Teika: The Life and Works of a Medieval Japanese Poet

by Paul S. Atkins

Fujiwara no Teika (1162-1241) was born into an illustrious lineage of poets just as Japan's ancien regime was ceding authority to a new political order dominated by military power. Overcoming personal and political setbacks, Teika and his allies championed a new style of poetry that managed to innovate conceptually and linguistically within the narrow confines of the waka tradition and the limits of its thirty-one syllable form. Backed by powerful patrons, Teika emerged finally as the supreme arbiter of poetry in his time, serving as co-compiler of the eighth imperial anthology of waka, Shin Kokinshu (ca. 1210) and as solo compiler of the ninth.

This first book-length study of Teika in English covers the most important and intriguing aspects of Teika's achievements and career, seeking the reasons behind Teika's fame and offering distinctive arguments about his oeuvre. A documentary biography sets the stage with valuable context about his fascinating life and times, followed by an exploration of his "Bodhidharma style," as Teika's critics pejoratively termed the new style of poetry. His beliefs about poetry are systematically elaborated through a thorough overview of his writing about waka. Teika's understanding of classical Chinese history, literature, and language is the focus of a separate chapter that examines the selective use of kana, the Japanese phonetic syllabary, in Teika's diary, which was written mainly in kanbun, a Japanese version of classical Chinese. The final chapter surveys the reception history of Teika's biography and literary works, from his own time into the modern period. Sometimes venerated as demigod of poetry, other times denigrated as an arrogant, inscrutable poet, Teika seldom inspired lukewarm reactions in his readers.

Courtier, waka poet, compiler, copyist, editor, diarist, and critic, Teika is recognized today as one of the most influential poets in the history of Japanese literature. His oeuvre includes over four thousand waka poems, his diary, Meigetsuki, which he kept for over fifty years, and a fictional tale set in Tang-dynasty China. Over fifteen years in the making, Teika is essential reading for anyone interested in Japanese poetry, the history of Japan, and traditional Japanese culture.

Genres: Poetry

280 pages, Hardcover

First published February 28, 2017

Reviews

[Shalini singh · Rating 5 out of 5]

The first collection, Kokinshū, became a classic in its own right. Students practiced their penmanship by copying out its poems, and court
ladies were tested by the emperor on their memory of the entire collection. It served as a common frame of reference and a shared cultural
memory for generations of Japanese readers.

Poetry is sometimes regarded as a solitary practice, but this was
not the case at all in premodern Japan. Waka poetry was closely associated with political power and social prestige. Poems were exchanged between lovers, friends, lords, and subjects, even gods and their worshippers. Social relations were created and reinforced through waka, which came to symbolize peace and harmony, refinement and elegance, and a distinctively Japanese linguistic and cultural identity. Waka was the most prestigious literary genre of all. It was closely associated with the imperial house, court culture, and the worship of Shinto deities.Teika became one of the paragons of poetry in the late medieval and early Edo periods, a symbol for an elegant, ingenious, lost way of life

ume ga hana / nioi o utsusu / sode no ue ni /
noki moru tsuki no / kage zo

On a sleeve to which
the plum blossoms
have transferred their scent
vies too the light of the moon
that slips through the eaves.


shimogare no / nobe no aware o / minu hito ya /
aki no iro ni wa / kokoro tomekemu

Can one who has not
seen the pathos of fields
withered by frost
preserve the color
of autumn in one’s heart?


ukimi yo ni / yagate kienaba / tazunete mo /
kusa no hara o ba / towaji to ya omou

If my miserable self
should finally disappear
from this world,
even if you searched for me, I doubt
that you would visit the grassy meadows.

Teika is verbose, which cannot really be appreciated in excerpts, As for Ariwara no Narihira, there is too much dissimilarity.

[Maria · Rating 5 out of 5]

Outstanding examination of the poet Fujiwara no Sadaie (Teika)'s life and works. Rather advanced, so better to go in with a working knowledge of Japanese tanka poetry.