedly sought to preserve those texts with authentic origins, those long transmitted among noble houses, and those evoking historical contexts—all of which faced dispersion.
Whatever may have become of the preceding arguments matters little.
First, it must be recognized that the content of ancient poems had inherent limitations—one might speculate that they were perhaps based on those accompanied by dance.
But during the fervor for Tang-style Sinification, when there were no longer those who preserved ancient poems nor anyone composing tanka, those influenced by popular Chinese literature came to recognize folktales, customs, and modes of thought that aligned across differences of land and human sentiment.
And thus, they translated these into the style of Chinese novels and legends.
Their attempts escalated into writing prefaces, introductions, and postscripts in Chinese-style regulated prose, while a playful attitude—delighting in embedding Kojiki-style chronicles, folktales, or others’ ballads as lengthy lyrical poems within the text—proactively gave rise to purely literary motives in creative works.
Meanwhile, during banquets where they composed and appreciated poetry, it was likely due to the cumbersome nature of using the national language and a lack of education that they naturally shifted from banquet poetry to banquet songs.
In any case, the tanka that had once declined was revived by the very people who had caused its decline, became an object of literary diversion, and even evolved into novels rooted in banquet revelries and, further still, into confessional writings pleading to superiors.
The structure of works like *Poverty Dialogues* is novelistic.

It was once thought that Yakamochi’s struggles in composing celebratory poems and banquet songs stemmed from his lack of talent, but given these circumstances, such a view could no longer be maintained.
Even when incantations directed at previous emperors such as Sujus and divine proclamations to clan members—for which clan leaders bore responsibility in recitation—came to be newly composed, they still had to be approached with a special mindset.
As for songs recited at banquets, many were ancient poems, while new compositions lacked sacredness.
The clan leaders precomposed *hogiuta* (ritual incantation songs) as a lineage of spells directed at the emperor and imperial relatives because they had not forgotten the ancient mysteries inherent to their role as clan leaders.
Therefore, even if the creative impulse for composing tanka had waned by the end of the Nara period, one cannot take Yakamochi’s collection of ancient poems and precomposed celebratory verses as evidence of this decline.

Moreover, Yakamochi was a poet endowed with the innate talent to demarcate an era.
The poetic sensibility developed by Kurohito was transmitted by Yakamochi, who properly expanded it and passed it on to his successors.
Yakamochi’s chōka may not achieve the expressive mastery of Okura’s, but they exhibit somewhat fewer conceptual tendencies.
In my view, while Hitomaro elevated chōka from epic poetry into the realm of lyricism, he simultaneously rigidified its style to an extreme degree, stripping it of its fluidity.
Even after being repeatedly attempted among Nara court poets and eminent literati, they could produce nothing but lifeless imitations overburdened with form.
Therefore, based solely on the value and approach of tanka, it is acceptable to determine this person’s talent and his place in literary history.

Yakamochi avoided delving deeply into Kurohito’s meditative attitude and conceptual style, shifting instead to a slightly more external, objective stance.
Without crying out a susceptible heart, he turned toward tranquil nature and adopted a posture of sighing.
Such songs from that aspect were both his true forte and his innovation.
Rather than Kurohito, the poet himself stood out distinctly, yet without imposing on others.
Faintly stirring things seeped forth, their tone lowered to a whisper.
Works that roused self-consciousness about being warriors or clan leaders to admonish people fared poorly even as tanka.
Yet the fine qualities seen across such long and short poems suggested they heralded the refined Heian poets.
Whether reproving or consoling others, their very diction conveyed a sentiment akin to chiding oneself while cherishing one’s being.
He who pondered his family lineage stood solitary at the Nara period’s end—a figure whose nerves and sensibilities could be deemed modern even by contemporary standards.
Hitomaro’s influence instead proved detrimental, leaving works that seemed to cry out with desolate echoes.

III. Ōuta of the Early Heian Period

In the Heian period, ōuta had early come to regard tanka as their principal form.
And at court, their use likely gradually fell out of use except during the Chinkon-sai (Spirit Pacification Ceremony) and Kagura rituals.
Other court poetry either came under the influence of gagaku that did not prioritize “chanting,” lost its traditions, or was relegated to vocal accompanishments never destined to bloom in their era; those with dance perished before their performances could be staged, while those without dance—from as early as the Nara period or before, when new court poetry flourished—were borne away into eternity by transmitters who offered no resistance.
As for tanka’s demise as sung performances, we may consider their endpoint marked by the Ōutadokoro songs in the *Kokinshū* and *Shūishū*, along with portions recorded in the *Kagura Utafu*.

However, in the realm of Buddhist hymns, a vein of vitality was still preserved; even as vocal melodies transformed into *shomyo* (Buddhist liturgical chanting), they served as precursors to the *shakkyoka* that flourished greatly in the late Heian period.
It appears that the practice of orally reciting songs—not as performative chants but as divine oracles existing outside literary contexts—persisted even into the Muromachi period.
These were songs chanted by shrine maidens delivering poetic divinations—though this practice cannot strictly be called divine oracles—and given that the shrines in question were under the protection of large temples, their melodies likely aligned with *imayō*, simplified from lengthy hymns while retaining rhythmic unity.
Thus, lamentations carried over from the Muromachi to Edo periods were temporarily employed in pseudo-archaic phrases, serving as the catalyst for the differentiation of *dodoitsu* and *yoshikono-bushi*.
However, these were not tanka imbued with genuine vitality.

As ōuta established tanka as their standard, tanka secured its position as the sole literary form.
Due to this, the works of court poets—which appear to have persisted even through Nara’s zenith—barely regained momentum before passing into the hands of hedonistic literati.

The creation of new ōuta ceased as their ceremonial applications narrowed, but it became customary to compose new tanka as musical offerings for shrine deities during noble pilgrimages and vow fulfillments.
The Azuma-asobi songs exemplify this practice.
They came to be regarded as hymns, giving rise to a custom of offering songs without dance.
These hōraku songs grew increasingly prevalent as the Heian capital neared its twilight, flourishing alongside the popularity of Shinto ritual songs and Buddhist hymns while competing in sheer quantity.

For ritual dance pieces, a great number of alternative songs had to be prepared.

"The mountains of Ōhara and Oshio—today of all days must surely recall even the Age of the Gods." (*Kokinshū*, Volume 17)

This song too has come to be regarded as a pointed composition by Ariwara no Narihira, who accompanied Empress Nijō on her shrine pilgrimage.
However, I still consider this attribution to be legendary.
Even in that era, there existed a custom of presenting hōraku ritual dances, and what were originally mere ceremonial songs for divine play later became misinterpreted as contextual background for such poetry.
This practice of summoning authorized poets and nobles to perform ritual songs reveals lingering vestiges of court poets’ traditions.

Yakamochi died during the construction of the Nagaoka capital before the move to the Heian capital.
In his later years, he was posthumously implicated in a political scandal.
He was not pardoned until the reign of Emperor Heizei.
In his prime, Ōtomo no Yakamochi frequented the Music and Dance Bureau; after its dissolution (or perhaps even during its existence), there remained scripts from the Japanese Music and Dance Department—called the Ōutadokoro—which included inherited ōuta and folk song collections gathered under the ideal of *saifū* (folk-custom collection), miscellaneous anthologies by both renowned and obscure poets, and the Ōtomo Collection—a compilation that Yakamochi himself had largely gathered and organized materials for, here tentatively named as such.
It appears that during the reign of Emperor Heizei, these three broad categories of materials—the exchange and original poems of Yakamochi’s close relatives, associates, and acquaintances; the diverse poetic texts he collected himself and commissioned others to gather; and so forth—were brought together under the name *Man’yōshū*.
This emperor was deeply attached to Nara’s antiquated lifestyle, possessed strong passions, and left behind works (though their authenticity is questionable); thus, it becomes understandable that his imperial grandsons Yukihira and Narihira emerged.

IV. The Poems of the Six Poetic Immortals

Ariwara no Narihira’s life has been rendered so novelistic through *Ise Monogatari* that attempting to disentangle his biography from this legendary work proves impossible—the text has completely transmuted his existence into romance.
I maintain that works like *Youxianku*—which employed first-person narrative techniques from figures like Zhang Wencheng, Song Yu, and Deng Tuzi—along with late *Chu Ci*-derived erotic literature continued exerting influence beyond Nara-period nobles and scholars into Heian court culture.
Thus *Ise Monogatari* was likely composed with deliberate intent to present itself as Narihira’s autobiography.
While adopting third-person epic conventions and standardized prose narrative techniques, it reveals traces of exploiting auditory patterns inherited from epic recitation traditions.
This formulaic opening—“Once there was a man”—proved supremely effective precisely because narratives not attributed to specific acquaintances inevitably felt like autobiographical accounts, creating an atmosphere of artful pretense.

While Narihira’s life has come to be regarded as a prototype of Heian romantic pursuits (akin to later eras’ *suī*), had there been no involvement with Empress Nijō and Princess Sai—or were those mere legends—and had Prince Koretaka not been reduced to circumstances that inspired beautiful emotions in Narihira, would he have been remembered at all? I firmly disagree. Even were the legends of Ise and other tales behind Narihira’s poems to vanish entirely, he would endure through his poetry alone. His works differ from Yakamochi’s or Kurohito’s; they spring from a heart gazing at a solitary shadow faintly glowing before nature—projecting this outward to behold his own figure cast upon others’ hearts, lamenting a state where only a lonely shadow passes by even here. His tone inherits Yakamochi’s delicacy. Yet Narihira’s distinction lies not in organizing fact-based complexity into true simplicity, but in applying maximal lexical economy as his method. To grammar’s limits, he harnesses language’s shadows, adds melodic inflections, and crafts subtlety in form. He sought to systematize not tone, but the charm born from content-form interplay.

Therefore, in Narihira’s works, there are instances where he lingers on superfluous logic in pursuit of charm.

Is the moon not the same?
"Is this spring not the spring of old? / Only my body remains as it was." (*Kokinshū*, Volume 15)

In such cases, form ends up sacrificing essence.
When observing the unchanged visage of both moon and spring, one feels the oppressive force of rhetorical questions that amplify impressions while stripping away flexibility.
The carefree tone of the lower phrase—"Only my body remains as it was"—comes across as overly facile.
Not addressing the lover but speaking of oneself might have been permissible had the upper phrase’s formal inflections not been overburdened. Yet here, the inflections imposed upon the lower phrase’s content become insufferable.
Encountering this reversal method in such contexts renders even logical playfulness tedious.
Though his forms appear unconstrained and his conceits exhaust all modulations, the lingering resonance considered Narihira’s hallmark has vanished from both structure and substance.
The *Kokinshū* preface’s assessment by Tsurayuki—"overflowing heart but insufficient words"—ought rather be inverted as "overflowing words but insufficient fragrance."

Had he possessed a true comprehension of nature, the charm born from the interplay of scenes—combined with the grace of form—might have opened a path to genuine symbolic conception. Yet the “delicacy” of tone passed down from Kurohito to Akahito to Yakamochi, along with the faint yet soothing “charm,” remained unperfected even by him; it was only with Mibu no Tadamine that expressions slightly approaching this ideal emerged.
Even if some occasionally produced “charm” by happenstance, none could sustain such a state of mind.
As the Heian capital neared its twilight, those who consciously adopted such a mental state as their artistic stance began to appear.
Yet being shaped by Buddhist knowledge, this was not an authentic development of the “delicacy” that had manifested in the *Man’yōshū*.

Narihira was astonishingly unimpressed by nature.
Even his descriptive poems were either ones that entrusted felicitations to scenes from banquet revelries or ones that stirred a tempest of fascination through unexpected exaggerations and turns of phrase, sweeping along the hearts of those present in the moment.

Why, so early, does the moon retreat?
The mountain’s edge flees; would that it not bar entry! (*Kokinshū*, Volume 17)

Having hunted till nightfall, might I borrow lodging from the Weaver Maid?
To the banks of the Milky Way have I come (*Kokinshū*, Volume 9)

This becomes evident when examining such examples. They are sung without restraint. To push forth those words and shape the "heart" in one stroke cannot be achieved through wit alone. Therein lies the passion being squandered. During his lifetime, it must have been his banquet songs—their novelty in shattering conventional forms and their audacious tone—that stirred such commotion. One must consider that contemporary evaluations of Ariwara no Narihira's works extended beyond lyric poetry.

Ultimately, Ariwara no Narihira’s true value lay in his refinement of lyric poetry.
Even the lyrical poetry of the *Man’yōshū*—formed from elements such as the dramatic expressions of epic traditions, folk song-style exaggerated conceptions, and ritualistic inherited narrative methods—came to be evaluated under the preconception of ancient people’s simplicity in later eras that had forgotten these circumstances, its creative motives refined and unjustly overvalued.
Exchanges and dialogues of this sort also traced their lineage to the call-and-response of *utagaki* poetry gatherings, containing in excess all the elements peculiar to such interactions: nitpicking, evasion, ingratiating charm, and displays of affection.
There were many instances where one could not hastily conclude that the people involved were lovers simply because songs conceived of romance were exchanged.
Even now, the romantic sentiment that lingers in the exchange of writings between men and women is something with a long history.

When viewed in this light, it is a mistake to assert that the lives of Heian court ladies were in utter disarray based on their song lyrics. Even the *Man’yōshū* was no exception. It was only natural that later generations increasingly resorted to superficial artifices. While positioned between such poems before and after, Ariwara no Narihira’s works contained many earnest pieces even within these call-and-response-style poetic exchanges. There were even some where one could almost see the calculated effort to draw laughter from the other party. While they employed technical artifice, the very fact that such elements became visible revealed an oppressive heaviness, lacking the characteristic lightness expected of love poems. Moreover, poems that took love as their theme were markedly inferior in stature when compared to lyric verses actually given to lovers. He was, after all, an innately gifted man of passion. Even if his works contained portions that could not be unconditionally adopted by the standards that had gradually developed up to the present day, his love poems had come to possess a purity in attitude surpassing the majority of exchange poems in the *Man'yōshū*. Even his highly convoluted conceptions, following a rhythm common among the court noble class of his time, must have contributed significant force in advancing that tendency in Narihira. When compared side by side with poems by Minamoto no Tōru and Ono no Takamura, this work may have been of a new style, yet common elements could be discerned. In the works of the upper class, the rhythms of the *Man’yōshū* had not yet completely vanished. The effort to sustain a tone had manifested such grace in form.

The Six Poetic Immortals showed a transitional period between the *Man'yōshū* and *Kokinshū* in terms of form, yet leaned so heavily toward the latter that they might well be called Kokinshū-style overall. Among the six, Ono no Komachi stood most frequently discussed alongside Narihira, as public opinion attested. In her exchanges with men, she demonstrated in tone a flexible yet unyielding tenacity. The dissection of romantic psychology flourished around the Shin Kokinshū era, but Komachi had been its pioneer. Rather, it was a few poems that exerted profound influence on later poets who idolized Komachi—though these later works were not commendable. While Komachi’s pieces still retained lyric poetry’s vitality, subsequent works adopted a novelist-like attitude of observing life, departing from lyric poetry’s domain. Within the Komachi Collection exists one poem:

In the mountain village where evening cicadas sing, at dusk, there is none who comes to visit save the wind.

There exists a poem that states this, and if it were truly Komachi’s work, one might say she had begun to venture into the favorable aspects of the Kokinshū style.

Among the works believed to be by anonymous authors from around the time of the Six Poetic Immortals or the earliest years of the Heian capital—some of which even include pieces from the *Man'yōshū*—many of the most valuable within the *Kokinshū* were found.
The delicacy manifested in these songs deeply enveloped Yakamochi’s poetic realm within a soft and rich linguistic tone.

When I see the moonlight filtering through the trees, autumn—the season of heart’s toil—has arrived.

As the evening cicadas sang, the day has ended. He who thought this was in the mountain’s shadow.

Coming to each field where bush warblers sing and looking—upon the fading flowers, the wind does blow.

Such are the examples.
Komachi’s poem beginning with “save the wind” also exists in the *Kokinshū* as an anonymous work.
The “thickness” of the *Man'yōshū* ultimately found no inheritors.
Even after Mabuchi, who championed the *masurao-buri* (robust masculinity) style, there have been none who attempted such endeavors.
If it were merely a matter of elevating the tone, even among the poets of the late Heian and early Kamakura periods who emerged from Buddhist hymns, there are scattered instances.
Enhancing the tone does not lead to conceptions with thickness in the same manner as occurs with delicacy.

5. The Poetic Style of the Kokinshū

Among the *Kokinshū*’s authors, of the four compilers, Mibu no Tadamine appears to have possessed the foremost richness of natural talent.
Ki no Tsurayuki was a sort of reformer who had a talent for grasping essentials.
It also seems to have been his doing to craft prose—using a vernacular language that was beginning to take shape—into crisp, well-structured compositions with short paragraphs.
In poetry’s domain, he rendered the aristocratic style’s cumbersome tone and static content somewhat lighter and brighter.
They adopted Yamabe no Akahito’s approach as the path new poetry ought to take.
They did not seek “beauty” from nature itself but looked instead to places where phenomena resembling “beauty” existed.
They had positioned ideal “beauty” within paintings.
Yet these were compositions of ink drawings or colored picture scrolls—screen designs.
Nature was redrawn as ordinary pictorial patterns.
The nature that floated through their fantasies amounted merely to conventional types.
However, beyond such “beauty,” there existed no nature worthy of consideration.
The attitude toward depicting nature since Kurohito’s time cast not even a shadow upon their hearts.
They seem to have taken pride in their poetic tone.
A serenity both bright and lightly taut, smooth and refreshingly clean—this became the rhythm that seized their new poetry’s vital core.

The tendency to take excessive interest in the relationship between seasonal transitions and natural changes was already apparent in Volumes 8 and 10 of the *Man'yōshū*, but passion had been well resolved.
After the *Kokinshū*, many works emerged that took excessive interest in the contradictions between calendar dates and natural phenomena, entrusting immature conceptions to a bright tone.
Even when examining lyric poems, what the compilers aimed for was to sing of unadorned emotions in that characteristic tone without constraint.
Finding amusement in states of mind detached from life was the "beauty" that adorned their existence.
Ki no Tsurayuki’s poems took on the exact form of their ideal.
From such an attitude, there was no reason for good works to emerge.
Ki no Tsurayuki’s poems were renowned in name only, lacking substance to match.

Tadamine alone stood among their ranks, producing works of considerable worth without significantly deviating from their tenets.
The “delicacy” seen in anonymous poets’ verses was clearly incorporated into his work—though admittedly, such an approach could not help but yield inferior pieces too.
Yet given that Tadamine left deeply impressive poems through this method, we perceive the richness of his innate talent.

Ultimately, one might say the *Kokinshū* drew its thread from the *Man’yōshū*’s delicacy.
This development manifested in two forms:
one that properly nurtured delicacy,
and another that pursued Akahito-style elegance through themes and tones favored by their age.
The latter constituted the *Kokinshū*’s orthodox style—first and foremost a literary stance.
Yet true value lay instead in the former approach, where quiet passion broke through technical constraints.
Moreover, during this period, women’s poetry too charted a different course,
inheriting the ethos of exchange poetry predating the *Man’yōshū* while blending it with the desiccated playfulness intrinsic to court ladies’ lives.

Thus, the poetic style known as *Kokinshū* came into being.
Thus was tanka at last established as literature, its essence having largely taken shape.
From this point onward, there remained only the meager temporal struggles of later poets who proceeded with absolute trust in what the *Kokinshū* compilers had established.

In the Gosenshū, one could still discern a competitive awareness toward the Kokinshū.
When we come to the Shūishū, traces of having begun to idealize the Kokinshū became visible here and there.
In the Goshūishū, an impasse had begun to appear.
It was an era that might be called the zenith of courtly and ladies-in-waiting lifestyles; even as male literary motivation had dulled, both prose and tanka came to be wielded with freedom.
Even when confined to exchanges or love poems, their sensibility had become refined.
Yet this assessment holds only in broad terms—when considering each poem individually, one cannot help but feel desolate.
Izumi Shikibu stands out among them.
She strikes one as even more passionate than Komachi.

6. The People Who Contributed to Tanka Reform

Sone no Yoshitada, with his keen wild sensitivity, was particularly quick to detect the ossification of tanka.
And as an escape from that stagnation, he attempted to alter methods of expression, laboring over words and phrasing.
From this approach emerged vividly impressive works that seemed fresh at first glance.
Yet he failed to attend to matters of true substance or the conception of aesthetic essence.
However, in his better works—perhaps unconsciously—the characteristic "delicacy" manifests sufficiently.
History shows this pattern repeating: whenever tanka rigidifies, reformers try reviving it through novel vocabulary.
Next came the practice of incorporating rare materials—or rather specific nouns—in localized contexts.
These came to be called "poetic place names," though they served not as foundational themes but merely as rhetorical stimulants.

At this juncture, there emerged in Heian-kyō a person who appeared to be an artistic genius in the broadest sense. This was Minamoto no Tsunenobu, the Major Counselor of Katsura. He was said to have attained mastery of all literary and artistic fields of his time. In biwa especially, he founded the Katsura school. “A gentleman is not a vessel,” as the saying goes—yet the intuitive power of genius also served to rescue talent from narrow specialization. The works of his that survive today remain far too few. To assess his talent from this meager legacy feels almost pitiful. But there exist works of penetrating individuality—a sensibility impervious to happenstance.

Opening the morning door—how desolate it is to behold.
Snow touching the broad leaves of an oak by the hill (*Senzaishū*)

Stretched and protected, the sacred rope bends—until at last the autumn wind does blow.
"Koyamada’s Hermitage" (*Shoku Kokinshū*)

The latter was composed in Katsura Village, but the instability in its four or five successive lines showed it was not fully committed to realism.
The tension in just two or three lines suggested a strength born of contemplative focus.
When we turn to the previous poem, we find the delicacy fully developed.
While the oak tree might reflect the author’s misunderstanding—given his mention of "broad leaves"—he was not surveying a grove but focusing on part of a single tree.
I believe there must have been more such instances.
That even a poem like this does not appear in Tsunenobu’s personal collection but is found solely in the *Senzaishū* leaves room for such conjecture.
Indeed, Tsunenobu had many poems of novel inventiveness, which were likely considered his true forte.

O mountain keeper!
The sound of the axe rings out loudly.
O crimson leaves on the peak—display them splendidly! (*Kin'yōshū*)

In the deep mountains—this morning it emerged.
On the traveler’s hat—pure white—snow keeps piling up (*Shin Kokinshū*)

(From his personal collection: ...fields... snow kept falling)

The setting sun shone—the traveler on Asajigahara Plain: Ah, where would he find lodging? (*Shin Kokinshū*)

The water conduit in the mountain rice fields where seedlings were taken had filled.
On the stretched sacred rope—dew spilled (*Shin Kokinshū*).

Ōi River—the rocky waves ran high.
O rafters!
At the bank’s crimson leaves—let them blaze crimson! (*Kin'yōshū*)

Among these, numbers 1 and 5 were forerunners of late Heian inventive poetry; though distinct from the *Kokinshū* tradition, they did not represent the correct path.
The third poem also followed a style that had many imitators, yet it had not lost its charm.
However, *aware* mixed in impure elements that could not be fully assimilated.
Unable to maintain objectivity, it expressed a petty self.
This might have been due to the influence of Buddhist hymns or similar works.
This poem and the fourth one appeared crafted, but on the whole had advanced in the right direction, leaving behind excellent models for imitators after the Kamakura period.

The inlet of Mishimae’s wild rice.
When rain falls, the tide swells all the more—yet there are no reapers to be found (*Shin Kokinshū*).

It was not realism, but in terms of aesthetic essence, it stood complete.
While this poem and “Opening the morning door—how desolate it is to behold: / Snow touching the broad leaves of an oak by the hill” differed in style, they shared a common delicacy, tranquility, and warmth.

Tonight, gazing upon the moon over my Katsura Village—is there anything left undone in my heart? (*Kin'yōshū*)

I shall take solace in the scattering blossoms.
Sugawara and Fushimi Village’s rock azaleas—having seen them (*Tsunenobu Collection*)

However, when we come to this poem, the poetic voice seems somewhat hollow in tone.
While pathological, there was a kind of simplification at play.
Such aspects likely stemmed from his unique qualities that set him apart from others.
It was Priest Saigyō who adopted Tsunenobu's poetic style in its entirety—both its strengths and weaknesses.

Shunzei too had targeted that poetic sentiment, consciously incorporating it under this person's influence.
I believe Tsunenobu contained within him the seeds of both *Senzaishū* and *Shin Kokinshū* poetic styles.

The second figure in tanka innovation to emerge after Yoshitada was Toshiyori, the son of Tsunenobu.
Compared to Yoshitada, the era itself had grown more entrenched in its rigidity, making his attempts all the bolder.
Poetic place names were incorporated not merely rhetorically but holistically.
As a result, poetry fell into markedly epic tendencies.
He freely adopted elements from folk legends, creating a flavor akin to haikai poetry.
Indeed, he particularly favored renga's comedic aspects.
While he gave considerable stimulus to tanka, he ultimately maintained an attitude incompatible with its essence.
The new materials he delighted in led to the later refinement of seasonal themes through renga and haikai.
To that extent, his style proved effective in establishing renga and haikai.
At the dawn of the Kamakura period, tanka and renga became opposing forces—ushin versus mushin—and by the Muromachi era, renga and haikai sensibilities, now clearly positioned as literary rivals to tanka, gained transformative momentum through his efforts.
However, even when evaluating his works as tanka, I find myself valuing them more highly than their contemporary reputation.

The one who preserved the old style against Toshiyori was Fujiwara no Mototoshi.
In terms of natural talent, it seems he could not match Toshiyori after all.
He opposed Toshiyori through his knowledge of tanka.
The extent of his knowledge, comprehension, and assimilation concerning the *Man'yōshū*—which he advocated as his foundation—was extremely precarious.
Apart from quoting one or two lines from the *Man'yōshū*, the Man'yō style does not emerge at all.
In his poems, the proper influence of the *Man'yōshū* can scarcely be seen.
Ironically, it is rather in Toshiyori’s works that one occasionally finds the vigor of the *Man'yōshū* emerging.
But the reason such Man'yōshū-ism came to be embraced was that it was an era when tanka sought academic foundations.
This opposition was, in any case, a spectacle in the history of tanka during the late Heian period.
And it was Shunzei who is said to have emerged by synthesizing the influences of these two figures while also inheriting other traditions of poetic studies from elsewhere.
From this perspective as well, one must examine the poetic styles of these two.

As I have stated before, women’s poetry—for better or worse—occupied a unique domain in tanka history; however, it was not until the twilight of Heian-kyo that this poetry shed its exchange-based practices and became fully literary.

Centered around Michinaga’s zenith, among the ladies-in-waiting who propelled Heian literary attitudes forward, those of somewhat antiquated disposition remained with tanka, while groups advancing into the modern style showed a tendency to turn toward tales and diaries.
Among those skilled in ladies-in-waiting poetry, there were two distinct types.
One was the passionate individual who produced things of genuine value.
One was one who adeptly handled poetic exchanges appropriate to each occasion, leaving behind a lingering sense of pathos through indirect and nuanced expression, while also possessing the wit to swiftly compose verses.
Therefore, even if the latter made people of their time feel their artistry, many works lacked universality and remained incomprehensible to later generations.
Even so, they were permitted as poets.
In contrast to the poets of the former type who remained confined to poetry, the latter ladies-in-waiting advanced into prose interwoven with numerous poems—often embellished with tales and diaries—and wrote stylized compositions replete with quoted poems, historical allusions, and pivot words.

7. Poems of Real Life

The protagonist of tales was naturally depicted in a writing style suggestive of real-life models. Among the principal female characters assigned to them, a narrative tendency that cast a thick shadow of the author herself seemed to permeate these works. This fact became particularly pronounced in diaries. Diaries existed not merely as records of ladies-in-waiting’s court duties but even took forms resembling treasuries of knowledge and compendiums of rhetoric, stemming from their roles as precedent books and allusion collections. Moreover, they also began to serve as personal life records. Among such examples emerged works adopting the poem-tale format of the *Ise Monogatari* lineage, giving rise to a trend of poignantly documenting the creative motivations behind one’s exchange poems and introspective tanka.

In such examples, the embellishment was so pronounced that one might even think they had been written by someone else. In many cases, being unable to maintain objectivity toward events, they ended up embellishing and exaggerating facts while writing themselves, crafting them into a story-like form.

Moreover, it was an era when gentlemen and ladies were idealized for their awareness of *mono no aware* and their cherishing of romance—that is, for handling male-female relationships in an admirable manner. Thus, those who wrote these lyrical diaries navigating between fiction and record—along with their writings—were celebrated within court life. This attitude had also permeated into tanka collections. In the prefaces that appear in ladies-in-waiting poetry collections—while those by later generations go without saying—we must consider that the authors’ own embellishments and stylistic polish are intermingled. I feel a sense of danger in attempting to extract personal biographies from poetry collections of the mid-Heian period and later—particularly those by ladies-in-waiting. In prefaces where they vied in *aware*, there must certainly have been those who imbued even casual poetic exchanges with significance. As I have mentioned before, beginning with Izumi Shikibu’s poetry collection, such hues are visible to a greater or lesser extent.

What naturally arose here was the refinement of literary motives.
The ability to reproduce impressions or materialize fantasies progressed alongside immediate technical efforts.
While becoming epic and leaning more toward description than psychological expression, Japanese lyric poetry—which had traversed a troubled path since its inception—nonetheless found its breakthrough through the course charted by Narihira and Komachi.
The works of passionate artists like Izumi Shikibu indeed contained no shortage of masterpieces that swept away impurities at once.
They turned toward discovering elements worthy of beautification from their inner lives.
However, I think that the true perspective on ladies-in-waiting poetry collections was to savor them in their entirety as narrative linked collections.

Thus developed ladies-in-waiting poetry and the lyric poetry influenced by it came to achieve meticulous realism of emotion. These were poems themed on love from the late Heian and early Kamakura periods, represented by Shunzei’s Daughter and Princess Shikishi. Yet even in these works, through moods partially radiating from individual words or phrases, technique was built up to create supple, tenacious beauty with lingering persistence. Through this approach, they sought to layer mood effects atop narrative-style expressions. They were utilizing to the utmost both the associative power of phrases and the resilient elasticity of phonetics. However—unlike methods that layered illusions through pivot words, associated terms, pillow words, preface poems, and allusive variation—this conceptual resilience emerging from within marked a positive trend.

The bamboo hut leaning into leaf-scattering mountains—a lodging place that should never be buried. (Taikenmon-in Horikawa)

This method of conception, grounded in the refinement of tanka, drew out sentiments favored by women poets from their phrases and bathed each poem in them.
In Yorimasa and Saigyō as well, such real life sometimes abruptly surfaced and disrupted the harmony.

Everyone, invited to today’s snow outing—there are none who follow the vanished traces. (Horikawa)

The "everyone" in this poem approaches a colloquial mode of conception derived from real life.
The modern language sensibilities cultivated from the new trends of Yoshitada and Toshiyori, the poems of monastic circles, and linked verse were employed in lyrical songs of the late Heian period—primarily those in the "personal reflection" style—but this too was but a passing fashion and ceased to be used outside Buddhist circles.

Consider this.
I who view the flowers—startled to find there are still those who watch me. (Yorimasa)

The renga sensibility was blatantly apparent, but the faint echo of real life could be heard.
Following Yorimasa, the emergence of warrior-class poets like Saigyō and Shun’nō into prominence was partly due to the era’s rising samurai influence, but also because their themes and perspectives—somewhat unbound by convention—were prized.
What elevated Yorimasa’s reputation was that elements such as the intensified pictorial patterns in Toshinobu’s lineage and the fresh impression of thematic poems employing picture-word associations had ridden the crest of such trends.

Even Saigyō possessed such elements: a chaotic flavor of real life, haikai-esque wit, colloquial modes of conception, and thematic poems. From that constrained crucible, what enabled Saigyō to break free was the tenacity of ladies-in-waiting poetry, his understanding of life’s manifold aspects gained through pilgrimage asceticism, and a universal view of existence arising from immersion in solitude. In Saigyō as seen through his poetry, Buddhist influence lay more deeply embedded than people generally perceived. On the contrary, compared to the court nobles of the time—the late Heian and early Kamakura periods—who produced formulaic Buddhist hymns and praises, he demonstrated an unconfined state of existence. This may also have been because he was not part of Buddhist academic institutions. However, I consider the primary cause to be that from this period onward—excepting the final two centuries of the warrior era—they began to emerge and live in a manner approximating the lives of hermits who had traditionally formed the class inheriting literary and Japanese classical studies. The fact that tanka and Japanese classical studies were transmitted to regional warrior families dated from around this time. The *sabi* of content and *shiori* of form—nearly perfected by Saigyō and propelled by Bashō into haikai—were in fact the “refinement” achieved through imitation of ladies-in-waiting poetry. This is why Saigyō’s melancholy sentiment possessed melodic variation and resilience rather than the *sabi* of haikai.

Among the causes that drew out this refinement, some remained unaccounted for. This was the power of atmosphere—the influence of Kyoto’s literary establishment at the time. To hastily conclude that this refinement emerged because the melancholy sentiment notably seen in Toshinobu had merged with the Buddhist essence pervading the court nobles’ fashionable religious zeal and their compositions of Buddhist hymns and ritual songs would be unwarranted. However, from such lived realizations during this period, they distorted and elaborated upon the doctrines of “all phenomena lacking inherent existence” (*muyū mujisō*) and “the oneness of all things” (*shomotsu ichinyo*),

Even to this heartless body,
the pathos of things was made known.
The marsh where snipes take flight
on an autumn evening (Saigyō)

When I gaze out, neither blossoms nor crimson leaves remain.
The thatched hut by the inlet on an autumn evening (Teika)

The momentum for producing works like these had been brewing.
This was a problematic tendency, yet still a form of simplification.

The practice of critics emerging with each imperial anthology was said to have been pioneered by Toshinobu in the Goshūishū—an early instance of what would become perennial thereafter.
This critical tradition likely originated from debates at Heian-kyō’s earliest *uta-awase* gatherings—or perhaps even earlier—where discussions became formalized into poetic rules and theories before escalating into critiques of imperial anthology compilers’ editorial stances.
Among poets too emerged those who compiled tanka’s historical development, stylistic theories, and classical references into scholarly systems.
The rise of poetic studies like Arihito’s Rokujō school tradition and the establishment of poetry masterships followed naturally.
From his son Kiyosuke and Akiakira onward emerged distinct academic qualities.

Japanese texts becoming subjects of scholarly study began with the *Nihon Shoki*, followed by the *Man'yōshū* receiving ancient and later annotations, and by the late Heian period, *Genji* emerged as an object of research. Shunzei and others were pioneers of Genji studies. Navigating through these developments, poetic studies gradually took shape. As for the beginnings of poetic studies, starting from investigations of ancient matters centered on the *Kokinshū*, they extended their reach to older sources like the *Man'yōshū* and newer ones such as post-*Gosenshū* texts and poetic place names, gradually taking shape as Japanese studies. However, because rhetorical theories and impure stylistic theories became entangled, it could not easily be established as a scholarly discipline. Thus, the fact that scholarly theories became entangled with creative approaches becomes evident in late Heian tanka.

The perception of mysticism in tanka had existed since ancient times, but for Shunzei, each poetic work was to be composed as an offering of gratitude. This act became, for him, the sole path to repay the Buddha’s grace. He was a man who emptied himself and devoted himself to poetry. Thus, in his poems lay repose and luminous resignation.

When compiling the *Senzai Wakashū*, upon seeing the poems of those from antiquity:

"In times to come, will any remember me?"
Through the heart’s habit of recalling the past (*Shin Kokinshū*)

To be sure, he composed poems harboring ambition in abundance, but with age, he gradually came to compose in a calmer, plainer style.
It is precisely where more passion ought to emerge.

While pondering how to speak and how to mourn, my heart grew weary, and spring too came to an end. (*Gyokuyō*)

Without being constrained, he had exhaustively described it all. However, the passion was lost. These were poems of a sort—unrestrained yet lacking heartfelt rhythm—common among monk poets of the early modern period. Yet to materialize such tones, they had spent their long lives—rare in tanka history—for literature and through it, for Buddhism. These poems must have approached the colloquial rhythms of their time. The poetic realm of “As Evening Falls,” which he himself deemed a self-praised poem, was a conceptual work intermingled with ambition in this style; only its upper verse merited selection. It was too carried away by its own momentum, yet retained a youthful vigor.

But the very poem he himself rejected—

In vestiges, arranging the forms of flowers, / having crossed countless layers.
Peak’s White Snow (Shinchokusenshū)

Indeed, from Shunzei’s perspective, this poem belonged to his earlier period.
It was a contrivance.
But the impression clearly emerged.

As evening falls, the autumn wind over the fields seeps into the body, and quails cry.
Fukakusa no Sato (Deep Grass Village) (Senzai)

As for the latter, the impression remained vague and wavering.
Neither melancholy sentiment nor gentle ease was visible.
This must have been Shunzei’s second type of representative conception.
The world nevertheless cherished the "in vestiges" tendency and gravitated toward it.
The Shin Kokinshū poetic circles must have developed through repeated expansions, taking this poem and others as their starting point.

Shunzei remained as an elder of poetic circles even into the early Kamakura period.
Yet even as the simplicity of his poems approached that of four-line hymns (Ryojin Hisho-style), among the younger generation there arose changes—not so much remarkable as dizzyingly rapid—that continued unabated.

VIII. The Poetic Style of Shin Kokinshū

For the executive compilers of the Shin Kokinshū, those who served as their seniors were largely leading monastic lives.
Shunzei, Saigyō, Jien, Jakuren, Jakunen—the elements drifting among these monks and lay practitioners naturally inclined toward those arising from the ascetic lives of Saigyō, Jakuren, Jakunen, and others.
They set identical phrases in opening and closing lines to demonstrate over a dozen variations—Saigyō’s “Deep in the mountains…”, Jakunen’s “…Ohara Village”, Jien’s “…Sumiyoshi Deity”—crafting inventive approaches through uniform opening/closing phrases. Such techniques revealed their artifice.
Shiga’s Karasaki—the spring scenery of the mountain at its base (Jien)—it was these monastic practitioners who engaged in such pastime diversions.
And as they comforted one another, works taking real life as their subject emerged.
In these works, they came to exchange expressions of nature’s solitude and worldly tedium with one another, fusing tanka’s inherent refinement with Buddhist practitioners’ emotional tenor.
Thus they gradually assumed a form molded by Eastern thought’s distinctive patterns—simple yet vigorous, calm and profound.

The refinement in tanka was not originally a crystallization of hardships arising from ascetic monastic practices.
Left to its own devices yet surging dynamically to move and seize the heart—it was the shadow of an instant.
This was not a state of mind attainable only by those leading particular lifestyles, but a resonance that arose even from ordinary people's satiation.
The refinement perfected through figures like Saigyō had emerged in slightly distorted form.
The later literary and artistic disciplines—which heavily incorporated Chinese literary influences from Zen monks of Kyoto and eastern Japan's Five Mountains during the Kamakura-Muromachi periods—inevitably expanded Saigyō's poetic realm and fully transformed refinement into a sabi grounded in mature fortitude.
Yet in tanka—whether of Edo or Meiji—none were troubled by sabi.
Nevertheless, there were frequent cases where this distorted refinement had to be regarded as poetry's very essence.
I wish to declare: Return to the anonymous songs of Kokinshū, revert to Yakamochi of Man'yōshū, and recover Kurohito's refinement.

The poems of monastic poets spanning these two eras exhibited refinement in moments of such occasional exchanges of inquiry and the soliloquies derived from them. Aside from these, the rest were generally nothing but astonishingly raucous works. Since the Nara period, monastic poets' works had remained archaic, far removed from the court’s popular modes of expression, blending prose rhythms and even incorporating colloquial elements. A later figure like Myōe stood out as a prime example of this. Hymns and Buddhist hymns as well, following irregular rhythms derived from Chinese terms and phonetics, disrupted the national literary style. These traits were found even among monastic poets, but when nobles composed songs extolling Buddhist scriptures, they exhibited these mannerisms with particular prominence. This transposed the cadences of hymns from liturgical recitations into tanka, so older works displayed relatively few of these quirks. In works of this later period—not only when composing Japanese-style hymns for Buddhist scriptures but also in matters related to Buddhists and even in secular poems—they came to prefer incorporating such linguistic cadences.

Cuckoo.
Summon forth the people of this fleeting world.
Enter deep into the mountains.
Contemplating the Buddhist Path – Yakushō (*Gesshōshū*)

At times, when [it] excels, it becomes the people’s lament.
Eight Great Dragon Kings.
“O rain, cease” (Sanetomo)

These works also incorporated Buddhist terms into the national literary style, though these are extreme examples.
They are such bold attempts that they could even be regarded as part of renga.

During the *Kin'yō* and *Shika* eras, the creative impetus for tanka dulled, and renga seems to have reached a state where it may have gained prominence even before the Muromachi period.
Even as poetics and poetic theories grew clamorous, the literary production class began to lose interest in tanka.
In any case, it was Shunzei’s efforts that revived it.
The emergence of poets from warrior houses and monastic circles likely signified the circumstances under which tanka was seeking to depart from the court nobility.

The Senzai Collection was, in any case, an anthology that gathered and displayed the transition of poetic styles from the mid-Heian period onward in one place.
One faction grew exceedingly complex, while people of another faction stated nothing but mere commonplaces.
Here, both the new and old factions of the previous generation stood shoulder to shoulder.
Moreover, it made visible the representative poetic styles of contemporaries like Shunzei and Saigyō, and even included works by those who had impatiently awaited the imminent Shin Kokinshū era.

In the Shin Kokinshū era, the fact that court ladies were beginning to lose their literary prowess was immediately noticeable. Even those like Miyanouchi-kyō, who had been called talented women, lingered at the starting point of the Shin Kokinshū era. Though possessing talent, they seemed unable to achieve transformation. These foundations coincided precisely where this court lady wielded her skill. She dynamically reimagined the pictorial comparisons established since Tsunenobu’s time. Those who sought to beautify the pictorial surface made that their aim, attempting through it to demonstrate variation in the beauty of colored paintings. It was a quiet harmony of shifting scenery and temporal progression. In all things, they aimed for unexpected discoveries of beauty. They attempted to dynamize static beauty, transform the mundane through inventive approaches, and strike at beauty itself.

However, in such works, an unease emerged where contradictions and distortions came to light—the result of fixating too intently on core natural transformations. Were one to substitute pictorial styles with ukiyo-e, it would mirror the wit of a *senryū* verse like “Winter fields resemble grated wasabi.” This approach premised fantastical exaggeration upon what ought to be sensory reality. Even when beauty captivates the heart, its foundation remains the “self” that reshapes nature. And even without exaggeration, styles extracting phenomena akin to artifice from nature lacked refinement; such works faltered because they were mere fantasy.

Among them were even those that relied on a single rhetorical flourish to feign novelty.

Yoshitsune's Early Works

As the Hira mountain wind blows through blooming cherries,
gusting onward,
the waves at Shiga’s shore turn into flowers.

Miyanouchi-kyō’s “The mountain wind of Hira that lures the blossoms has blown—until the wake of a rowing boat fades from sight” (*Shin Kokinshū*) likely influenced Yoshitsune’s work in turn, but this interest stemmed from the rhetorical balance between its fourth and fifth lines—their value lay precisely in how they depicted imaginary scenes. Within *Shin Kokinshū*, this style still persisted elsewhere.

Judging from these examples,

Having presented the flower’s form as a vestige, they crossed through layers.
*White Clouds on the Peak* (*Shinchokusenshū*)

Shunzei’s approach here made little impression through form yet gained potency precisely by entangling itself in mood.
Despite containing more elements of fantasy than the former, it seldom imparted an uneasy impression.
Such natural descriptions imbued with sentiment—having swept away fantasy and grown robustly—became the mainstream of later Gyokuyō and Fūga poetry.
The *Shin Kokinshū* was meant to swiftly reach those two anthologies but diverged instead.

During the Shin Kokinshū era, too many people richly endowed with literary talent gathered.
The atmosphere was far too dense.
Expression methods and techniques acutely influenced each other.
As methods of appreciation steadily shifted, they could no longer keep their poetic styles unchanged.
The conventions governing both content and form rapidly evolved, leaving those outside the circle behind.
A new technique by one individual emerged too swiftly to be called mere imitation; it permeated the creative motives of others.

The floating bridge of a spring night’s dream breaks off—

Mist rises at Suenomatsuyama—
Faintly, waves form in the sky’s horizontal clouds (Ietaka).

The phrases "...ni...ruru Yokogumo no Sora" are, rhythmically speaking, a unified entity.
Undoubtedly, one cadence must have stimulated an author's inner compositional principles, compelling them to unify the entire poem.
It can be said that the works of Miyanouchi-kyō and Yoshitsune from earlier times also struck creative impulses—whether immediately or after an interval—through their potent impressions, thereby fostering similar conceptual approaches.
From individual words and phrases to entire poetic modes, these spread contagiously among practitioners.
Trends in diction and semantic shifts proliferated rapidly within literary circles.
Consequently, aberrant methods of conception emerged abundantly and swiftly matured.
The clinging lyrical sentiment found in poems of the "vestige" variety would become indistinguishable between spring verses and love poems if pushed just one step further.

Indeed, the method of conception rooted in lingering scenes—passed down from the epic era—imparted a distinctive mood to the tanka form. Those that lent power to it were pillow words, prefaces, pivot words, associated words, and allusive variations. There could be no doubt that where the Shin Kokinshū compilers had exerted their greatest effort was in "love poems." Their most refined techniques became evident in that section. How might they layer multiple shadows within words and render phantoms fragrantly? How could they deepen mood effects and evoke the lingering sentiment of passionate attachment? This became their fixation—disregarding genuine emotion to prioritize elegance. Works taking love beyond mere exchange as their subject, these vigorous compositions were largely boudoir laments. Since Shunzei's time, research on *The Tale of Genji* for tanka composition had borne fruit.

The love poems of female poets, attempting to express how poignant and how uncommonly urgent the feelings were, fell into psychological dissection yet still sang from personal experience. However, the mainstream works of *Shin Kokinshū* stood utterly detached from their authors, adopting the stance of novelists who sought to project onto poems the traces of narrative women. They endeavored to atmospherically convey such women’s inner states by intertwining them with external natural scenery—some approaching symbolism rather than metaphor. Yet all sought to merge the illusory images hovering between mind and matter through language’s rhetorical effects. The point where they failed to perfectly coalesce had not yet become metaphor; it was precisely this unresolved tension that drove them toward effects resembling symbolism.

IX. Yūgen Style

However, this so-called Yūgen-style conception did not originate with the *Shin Kokinshū*; it was the systematized result of gradual accumulations from earlier eras. In "love poems," those with particularly complex content gradually increased in number. If it were a spacious, classical emotion, one could fold it into a single poem with the aid of pillow words and such. But even when equally complex, the sharpened life sentiments of the present age could not be expressed through such rhetorical methods. Therefore, among the ladies-in-waiting’s “love poems,” many adopted a direct mode of expression. However, by cramming excessive content into thirty-one syllables through technical skill—while the conceptual twists in their conception were intriguing—there were also elements whose significance proved difficult to grasp. The suggestive effects that can be felt from those poems are numerous.

Since these lady-in-waiting poems emerged from such origins and their expressions were distant from real life, it must also be acknowledged as a partial truth that they came to employ every possible shadow and phantom of language. Furthermore, another factor was that by the late Heian period, the oracular songs of deities and Buddhas—though over half proved incomprehensible—nonetheless broadly encompassed and frequently evoked a sense of mystical profundity. These influences, combined with it being an era that re-examined anew the mystical relationship between poetry and deities/Buddhas, may have been circumstances that led them to realize such hyper-descriptive effects.

The method of conception born from love poems spread to other domains and established what was considered the mainstream of the *Shin Kokinshū* style; yet upon examination today, one finds that such poems prove relatively few, and it becomes clear they were guided solely by criteria of—beyond their tense rhythm—possessing melodic turns that save them from monotony.

In the shifting clouds, a storm's voice arises.
Will they scatter—the *masaki* of Mount Katsuragi? (Yoshitsune)

Indeed, their technical merits remain appreciable.
But through this, the phrase "Will they scatter—the *masaki*..." lost its grounding.
Particularly, the effect of "Will they scatter" grew unmoored.
Even among works of matching excellence—

Under the ailanthus blooming outside, dew falls; a wind sweeps through as the May rains clear (Tadayoshi).

And yet, such splendid poems do exist.

When rhythmic tension emerged as a concern in the *Shin Kokinshū* era—might this not have owed something, however slight, to *Man’yōshū* influence? Altering rhythm held more intrinsic significance than attempting tanka reform through new vocabulary or lyrics. Yet they never contemplated reviving the *Man’yōshū*'s vigor to breathe new life into tanka. That fine examples scatter among pure descriptive poems cannot be ascribed solely to developments post-Tsunenobu. Even with Saigyō—

The grasses of Nomose Field flicker and waver; coolly darkening, the evening shower sky (*Shin Kokinshū*).

There existed splendid sketch-style poems devoid of such contrivances that also refrained from exposing lyrical sentiment.
I believe that unless we account for the influence—both direct and indirect—exerted by seasonal poems in volumes like eight and ten of the *Man'yōshū*, which exhibit tendencies akin to the *Kokinshū*, certain aspects of this trajectory would remain obscure.

Within the poetic style of the *Shin Kokinshū*, I maintain that one cannot disregard the *Man'yōshū*'s impact upon both rhythmic structure and descriptive approach.
Even their compilers' comprehension of the *Man'yōshū* appears to have been rudimentary at best.
Yet another external influence affecting the whole must be considered.
During the *Shin Kokinshū* era, its compilers and their circle also engaged with renga and haikai poetry.
Renga flourished as a novel interest, with numerous compositions surviving from this period.
In renga and subsequent haikai, what stood out in poetic phrasing was the tautness inherent in closing verses.
This constituted the organic dynamism of language.
Moreover, it embodied a state of inseparable-yet-independent linkage.
One might assert that such influences cultivated this anthology's poets' "merits," yielding an agile concatenation of phrases alongside conceptions permeated by imperfectly realized significance that faintly resonates.

After all, this was due to their overly aloof posturing and immersion in aestheticism.
They persisted in their hedonistic attitude and delved ever deeper into profundity.
However, when viewed from another perspective, it was likely the anticipation that the time for tanka’s essential completion—which had already been set in motion around this period—was drawing near that drove these poetic geniuses to anxiously pursue its concretization.

Among successive emperors, Emperor Go-Toba demonstrated first-rate literary talent.
As a poet, he was undoubtedly worthy of being ranked first.
He might have possibly excelled even Teika and Ietaka—indeed, more than any of the *Shin Kokinshū* compilers.
However, His Majesty himself appeared to have known it all too well.
As an excess of this, His Majesty’s preferences manifested too prominently in the *Shin Kokinshū*.
Many of these techniques appeared to have been acquired from renga.

When I gaze out—the foothills haze at Minase River.
Evening as autumn—why must they have thought it so? (*Shin Kokinshū*)

The method of appending this closing verse was entirely that of renga. Both the tautness of form and the deftness of phrasing bore many hallmarks of the renga tradition.

The evening smoke of brushwood burned in moments of remembrance.
Choking yet delightful—for its unforgettableness (*Shin Kokinshū*)

This sort of tautness in style somehow carried a renga-esque sensibility. Yet even while ensnared by these mesmerizing techniques, the surviving works included no small number of pieces possessing literary value. These were poets who combined passion and technique, but regrettably, technique triumphed. In works that seemed born of surrendered passion, conversely, one found excellent compositions.

Yoshitsune too, like the Retired Emperor, was one plagued by the literary attitudes of their time. Yoshitsune was born with abundant natural talent, yet he ended up failing to develop it straightforwardly. His personal poetry collection *Akishino Gesseishū* revealed traces of songs composed without constraint in an intriguing manner. He was not as much of a passionate person as the Retired Emperor. He made various attempts, but in this collection, no traces of intensely motivated creative impulse were visible. It even appeared as though he composed verses in a rather facile mood. Yet he occasionally intermingled poems of resolute elegance. The *Gesseishū* was, so to speak, his apprenticeship collection.

10. Personal Collections and Compiled Anthologies

Not only did Sanetomo maintain a diction reminiscent of the *Senzaishū*—slightly lagging behind the capital’s contemporary poetic trends—but when considering the literary world of that time through the lens of his achievement in faithfully reproducing the *Man’yō* style up to a certain point, one discerned a temporal shift in how the *Man’yōshū* was approached.
From one of my analytical perspectives, the reason why the influence of the *Man’yōshū* did not directly reach tanka also becomes clear.
During the era when the Kokin style was established as tanka’s orthodox form, the Man’yō style may have been perceived as possessing a certain lightness and contrary elegance.
Even in modern times, among the *Man’yōshū*, what has always been readily favored are works close to real life—comic poems or their kin, improvised songs—which, for aestheticists, evoke a vulgar humor far too overt.
Those like Mabuchi, who took volumes one and two of the *Man’yōshū* as their foundation, are exceptions; however, mere Man’yō-style poets often apply the Man’yō style to things that are neither human sorrow nor resignation, neither a frivolous mood nor an optimistic attitude.
Thereby, they exhibit a self-awareness that their lifestyle sentiment clearly differs from others.

Similar things could be said of the late Heian and early Kamakura periods—the era when *Kokinshū*-style Tanka became firmly established.
The style and rhythms of the *Man’yōshū* were likely viewed from the perspective of this period as something that stimulated the taste for *renga* and *haikai* poetry.
As emerging *renga* formulated codified regulations (*shikimoku*) and developed literary theories, it seems plausible that they established the *Man’yōshū* as their foundation in the position held by the *Kokinshū* within Tanka.
It was a time when Tanka poets and *renga* poets had not yet specialized and diverged into separate fields.
Were there not people living reclusive lives who both composed and taught Tanka and *renga*, and might it not be the influence gained from such individuals?
I think that Sengaku’s approach to Yoritsune can also be considered in light of such circumstances.

Due to this opposition between the *Kokinshū* and the *Man’yōshū*, it would be better to view that even when people of that time read the *Man’yōshū*, they did not consciously accept its influence. During this period, Minamoto no Sanetomo likely both acquired and mastered these elements. After undergoing revisions that could likely be somewhat expected, he probably composed such poems. Therefore, in one part of the *Kinkaishū*, works born first from tanka and second from renga—unmindful poems with a serious attitude—are intermingled. And thus, when viewed through the eyes of that time, works that at first glance seemed to belong to the unmindful school were in fact *Man’yō*-style poems that elevated Sanetomo’s worth. Even so, in his better poems, beyond the Man’yō style there existed a hymn-like quality; from the extreme informality of an unmindful attitude emerged works that depicted social conditions, and these elements were fused together. It could not simply be described as adhering solely to the Man’yō style.

Speaking of practice collections, Ietaka’s *Mizunifu Collection*, Teika’s *Shūi Gusō*, and its supplementary volume appear to have recorded even draft poems. When examining works included in these collections—those excluded from the *Shin Kokinshū* and other imperially commissioned anthologies—their inferiority proved astonishing. A stark divergence in creative mindset became evident between their everyday compositions and those crafted with literary ambition for hundred-poem sequences or poetry contests. This stemmed partly from how imperially commissioned verses, Buddhist ritual songs, and competitive poetry had come to dominate the literary sphere’s vitality and direction. The late Heian period saw poetic valuation increasingly hinge on collective deliberation—a customary offshoot of poetry contest culture itself.

As an extension of this arose the *Shin Kokinshū*'s selection methods, which were clearly grounded in public deliberation while sidelining Retired Emperor Go-Toba's personal discernment. This was plainly evident in the Oki-bon *Shin Kokinshū*. It could also be ascertained from historical records and diaries of the time. The climate among poet comrades—who sought to dominate public deliberation through technical skill and daring—lay utterly transparent.

Adopting what had been widely publicized after undergoing public deliberation became a tendency from the late early period when literary consciousness emerged—a tendency that also served as a shield against denunciations from rival schools. This constituted the major cause behind the apparent difference in value between works selected for imperially commissioned anthologies and those in practice collections. In any case, things that gained broad recognition had to possess balance, precision, and universality in some aspect. Even allowing for peculiar pathological appreciation unique to that era, they were undeniably refined works first and foremost. Even works like Yoshitsune's—those appearing in the *Shin Kokinshū*—exhibited to an extreme degree an aristocratic elegance that defied exhaustive praise from one perspective, be it grace, richness, refinement, or expansiveness. Yet they lacked vitality. Though possessing stature, they arose from a rhythm detached from his own life. In disorderly practice collections, character, circumstances, and era seeped out through the free rhythm of inadvertent moments. Even with works like those of Ietaka and Teika, their practice collections proved exceedingly ordinary while their selected collections displayed considerable distinctiveness—herein lay the cause.

However, Teika's works came to be recognized as possessing absolute value in later generations, with any of them becoming freely selectable.
In Teika's works chosen by anthologies following the Eight Imperial Collections, a Teika distinct from the conventionally transmitted image emerges.
This might be said to represent Teika reaching a realm of simplicity and freedom in his later years after struggling with technical refinement.
But rather than viewing it thus, it was in his unrestrained practice works that Teika's admirable qualities had already manifested.

I was still writing, ashamed that this commentary had grown unreasonably long.
This excess already sufficed to trouble Mr. Toki and draw wry smiles from the publisher.
Without addressing the comparison between Ietaka and Teika, I found myself compelled to vault directly toward Shin Shokukokin and Shin'yō.
Yet conveniently for this purpose, the eras of authors selected for this volume had aligned to permit such bounding leaps across temporal divides.

Endlessly stretching, the young-leafed lawn sways; in the field where larks sing—spring's evening glow. (Teika)

One need only observe how [these works] contained such excellent suggestions. Teika’s son Tameie may be regarded as a mediocrity, but I discern a transformation in stylistic character within his poems. This Nijō school—which inherited that tradition—subsequently blended with renga’s banal sensibilities and deteriorated, ushering in the later courtly style. Among the three schools—Nijō, Reizei, and Kyōgoku—that fragmented after his death, every imperially commissioned anthology and countless personal poetry collections emerging from the former two schools are things I, from my present critical standpoint, would prefer to see cleansed by the descent of kalpa-ending flames. So numerous are works where individuality and definition have grown indistinct.

The first draft of Mr. Toki’s book must have extended even to inspecting the group’s works.
And as a result, it made my friend—the editor of this book—exclaim, “Ah, this accursed millennium-spanning history of tanka!” and hurl away the cardboard box.
To such an extent did this accumulation of conventional patterns exist—sufficient to weaken the discernment and critical faculties of even those earnest researchers and connoisseurs yet to emerge.

As a result, this book took shape through a complete shift in approach; in truth, it represents the outcome of Mr. Toki's first major fruitless endeavor. Dear readers, it is precisely why you were so greatly spared. Regarding the selection of figures, there may be debate, but I too share partial responsibility for it. This is exactly why I dare to raise this shield of pasted drafts over these good companions.

11. *Shin'yōshū*

The evaluation of the Southern Court’s *Shin’yōshū* had long tended to overemphasize its historical context.
However, as an imperially commissioned anthology of the Nijō tradition—this collection being quasi-imperial—it could be said to have demonstrated nearly the final leap.
Emperor Go-Daigo’s spirit, if refined through technique, would have attained that of Emperor Go-Toba.
The attitude of Fujiwara no Morokata’s harmony between narrative and lyricism—though somewhat overly sentimental—appeared to be the primary benchmark by which this collection had been evaluated in later generations; yet he undeniably left behind successful works.
With this collection, the attitude of autobiographical poetry collections had clearly revived.
Among them, the one with particularly clear individuality was undoubtedly Emperor Go-Murakami.
Although his expressions lacked precision, they possessed an exceptionally grand poetic style.

*Shin’yōshū* is a collection with an especially large number of prefaces, many of them lengthy.
Precisely because of that, it remains closely tied to factual foundations.
Had the unprovocative mellow tone of the Nijō lineage swayed just a degree further—had it at least allowed the objective attitude of the Kyōgoku lineage to emerge—I believe it could have moved us far more profoundly.
This collection as a whole may well be viewed as a lyric sequence anthology of the Southern Court.

The masters of poetic instruction had been keenly attuned since their inception to discerning the scorn of court nobles and samurai families.
When it came to Teika, no sooner had he lost one patron than their shadows appeared beneath the eaves of a second protector.
A lifestyle for art instructors detached from master-servant relationships had emerged.
In the position once held by ladies-in-waiting who served as literary advisors to princes and princesses, monk-poets and lay scholars from hermit circles now sought to establish their tradition from outside.
Thus for generations, they frequented their patrons' homes, relying on those high-ranking houses to oppose rival schools.
Even before Teika's time and continuing thereafter, those of the Rokujō family tradition and hermit poet-scholars existed—yet most took samurai as patrons while distancing themselves from the imperial court and nobility.
The lineage of Minamoto no Mitsuyuki stood as a particularly notable example.
This shift had been brought about by the power of masters upholding Teika's tradition and their institutional backing.
Those of hermit lineages who frequented samurai households ultimately either gravitated toward renga or came subserviently under courtly poetic masters' control.
And even these latter figures gradually turned toward renga and haikai poetry, seeking the pulse of contemporary tastes.

Even if we called them masters of the poetic way, they were of such character and had become thoroughly professionalized.
The Daikakuji school had traditionally supported the Nijō family, while the Jimyōin lineage in turn patronized the Kyōgoku family.
Though the Southern Court—having departed the capital—retained the Nijō tradition, the poetic masters remained in Kyoto and came to rely on the Jimyōin lineage—now bereft of the Kyōgoku family—as their new great patrons.
The *Shin’yōshū* could be seen as having emerged from a strong antipathy toward this situation.

As tanka entered the Nanboku-chō period, it once again lost the light of its future prospects. Yet after persisting in meaningless repetitions to uphold the dignity of poetic masters, the imperial anthologies abruptly ceased to exist forever. Through the devotion of Nijō Yoshimoto and others and the efforts of hermits, renga—now adorned with literary theory, constraints, historical justification, and an elegant form—had during this period, as a quasi-imperial anthology, begun to lead a movement that would bring it to rival tanka, which had until then been the sole literary form. The twenty-volume compilation of the *Tsukubashū* stands as testament to this shift. Tanka gradually became renga-like; renga gradually became literary. In such times, the moment when tradition’s inertia would finally be shaken off drew near. At the imperial court—already at this period’s outset—the grand processions of the Ise Saigū rites were abolished. That these songs born between gods and shrine maidens should now decay here strikes me as an inevitable conclusion transcending mere logic.

Shortly before entering this era, the Jimyōin faction welcomed and employed Kyōgoku no Tamekane.
Tamekane is said to have been a man who provided such significant impetus to Fujiwara no Suketomo becoming the central figure in the Kenmu Restoration—as recorded in *Tsurezuregusa*’s “On Tamekane’s Exile”—that his influence shaped its planning.
He was likely a harbinger of epochal change.
He was influenced by folk hermit poetry while also appearing to have reached the highest degree of understanding regarding the *Man’yōshū* era.
Moreover, he had mastered a truly vivid and precise sketching approach that the *Shin Kokinshū* had all too quickly forgotten.
That he clearly became aware of this likely also stemmed from the descriptive approach of renga at this time.
He did not stop there; it seems he constantly grappled with how poetic styles could evolve from themes that had reached an impasse.

He pressed steadily forward. He pushed the symbolism of language to extremes and, through his attempt to discard descriptiveness, sought to perfect the yūgen style that the Shin Kokinshū poets had failed to achieve. The internal progression of his endeavor was commendable. However, in the end, he failed to realize that such endeavors would culminate in the destruction of art. However, what the Edo-period haiku poets of the Symbolist school attempted was something he had already laid hands on at the end of the Kamakura period and left behind as tracks of failure. He seems not to have attempted to let his own successors advance in this direction. The two imperial anthologies he compiled—*Gyokuyō* and its lineage’s *Fūga*—demonstrate the favorable aspects of the Bishamon-dō style, an alternate name for his school.

At that time, amidst the favorable atmosphere fostered by excellent mentors, many outstanding court poets emerged.
The most noteworthy among them were Emperor Fushimi among the men and Eifukumon-in among the women.
For the *Gyokuyō* and *Fūga* anthologies, I could have written critical essays equal in volume to all I had penned thus far and still remained unsated.
However, I now had to abandon this line of thought.
Yet I could not help but rejoice that *Gyokuyō* and *Fūga*—long cursed as poetic heresy, even deemed “songs of hell” by Nijō-school adherents, their offshoots, and scholars who neglected proper study while clinging to legends—had finally come to be appreciated correctly through Mr. Toki’s book serving as the catalyst.
It was for this reason that this essay came to be written at such length, sustained by ecstatic joy.

If I may be permitted one lingering desire to add, I would like to make even clearer what astute readers have surely already discerned. The essence of tanka that we have contemplated up to our time had in fact already been perfected in *Gyokuyō* and *Fūga*. And the literary currents of the world had already advanced to idealize the essence of tanka before even witnessing its actual achievements. This coincides with a fact that had once been clearly demonstrated in the past. Even if the refinement of *Man’yō* contained considerable distortions, it was thus brought to completion.