• The Kanji (Chinese characters) in Manyoshu do not mean much but mostly imitation of sounds. This method of writing is called Manyogana (kana=writing)

• It took Motori Norinaga (1730 - 1801) about 30 years to understand the whole Manyoshu

• Manyoshu is considered a koku-bun-gaku ( ), National (Japanese) Literature.

• The Manyoshu poems have one meaning if the Kanji are pronounced in the Japanese way, and have another meaning if pronounced in the Korean way. The Korean pronunciation often makes more sense. Sometimes Manyoshu poems have characters not understandable in Japanese but Korean.

• Some poems in Manyoshu are political, as a display of imperial power. However, this political intension is quite implicit, which may take long to interpret.

• In Nara period, poetry composition was mainly of Chinese, called Kanshi ( ).

• To consolidate the power of the Yamato ( ) State, many elements of culture were brought into Japan, such as Buddhism (highly supported by emperor Shomu, who wanted to portrait himself as a local Buddha). They also wanted to create their own poetry (derived from the Chinese characters), which is called Waka ( "wa" = Yamato, "ka" = short-form poetry), the poetry in the so called Yamato language

Heian period ( 794 - 1191):

• Japanese Kana (syllabic alphabets) were created in year 905, enabling the completion of the Waka business in the "Yamato (Japanese) language".

• In year 905, emperor Daigo gave an imperial order to Ki no Tsurayuki to create a collection of poetry in "Yamato language", not in Chinese. He wanted their own language.

• Kokin (waka) shu is the first imperial anthology of Japanese poetry (page 76 in textbook), the first pre-modern collection of poetry in Japan. It contains 1,111 poems.

• Daigo wanted to show Chinese emperor of their "distinct" form of Japanese poetry, as a display of power and civilization.

• The Waka form is 5 - 7 - 5 - 7 - 7 syllables (totally 31 syllables) in one poem.

• Only the "Yamato words" were allowed to use to write Waka, but the "Yamato words" had only a limited number of words.

• The 1,111 poems in the Kokinshu are chained in into a grand idea. The poems gradually unfold a story of a year: Springs - summer - autumn - winter - also Travel - Love - Lament, etc. This kind of writing technique, the principle of Kokinshu, is called the Codependent Origination or Association & Progression, in which everything is related.

A short summary of the Heian period:

1) Poetry - Kokinshu

2) Diaries ( Nikki ) - The Tosa Diary (narrative)

Man (Ki no Tsurayuki)
Kagero Nikki by the Fujiwara family
Sei Shonagon (the "Pillow Book")
1000 Murasaki Shikibu Diary
The Sarashima Diary

3. Tales, Stories, Extended Narratives ( Monogatari , things to tell )

Monogatari is a contextualization of poetry (creation of plot from a number of simple poems)
The Tale of Ise (Ise Monogatari )
The Tale of Genji (Genji Monogatari ) contains about 800 poems in the story. Many emotions and characters thus appear in the story. The Tale of Genji is a continuous reference to The Tale of Ise and the Kokinshu.

Meiji period (1868 - 1912):

• People in Meiji period considered poetry in Nara period Makkoto ( ), which were written in a way that that people could express their feelings freely (which actually is not true, but that was the thought of the Meiji people).

Here for lecture note of Week 1.

Here for lecture note of Week 3.

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