The Kokinshū, translated and introduced by Torquil Duthie (introduction)

CONTENTS

Acknowledgments ix

Introduction 1

part 1. Translation

Mana Preface 7

Selected Poems from Kokinwakashū 17

Kana Preface 225

part 11. Essays

1 Poetry Before the Heian Period 239

2 The Heian Court and Kana Writing 255

INTRODUCTION

THE KOKINWAKASHŪ, or Collection of Ancient and Modern Japanese Songs, more commonly known as the Kokinshū, is an anthology of some eleven hundred poems compiled in the early tenth century at the Heian court. The “Japanese songs” (waka) of the title are a vernacular poetic form of thirty-one syllables divided into five measures in a 5/7/5/7/7 pattern. The emphasis on “Japanese” (wa) marks an explicit contrast with the cosmopolitan style of Sinitic poetry, which was also popular among Heian aristocrats. The collection (shū) is “ancient and modern” (kokin) because it anthologizes poetry written by its editors and their contemporaries together with poems from both the recent and distant past.

The Kokinshū was compiled to create normative models for waka composition and to bring waka poetry to the forefront of the cultural life of the court. To say that it succeeded in this aim would be an understatement. From shortly after its completion

to the end of the nineteenth century, the Kokinshū was revered as the classical text that served as the cornerstone not only for the composition of waka but also for later forms of vernacular poetry, such as linked verse and haikai, and for the tradition of vernacular literary writing that developed from poetry collections and commentary. The status of the Kokinshū at the Heian court is evident from its extraordinary number of citations in the vernacular prose writings of the period. The famous anecdote in Sei Shōnagon’s Pillow Book about an empress memorizing the Kokinshū in its entirety may be hyperbolic, but it cannot be too far from the truth given that the Tale of Genji contains more than two hundred fifty allusions to the anthology. Its enduring position as the foundational collection of the waka tradition is attested by the more than three hundred commentaries on the Kokinshū produced from the twelfth to the twentieth centuries. This vast commentarial tradition led to many of its poems becoming the source material for all kinds of other literary forms, including the Nō theater and late-medieval popular fiction. In sum, the Kokinshū is a fundamental point of entry for readers interested in premodern Japanese vernacular literature. This book is a translation into English of roughly one-third of the anthology—343 poems out of 1,100—and its two prefaces. In part due to their brevity, waka do not convey meaning as self-contained artifacts, but rather do so in dialogue with other poems written on similar topics. How one understands any single waka poem will depend greatly on the degree of one’s familiarity with other poems. Moreover, the Kokinshū is an anthology that encourages readers to interpret its poems in relation to each other. It deliberately organizes them into

INTRODUCTION 2

sequences of themes, so that poems echo earlier poems or foreshadow later ones, in many cases complicating and adding layers to what readers thought they had understood. The objective of this book is to translate the poetic language of the Kokinshū as a whole, in such a way that English-language readers can understand and experience how its poems work together to create a literary world.

I have written this book so that it may be enjoyed by specialists and nonspecialists alike and have endeavored to make the translation accessible to people who cannot read Japanese, classical or modern. For this reason, unlike most translations of waka, which tend to be accompanied by Roman alphabet transcriptions of the original Japanese text, the poems are presented only in English translation. I want the translations to stand alone, without having to lean on the authority of an original text that may be inaccessible to the reader. That being said, nothing would make me happier than if this book were to inspire people to study classical Japanese and read the original Kokinshū in a Japanese modern scholarly edition, or perhaps even to learn cursive script and read it in manuscript form. Readers who can read an original text also know where to find one, that is, if they do not already possess one.

The translation is accompanied by eight essays on various aspects of the Kokinshū. The essays are an important part of the book, but it is not necessary to read them before the translation. In fact, I would encourage first-time readers of the Kokinshū, in particular, to begin with the translation, and then read the essays either in the order they are written or at different times and in any sequence you wish.

INTRODUCTION 3

Compiled in the early tenth century, the Kokinshū is an anthology of some eleven hundred poems that aimed to elevate the prestige of vernacular Japanese poetry at the imperial court. From shortly after its completion to the end of the nineteenth century, it was celebrated as the cornerstone of the Japanese vernacular poetic tradition. This book offers an inviting and immersive selection of roughly one-third of the anthology in English translation. It helps specialist and nonspecialist readers alike appreciate the beauty and richness of the Kokinshū, as well as its significance for the Japanese literary tradition.

“These eminently readable and often beautiful translations will appeal to a new generation of readers in Japanese studies and beyond. The accompanying essays survey the genesis and afterlives of the collection and offer significant new insights on the original language of the poems and how to appreciate them in translation.”

JOSEPH T. SORENSEN , author of Optical Allusions: Screens, Paintings, and Poetry in Classical Japan (ca. 800–1200)

“From the cries of the warbler in spring to the lonely nights of longing for a lover, Duthie offers fresh translations from each book of the Kokinshū while grounding us in histories of scripts, reading and writing practices, and the power of poetry in premodern Japan.”

CHRISTINA LAFFIN , author of Rewriting Medieval Japanese Women: Politics, Personality, and Literary Production in the Life of Nun Abutsu

“This book should appeal to anyone interested in Japanese poetry, both for its evocative rendering of selections from the Kokinshū and for its concisely informative account of the classic waka anthology.”

GUSTAV HELDT, translator of The Kojiki: An Account of Ancient Matters

TORQUIL DUTHIE is professor of Japanese literature at the University of California, Los Angeles. He is the author of Man’yōshū and the Imperial Imagination in Early Japan (2014).

TRANSLATIONS FROM THE ASIAN CLASSICS

Cover image: Gen’ei Manuscript of the Kokinshū. Tokyo National Museum printed in the u.s.a.

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESSNEW YORK cup.columbia.edu

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