One Thousand Summers

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Showing posts with the label Sei Shonagon

Hyakunin Isshu: poem 62 (Sei Shōnagon・yo wo komete)

Said night was young when the false rooster crowed, but the gates of Osaka remained shut.

Hyakunin Isshu: poem 42 (Kiyohara no Motosuke・chigiriki na)

Impassioned vows exchanged over many a tear shed to last until the day waves crash over Mount Suenomatsu.

"In autumn, the evening - the blazing sun has sunk very close to the mountain rim, and now even the crows, in threes and fours or twos and threes, hurrying to their roost, are a moving sight." From Sei Shonagon's "The Pillow Book". Chapter I. In spring, the dawn. .. Translation by Meredith McKinney, Penguin Classics, 2006

Principal Collections of waka

as discussed on this blog

・Man’yōshū 万葉集

Collection of Ten Thousand Leaves; around 759 (not an imperial anthology)

・・・・・・・・・・・・・・

・Kokinshū 古今集

Collection of Poems Ancient and Modern; 905

・Gosenshū 後撰集

Later Collection; 953

・Shūishū 拾遺集

Collection of Gleanings; 1005−1007

・Goshūishū 後拾遺集

Later Collection of Gleanings; 1086

・Kin‘yōshū 金葉集

Collection of Golden Leaves; 1127

・Shikashū 詞花集

Collection of Verbal Flowers; 1151

・Senzaishū 千載集

Collection of a Thousand Years; 1187

・Shinkokinshū 新古今集

New Collection of Poems Ancient and Modern; presented in 1205, finished by 1216

・Shinchokusenshū 新勅撰集

New Imperial Waka Collection; 1235

Main Genres of Classical Japanese Literature

Waka 和歌 or Japanese poems, are most often 31-syllable short poems in the patter of 5-7-5-7-7, that are also called tanka 短歌or short poems, but waka also encompasses long poems or chōka 長歌, written in a pattern 5-7-5-7...5-7-7.

Monogatari 物語 or tales encompass a wide variery of Japanese vernacular prose. Although monogatari are mostly prose, they frequently have poetic inserts.

Nikki 日記 means a diary, but the genre encompasses many works that are closer to memoirs than diaries.

Zuihitsu 随筆 is a genre close to essays.

For a more detailed list, see the dedicated Main Genres of Classical Japanese Literature page.