Kokinshu Commentary -- Introduction

I’ve decided to add a new series to this blog; a commentary on the Kokinshu.

The Kokinshu is an anthology of Tanka, which in those days were called Waka. For this reason the full title of the Kokinshu is “Kokinwakashu”, but it is usually referred to as simply Kokinshu. The title means “Collection of Ancient and New Japanese Poems”. The anthology consists of 1,111 poems, all but nine of which are Tanka. It was put together around 915 c.e. It is the first of the twenty-one imperially commissioned Tanka anthologies. It has exerted an immense influence on Japanese poetry at every level; in terms of technique, in terms of topic, in its influence on subsequent anthologies, the Kokinshu is unrivalled. Right into the modern era poets in Japan would memorize large numbers of Tanka from this collection. Its esthetic was considered definitive for many centuries. Even today the Kokinshu is studied assiduously.

The Kokinshu was commissioned by the Emperor Daigo who reigned from 897 - 930. He selected the following editors; Ki no Tsurayuki, Ki no Tomonori, Ooshikoochi no Mitsune, and Mibu Tadamine. It is generally believed that Ki no Tsurayuki exerted the greatest influence on the anthology.

After the individual Tanka/Waka were selected, they were topically arranged. The result is that each of the twenty chapters of the Kokinshu is a series of poems by different authors that are so skillfully arranged and placed that one can read them as a single, unified poem, or one can read a single poem by itself. The remarkable skill with which the poems are linked to each other is one of the most influential features of the Kokinshu and it is one of the reasons the anthology is such a pleasure to read. Because of the success of this linking together of Tanka by different authors, the precedent was set for the later development of Renga, the linked verse of Japan which was deliberately written by a group of authors in series.

There are two translations of the Kokinshu into English; one by Helen McCullough published by Stanford, and one by Laurel Rasplica Rodd, originally published by Princeton, reissued by Cheng and Tsui. They are, by all accounts, both excellent. Both translators successfully mimic the syllabic structure of Japanese Tanka in their translations; that is to say they both strive to produce in English the 5-7-5-7-7 syllabic structure of the Japanese original. This is remarkable, all the more so because their translations are so good. I have decided to use the Helen McCullough translation simply because I prefer the English which strikes me as smoother than the Rodd translation and because McCullough has also published some commentarial material, “Brocade by Night”, which I may want to use. So this will be a commentary on the McCullough translation.

This commentary will not be scholarly. I do not know Japanese; though I did study in Japan decades ago. But the Kokinshu is medieval Japanese and the Japanese language has changed a great deal since the tenth century. So it is truly a specialist’s task to offer scholarly insights.

My intention is to offer a poetic commentary. I hope to keep the comments conversational, like I’m speaking to good friends who share a mutual interest rather than lecturing in a classroom. Since I discovered the Kokinshu about five years ago I have been reading it more or less continuously; a little bit at a time. I am, obviously, a Kokinshu enthusiast. As Tanka spreads to non-Japanese countries, I hope this commentary may awaken in others an interest in this ancient work which has done so much to shape the world of Tanka.