The Kokinshū: Selected Poems
Torquil Duthie, "The Kokinshū: Selected Poems "
English | ISBN: 023120762X | 2023 | 432 pages | PDF | 4 MB
English | ISBN: 023120762X | 2023 | 432 pages | PDF | 4 MB
Winner 2023-2024 Japan-U.S. Friendship Commission Prize for the Translation of Japanese Literature, Donald Keene Center of Japanese Culture
Compiled in the early tenth century, the Kokinshū is an anthology of some eleven hundred poems that aimed to elevate the prestige of vernacular Japanese poetry at the imperial court. From shortly after its completion to the end of the nineteenth century, it was celebrated as the cornerstone of the Japanese vernacular poetic tradition. The composition of classical poetry, other later poetic forms such as linked verse and haikai, and vernacular Japanese literary writing in its entirety (including classic works such as Murasaki Shikibu’s Tale of Genji and Sei Shōnagon’s Pillow Book) all draw from the Kokinshū.
This book offers an inviting and immersive selection of roughly one-third of the anthology in English translation. Torquil Duthie focuses on rendering the poetic language of the
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