Kokin Wakashū

The Kokin Wakashū (古今和歌集, "Collection of Japanese Poems of Ancient and Modern Times"), commonly abbreviated as Kokinshū (古今集), is an early anthology of the waka form of Japanese poetry, dating from the Heian period. It is an Imperial anthology, conceived by Emperor Uda (r. 887–897) and published by order of his son Emperor Daigo (r. 897–930), in about 905. Its finished form dates to c. 920, though according to several historical accounts the last poem was added to the collection in 914. The compilers of the anthology were four court poets, led by Ki no Tsurayuki and also including Ki no Tomonori (who died before its completion), Ōshikōchi no Mitsune, and Mibu no Tadamine.

"Kokinshū" redirects here. For the album recorded by Hiroko Yakushimaru, see Kokinshū (album).
Section of the earliest extant complete manuscript of the Kokinshū (Gen'ei edition, National Treasure); early twelfth century; at the Tokyo National Museum

Significance

The Kokinshū is the first of the Nijūichidaishū (二十一代集), the 21 collections of Japanese poetry compiled at Imperial request. It was the most influential realization of the ideas of poetry at the time, dictating the form and format of Japanese poetry until the late nineteenth century; it was the first anthology to divide itself into seasonal and love poems. The primacy of poems about the seasons pioneered by the Kokinshū continues even today.

The Japanese preface by Ki no Tsurayuki is also the beginning of Japanese criticism as distinct from the far more prevalent Chinese poetics in the literary circles of its day. (The anthology also included a Classical Chinese preface authored by Ki no Yoshimochi.) The idea of including old as well as new poems was another important innovation, one which was widely adopted in later works, both in prose and verse. The poems of the Kokinshū were ordered temporally; the love poems, for instance, though written by many different poets across large spans of time, are ordered in such a way that the reader may understand them to depict the progression and fluctuations of a courtly love-affair. This association of one poem to the next marks this anthology as the ancestor of the renga and haikai traditions.

Structure

The exact number of poems in the collection varies depending on the textual tradition. One online edition,[1] which follows the Date Family text based on a manuscript prepared by Fujiwara no Teika, contains 1,111 poems. The collection is divided into twenty parts, reflecting older models such as the Man'yōshū and various Chinese anthologies. The organization of topics is however different from all earlier models, and was followed by all later official collections, although some collections like the Kin'yō Wakashū and Shika Wakashū scaled the model down to ten parts.

The following divisions of the Kokinshū mention the Japanese names of the parts,[1] their modern readings,[2][3] and their English translations.[4]

topic parts
Seasons 1–2Spring 春歌haru no uta
3Summer 夏歌natsu no uta
4–5Autumn 秋歌aki no uta
6Winter 冬歌fuyu no uta
  7Congratulations 賀歌ga no uta
8Partings 離別歌wakare no uta
9Travel 羈旅歌tabi no uta
10Acrostics 物名mono no na
Love 11–15Love 恋歌koi no uta
Miscellany 16Laments 哀傷歌aishō no uta
17–18Miscellaneous 雑歌kusagusa no uta
19Miscellaneous Forms 雑躰歌zattai no uta
20 Traditional Poems
from the Bureau of Song		 大歌所御歌 ōutadokoro no on'uta

The compilers included the name of the author of each poem, and the topic (題, dai) or inspiration of the poem, if known. Major poets of the Kokinshū include Ariwara no Narihira, Ono no Komachi, Henjō and Fujiwara no Okikaze, apart from the compilers themselves. Inclusion in any imperial collection, and particularly the Kokinshū, was a great honour.

Manuscripts

On October 20, 2010, Kōnan Women's University announced the discovery of a complete manuscript dating to c. 1220–1240. It is the oldest manuscript to contain both the Chinese and Japanese prefaces. It is split into two volumes, 15.9 cm tall by 14.6 cm wide, totaling 429 pages containing all 1111 poems. It is thought to be a copy of a manuscript made by Fujiwara no Teika, but the identity of the copier is unknown. The manuscript was purchased from a used book store in 1982 for 4,280,000 yen.[5][6][7]

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gollark: `ssh sinthorions-computer.com cat /proc/cpuinfo`
gollark: That's horrible.#
gollark: processor : 0vendor_id : AuthenticAMDcpu family : 23model : 1model name : AMD Ryzen 3 1200 Quad-Core Processorstepping : 1microcode : 0x800111ccpu MHz : 3410.279cache size : 512 KBphysical id : 0siblings : 4core id : 0cpu cores : 4apicid : 0initial apicid : 0fpu : yesfpu_exception : yescpuid level : 13wp : yesflags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush mmx fxsr sse sse2 ht syscall nx mmxext fxsr_opt pdpe1gb rdtscp lm constant_tsc rep_good nopl nonstop_tsc cpuid extd_apicid aperfmperf pni pclmulqdq monitor ssse3 fma cx16 sse4_1 sse4_2 movbe popcnt aes xsave avx f16c rdrand lahf_lm cmp_legacy svm extapic cr8_legacy abm sse4a misalignsse 3dnowprefetch osvw skinit wdt tce topoext perfctr_core perfctr_nb bpext perfctr_llc mwaitx cpb hw_pstate sme ssbd sev vmmcall fsgsbase bmi1 avx2 smep bmi2 rdseed adx smap clflushopt sha_ni xsaveopt xsavec xgetbv1 xsaves clzero irperf xsaveerptr arat npt lbrv svm_lock nrip_save tsc_scale vmcb_clean flushbyasid decodeassists pausefilter pfthreshold avic v_vmsave_vmload vgif overflow_recov succor smcabugs : sysret_ss_attrs null_seg spectre_v1 spectre_v2 spec_store_bypassbogomips : 6989.20TLB size : 2560 4K pagesclflush size : 64cache_alignment : 64address sizes : 43 bits physical, 48 bits virtualpower management: ts ttp tm hwpstate eff_freq_ro [13] [14]
gollark: Look, it even lists the bugs!

See also

Notes
  1. Online edition of the Kokin wakashu Archived 2014-08-14 at the Wayback Machine at the UVa Library Japanese Text Initiative Archived 2005-01-21 at the Wayback Machine.
  2. Miner (1985), pages 186–187
  3. McCullough
  4. Brower, pg 482
  5. "古今和歌集：鎌倉初期の写本と判明　甲南女子大所蔵". Mainichi Shimbun. October 20, 2010. Retrieved October 22, 2010.
  6. "古今和歌集の写本、鎌倉初期の「完本」と確認". Yomiuri Shimbun. October 20, 2010. Archived from the original on October 23, 2010. Retrieved October 22, 2010.
  7. "古今和歌集、完全写本見つかる＝漢字、仮名序文付きで最古－甲南女子大". Yahoo! News. October 20, 2010. Retrieved October 22, 2010.

References
  • Saeki, Umetomo (1958). Nihon Koten Bungaku Taikei: Kokin Wakashū. Iwanami Shoten. ISBN 4-00-060008-7.
  • Kojima, Noriyuki; Eizō Arai (1989). Shin Nihon Koten Bungaku Taikei: Kokin Wakashū. Iwanami Shoten. ISBN 4-00-240005-0.
  • Miner, Earl; H. Odagiri; R. E. Morrell (1985). The Princeton Companion to Classical Japanese Literature. Princeton University Press. pp. 186–187. ISBN 0-691-06599-3.
  • McCullough, Helen Craig (1985). Kokin Wakashū: The First Imperial Anthology of Japanese Poetry. Stanford University Press. ISBN 0-8047-1258-1.
  • Brower, Robert H.; Earl Roy Miner (1961). Japanese court poetry. Stanford University Press. LCCN 61-10925.
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