Fujiwara no Teika
Encyclopedia
Fujiwara no Teika also known as Fujiwara no Sadaie or Sada-ie, (1162 – September 26, 1241) was a Japanese
poet, critic
, calligrapher, novelist, anthologist, scribe, and scholar of the late Heian
and early Kamakura period
s. His influence was enormous, and he is even to this day counted as among the greatest of Japanese poets
, and perhaps the greatest master of the waka
form - an ancient poetic form consisting of five lines with a total of 31 syllable
s.
Teika's critical ideas on composing poetry were extremely influential and studied until as late as the Meiji era
. A member of a poetic clan, Teika was born to the noted poet Fujiwara no Shunzei
. After coming to the attention of the Retired Emperor Go-Toba
(1180–1239; r. 1183-1198), Teika began his long and distinguished career, spanning multiple areas of aesthetic endeavor. His relationship with Go-Toba was at first cordial and led to commissions to compile anthologies, but later resulted in his banishment from the retired emperor's court. His descendants and ideas would dominate classical Japanese poetry for centuries afterwards.
, in 1162, sometime after the Fujiwara regents had lost their political pre-eminence in the Imperial court during the Hōgen Rebellion
. His branch of the clan sought prestige and power in the court by aligning itself with the Mikohidari family, and by specializing in artistic endeavors, principally poetry. Such specialization was not unusual; branches of extended clans were not in a position to compete directly in politics with the head branch of the clan (or indeed other clans because of their junior status), but could compete in more restricted aesthetic pursuits. (The Mikohidari, also known as the Miko, were a cadet branch
of the Fujiwaras, through Fujiwara no Michinaga
's sixth son, Fujiwara no Nagaie (1005–1064); the Mikohidari were themselves aligned with the more senior Kujō
branch of the original Fujiwara, who opposed the Rokujō family
)
Teika's grandfather was the venerable poet Fujiwara no Toshitada. His father was Fujiwara no Shunzei
(1114–1204), a well known and greatly respected poet (and judge of poetry competitions), who had compiled the seventh Imperial anthology of waka (the Senzai Wakashū). His sister would also become a well-respected poet of waka and renga
, known as Kengozen or Shunzei's Daughter
, whom he would occasionally seek out for poetic advice. His elder brother, Fujiwara no Nariee (sometimes romanized as "Nariie"; 藤原 俊成), would be somewhat successful in court, but not nearly as much as his sister. Teika's foster-brother, the priest Jakuren
or "Sadanaga" c. 1139-1202 would be successful as a poet although his career was cut tragically short; he had been adopted by Shunzei when Shunzei's younger brother "retired from the world".
Go-Toba
's patronage would prove to lead to some of Teika's greatest successes.
era) that he would be conducting a poetry contest. Retired Emperors frequently became more influential after their retirement from the office of Emperor rather than as the actual Emperor, since they were free from the highly restricting ceremonial requirements and politics of the court. Go-Toba was 20 when he abdicated; he was the consummate amateur, skilled at playing the lute
, considered an authority on traditional learning and courtly precedent, excellent at playing Go
, and fond of equestrian
pursuits such as horseback archery, shooting at running dogs, and swordsmanship.
Go-Toba regarded all these pursuits as hobbies, taking one up and dropping another. One of these was his support of poetry, especially the waka
. Immediately after his abdication, he had announced that he would hold two poetry contests, each requiring a number of preeminent poets to compose some 100 waka in a particular thematic progression, known as the hyakushu genre of poem sequences. The first contest (Go-Toba no In shodo hyakushu - "Ex-Emperor Go-Toba's First Hundred-Poem Sequences") was considered a crucial political nexus; if a clan's poet did well and impressed the powerful (and youthful) Go-Toba, the clan would benefit considerably.
Teika's diary records that he looked forward to this chance to improve himself. He was 38, and had reached middle age. While he was recognized as a talented poet, his career was stagnant; he had been in the Palace Guards of the Left for twenty years, and had not been promoted for nearly 10. He was "Lesser Commander of the Palace Guards of the Left" with little prospect of further advancement.
He had wider political problems: The influence of his patrons, the Kujōs, over the Emperors had declined drastically. Minamoto no Michichika (d. 1202) had insinuated himself into Imperial circles through Go-Toba's former nursemaid; with this leverage, Michichika's adopted daughter (the then Shogun's daughter, who had decided to marry his daughter off to the Emperor, using Michichika as a go-between - contrary to the Shogun's usual policy if favoring Kujo Kanezane. The Shogun's lack of confidence allowed Michichika to push Go-Toba into firing Kanezane as kampaku in 1196) became Go-Toba's concubine (making Michichika the Retired Emperor Go-Toba's father in law), and she bore him his first heir in 1195; the shame of this usurpation led Go-Toba's first wife, Ninshi, to retire from the
court. As Ninshi was the daughter of the Kujō's leader Kujo no Kanezane, the Kujō's influence in court diminished considerably, even to the extent of Kanezane
and Yoshitsune
(d. 1206; once the regent and prime minister) being driven from the court in 1196; with the diminution of their influence, so dimmed Teika's prospects. Teika expressed his disappointment through poetry, such as this example, written when he was "passed over for promotion in the spring list" in 1187 (he would eventually be promoted in 1190, but as his good and encouraging friend Saigyo
died that year, it was cold comfort):
In fact, Teika was initially not invited, the instigation of the rival Rokujō clan's leader, Suetsune and the connivance of Michichika. Suetsune and Teika were bitter enemies; just a few months before, Teika had humiliated Suetsune by calling him "that fake poet" and publicly refusing to participate in a poetry competition with Suetsune. His revenge was well-done; Teika was furious, writing in his Meigetsuki: :"I never heard of such a thing as choosing only senior poets[writes Teika about the pretext used to exclude him] . I can just see Suetsune at the bottom of this, contriving by some bribe that I be left out. It has to be Suetsune, Tsuneie, that whole family. Well, I have no regrets, for there is no possible hope for me now. But I did write in confidence to Kintsune so this may all come out eventually. He has replied that there is still room for hope."
Teika's appeals to the unrelenting Michichika failed, and so Shunzei stepped in with an eloquent letter (the well-known Waji sojo; "Appeal in Japanese" - writing in Japanese as opposed to the official Chinese was considered a mark of sincerity) addressed to Go-Toba, arguing that such an exclusion was without precedent, and motivated by base jealousy on their opponent's part:
As Keene writes, "He denounced by name Teika's enemy Suetsune, calling
him an ignoramus, and urged Gotoba not to be misled by his machinations." Gotoba relented at this appeal
from a man he greatly respected (the second time Shunzei had so interceded on Teika's behalf; the first time was in 1185 when Teika had lost his temper and struck a superior - the lesser general
Masayuki - with a lamp). He allowed Teika, along with two other "young" poets, Fujiwara no Ietaka (1159–1237; 1158–1237, according to Brower), adopted son of Jakuren and pupil to Shunzei, and Takafusa (1148–1209) to enter the contest. Teika was overjoyed at this turn of events:
Teika furiously worked for more than two weeks
to complete the full sequence, and when he finally turned his Shoji hyakushu in a day late, Go-Toba was so eager he read the poems immediately. Go-Toba's personal secretary, Minamoto Ienaga, kept a diary (the Minamoto Ienaga nikki) which eulogistically concerned itself with Go-Toba's poetic activities, and he records that it was Teika's hundred-poem sequence, and more specifically, poem number 93 which was directly responsible for Teika's being granted the special permission necessary to be admitted to the Retired Emperor's court (distinct from the reigning emperor's court; this special admittance was crucial to any future patronage); this is scarcely surprising as the 100-poem sequences submitted were of uniformly high quality (more poems originating in the sequences Go-Toba commissioned were included in the Shin Kokinshū than from any other source except the enormous "Poetry Contest in 1,500 Rounds").
Interestingly, this poem is both a fine example of the jukkai ("personal grievances") genre and as Minamoto no Ienaga first pointed out, also an allusion to the poem (preserved, along with Go-Shirakawa's reply, in the Imperial anthology Senzai Wakashū) Shunzei had sent Retired Emperor Go-Shirakawa 14 years previously, imploring him to forgive Teika for striking a superior with a candlestick; "the allusion conveys the hope that just as Shunzei's poem obtained his erring son's restoration to rank and office under Go-Shirakawa, now Teika's own poem will win him admission to Go-Toba's Court despite his connection with the "disgraced" Kujō faction."
Teika and Go-Toba would have a close and productive relationship; Teika would be favored in such ways as being appointed by Go-Toba as one of the six compilers (and de facto head compiler by virtue of his dedication and force of personality in addition to his already established reputation as a poet) of the eighth Imperial Anthology of waka poetry, the esteemed Shin Kokinshū (c. 1205, "New Collection of Japanese Poetry, Ancient and Modern") which Go-Toba ordered to be written after the success of the hundred-poem sequences (which furnished a base for the collection). In order to compile it, Go-Toba had resurrected the defunct institution, the Poetry Bureau in the seventh month of 1201, with fifteen yoryudo, or "contributing members", and three added later), who participated in the many poetry contests and similar activities that soon began taking place in the Bureau; of the Fellows, six (Minamoto Michitomo, Fujiwara Ariie, Teika, Fujiwara Ietaka, Fujiwara Masatsune and Jakuren, who would not live to finish the task, and was not replaced. Minamoto Ienaga was apparently detached from being Go-Toba's personal secretary to instead serve as the secretary for the compilation committee; his and Teika's diaries have survived, affording an unprecedentedly good view of the inner workings of how an imperial anthology was created) were chosen to compile the Shin Kokinshū in the eleventh month of 1201.
As if the honor of helping to compile the Shin Kokinshū and of having a remarkable 46 of his poems (including three from the Shoji hyakushu) included were not enough, Teika would later be appointed in 1232 by the Retired Emperor Go-Horikawa
to compile - by himself - the ninth Imperial Anthology, the Shinchokusen Wakashū (c. 1235; "New Imperial Collection"). Teika was the first person to have ever been a compiler of two Imperial anthologies.
and Minamoto no Sanetomo
deepened, over many things such as differences in how one should use "association and progression" (as Brower terms it) in poetic sequences. In 100-poem sequences and the like, the poems were usually in one of several groups (the four seasons were common ones, as was love); the poems generally formed an integrated sequence in which they dealt with the same subject matter, proceeding from stage to stage (for instance, a sequence on Love might proceed from loneliness, to falling in love, to a mature relationship, and then the sorrow when it ends) or which refer to elements of previous poems (a technique later central to renga
sequences). Go-Toba used such techniques consistently and often, whereas Teika's use was more erratic. During the compilation of the Shin Kokinshū, there were other differences, apparently over how wide-ranging a net to throw for poems:[Go-Toba] has included poems by a great many people one has never heard of, whose names have remained in almost total obscurity for generations, and persons who have only recently begun to attract attention had as many as ten poems apiece included- in such a situation it is no particular distinction for me to have forty-odd [46] poems chosen, or for Ietaka to have a score or more. The Ex-Sovereign's recent decisions make it appear he is choosing men rather than poems- a questionable procedure."
Teika's displeasure manifested itself in more petty ways, such as refusing to attend a banquet in 1205 (300 years after the Kokinshū was completed) celebrating the official completion of the Shin Kokinshū because there was no precedent for such a banquet (apparently he was not convinced by the precedent of the banquet celebrating the completion of the Nihon Shoki
); Go-Toba reciprocated by cutting Teika out of the process of continually revising the Shin Kokinshū (while it was officially complete by the date of the banquet, it was de facto incomplete as the Japanese Preface only existed in rough drafts and because Go-Toba would continue revising the selection of poems for some time thereafter, only releasing the final edition approximately 6 years later, sometime after the ninth month of 1210; indeed, Go-Toba would continue revising it until his death, although the later revisions are not extant).
In addition, there apparently were serious personality conflicts, which lead Go-Toba to write once, after praising Teika's poetry, that:
(The stag and horse anecdote refers to the ancient Chinese Chao Kao (d. 207 BCE), who revolted after an incident in which he brought a stag to the Imperial court, claimed it was actually a horse, and saw that more of the officials sycophantically agreed with him, rather than the emperor who pointed out that the horse was actually a stag.)
Donald Keene
believes that as Teika grew more important, he resented Go-Toba's peremptory use of him. In his later years, Go-Toba took issue not merely with Teika's personality, but also with his poetry, complaining of Teika's more liberal style that Teika (among other things) "by contrast, paid no attention whatsoever to the topic. For this reason in recent times even beginners have all come to be like this. It is outrageous. Only when one concentrates very hard upon a compound topic and composes a poem which centers upon the topic is the result of any interest. This modern style is sheer carelessness. It is absolutely essential to practice composing poems on compound topics in the correct way."
In any event, the precipitating events were two incidents, one in 1207 and the next in 1220. In 1207, Go-Toba decided to organize the creation of 46 landscape screens for the Saishō Shitennō Temple which he had built in 1205 (interestingly, apparently "in order to enlist divine aid in the overthrow the feudal government"); each of these screens would also have a waka on the famous landscape depicted, composed by a leading poet, who would compose the requisite 46, with the best poems for each landscape selected. Of course, Teika was asked to contribute, but one (on the "Wood of Ikuta", a famous and picturesque woodland attached to the Ikuta Shrine
of Settsu Province
, modern-day Kobe
; it was famous for being a battlefield between the Minamoto and Taira clans, as well as for its scenic beauty) was rejected by Go-Toba; not because it was a bad poem, but because it was a "poor model", as Keene puts it. Teika, already annoyed by the minimal notice for the contest and the lack of time for composing the poems (he had to turn them in two days after he was first informed of the contest), began complaining about Go-Toba and attacking his poetic judgement, both with regard to the Shin Kokinshū and the poems selected from the screens. Nothing came of this incident, but nevertheless, the damage had been done.
The second incident took place in the second month of 1220 and is described in a preface to the two poems concerned as recorded in Teika's personal anthology, the Shū gusō; during the 6-year period covering such events as Teika's banishment from Go-Toba's court and Go-Toba's participation in the Jōkyū War
of 1221, Teika's diary is silent. Teika was asked to participate in a poem competition on the 13th of the second month; Teika declined, citing as a reason the anniversary of his mother's death 26 years previous, in 1194. Go-Toba and his officials sent several letters to him, strongly urging him to come, and Teika eventually gave in, arriving with only two waka. The headnote to the two poems reads:
The first waka was critical of Go-Toba but otherwise fairly innocuous, but the second was quite pointed, obliquely attacking Go-Toba both for forcing Teika to attend Go-Toba's contest when Teika was memorializing his mother and also for insufficiently promoting Teika (the final line is a variation on a phrase dealing with "double griefs"):
Go-Toba saw this attack as both ingratitude of the rankest sort and the culmination of a series of affronts, this latest being petty resentment at what Go-Toba would have seen as a flimsy pretext for attempting to get out of the poetry competition. Accordingly, he banished Teika from his court, a banishment that would last for more than a year; this feud distressed devotees of poetry.
, Minamoto no Sanetomo
; the Shogunate was a rival and superior authority to that of the Emperors and the Imperial court. It was probably to the unhappy Sanetomo that Teika addressed the prefatory essay to his didactic collection, Kindai shūka ("Superior Poems of Our Time"), and his treatise on poetry Maigetsusho ("Monthly Notes"). Go-Toba would become an enemy of the then-bedridden Teika. Fortunately for Teika, Go-Toba would be exiled by the Kamakura shogunate
in 1221 for the rest of life to the Oki Islands
after Go-Toba led a failed rebellion against the Shogunate (the Jōkyū War
) which Go-Toba had long hated;
Teika's political fortunes improved in this period, as it was after Go-Toba's exile that Teika was appointed compiler of the ninth imperial anthology, the Shinchokusen Wakashū ("New Imperial Collection"; completed c. 1234). While it was a great honor, it was poorly received except by conservatives. According to Donald Keene
, Shunzei's Daughter
"declared that if it had not been compiled by Teika she would have refused even to take it into her hands." (From a letter sent to Fujiwara no Tameie
, Teika's son). She and others also criticized it for apparently deliberately excluding any of the objectively excellent poems produced by the three Retired Emperors exiled in the aftermath of the Jōkyū War This absence has been variously attributed to vengefulness on the part of Teika, or simply a desire to not potentially offend the Kamakura shogunate.
In 1232, Teika was advanced at the age of 70 to the court rank of "Gon Chūnagon" (Acting Middle Counselor.
But even Teika's improved fortunes could not insulate him entirely from the various famines and disasters that wracked the country in this period, and which greatly exacberated his illnesses:
During the later portions of his life, Teika experimented with refining his style of ushin, teaching and writing it; in addition to his critical works and the manuscripts he studied and copied out, he experimented with the then-very young and immature form of renga
- "They are an amusement to me in my dotage." He died in 1241, in Kyoto
, and was buried at a Buddhist
temple named "Shokokuji".
(1198–1275; he is remembered as a reluctant heir, in youth inclining rather to court football
at the encouragement of Go-Toba than to poetry), would carry on Teika's poetic legacy. Tameie's descendants would split into three branches: the conservative elder Nijō
branch (founded by Tameie's elder son, Nijō Tameuji (1222–1286); the middle branch of the Kyōgoku founded by Fujiwara no Tamenori (1226–1279), which, before it went extinct in 1332 with the death of Fujiwara no Tamekane
, merged with the Reizei at the prompting of Nun Abutsu; and the younger, more liberal Reizei
branch, founded by Tameie' younger son Fujiwara no Tamesuke (b. 1263) by Abutsu (d. circa 1283; a poet and a great diarist, especially remembered for her diary Isayoi Nikki ("Diary of the Waning Moon") chronicling her legal battles to get the Kamakura shogunate to stop Tameuji from disinheriting Tamesuke of the Hosokawa estate near the capital that Tameie had left Tamesuke).
It is a testament to Teika's importance that the poetic history of the next centuries is in large part a story of the battles between the rival branches; indeed, it is this rivalry that is chiefly responsible for the great number of forgeries attributed to Teika. When the Reizei lost a court case concerning possession of the Hosokawa estate Tameie had willed to Tamesuke, they were ordered to hand over the valuable manuscripts and documents inherited from Teika and Tameie over to the Nijō; they outwardly complied, but along with the few genuine documents whose existence the Nijō had already learned of, they mostly included forgeries which the Nijō had little choice but to accept. In retaliation, the Nijō manufactured a number of forgeries of their own, the better to buttress their claims. name="buttress-texts">pg 25 of Brower 1972
After a period of Reizei ascendancy under Rezei no Tamehide (great-grandson of Teika) (b. 1302?, d. 1372), they suffered a decline and a consequent rise in the fortunes of the Nijō, as Tamehide's son, Iametuni, became a Buddhist
monk. However, the Nijō soon suffered setbacks of their own under the wastrel Nijō no Tameshige (b. 1325, d. 1385), whose promising son, Nijō no Tametō (b. 1341, d. 1381), died comparatively young, killed by a brigand.
In a further disaster for the Nijō, Tametō's son, Nijō no Tamemigi was killed by a brigand as well in 1399 (?), effectively wiping out the Nijō as an organized force. Under the grandson of Tamehide, Tanemasa (b. 1361, d. 1417), the Rezei achieved temporary victory in the time of Shōtetsu
. Ironically, the once-liberal Reizei would become associated during and after the Meji Era with the ultra-conservatives of the "Palace School".
Teika selected the works for the Ogura Hyakunin Isshu
, an anthology of a hundred poems by a hundred poets. His Ogura Hyakunin Isshū was later thought to be a book of waka theory in which all types of ideal waka and all techniques were laid out; disputes over specific style and whether to be conservative or liberal that divided his descendants into a number of feuding schools/clans like the Reizei, Kyogoku
, and Nijō
.
Teika made many manuscript copies of Japanese classics, including such landmarks of Japanese literature as The Tale of Genji
, The Tales of Ise and the Kokinshū anthology. In his days, the ancient Japanese pronunciations were lost or difficult to understand, rendering the orthography
of kana
confused and uncertain. Teika researched old documents and recovered the earlier system of deciding between interpretations of kana
, and developed a systematic orthography which was used until the modern Meiji period. He applied his kana system to his manuscripts, which were known for their accuracy and general high quality and called Teika bon ("Teika text"). Using his method he was able to document the accurate pronunciation of earlier waka like the ones in the Kokin Wakashū. His manuscripts were also appreciated for his eponymous distinct and bold style of calligraphy
. The Adobe font "Kazuraki SPN", released in 2009, is based upon the calligraphic style of Fujiwara Teika.
Teika is also remembered, like his father, as being something of an innovator- the Encyclopædia Britannica
says:
The "old diction" here are phrases and words from the "Three Collections": the Kokinshū, the Gosen Wakashū, and the Shūi Wakashū, but not much older than that (for instance, the diction of the Man'yōshū was considered too old). Teika wrote in his Maigetsusho that the best poems were spontaneous and original, but nevertheless traditional:
The following is an example of how Teika used old and classic imagery such as Takasago and Onoe, as well as pine and cherry trees, in fresh ways:
His poems were described as remarkable for their elegance and exemplars of Teika's ideals, in his early and later years (respectively; Teika considerably modified his personal beliefs during his 40s, after the death of Shunzei, and simplified his style of composition), of the styles of yoen- one of the ten orthodox styles Teika defined and defended in his poetic criticism, with some of the others being the onihishigitei ("demon-quelling force") style, the style of sabi or "loneliness" (closely related to mono no aware
), the style of yugen, or "mystery and depth"; the yoen style was concerned with "ethereal beauty", and ushin ("deep feeling" or "conviction of feeling". This shift in style from yoen to ushin was intended to achieve a certain sort of makoto, or integrity
; Teika sometimes referred to his aim as ushin ("deep feeling"), which confusingly was also the name of one of the ten styles. The yoen style was one of the most popular in his time due in no small part to Teika's of it (yoen had first been described by Fujiwara no Mototoshi in the 1150s, but had been only marginally successful); years later, the Symbolists would admire and emulate (to a degree) his use of language to evoke atmosphere in his brief poems in the yoen style. An excellent example (and one later chosen for an Imperial anthology) is the first poem below:
Japanese people
The are an ethnic group originating in the Japanese archipelago and are the predominant ethnic group of Japan. Worldwide, approximately 130 million people are of Japanese descent; of these, approximately 127 million are residents of Japan. People of Japanese ancestry who live in other countries...
poet, critic
Critic
A critic is anyone who expresses a value judgement. Informally, criticism is a common aspect of all human expression and need not necessarily imply skilled or accurate expressions of judgement. Critical judgements, good or bad, may be positive , negative , or balanced...
, calligrapher, novelist, anthologist, scribe, and scholar of the late Heian
Heian period
The is the last division of classical Japanese history, running from 794 to 1185. The period is named after the capital city of Heian-kyō, or modern Kyōto. It is the period in Japanese history when Buddhism, Taoism and other Chinese influences were at their height...
and early Kamakura period
Kamakura period
The is a period of Japanese history that marks the governance by the Kamakura Shogunate, officially established in 1192 in Kamakura by the first shogun Minamoto no Yoritomo....
s. His influence was enormous, and he is even to this day counted as among the greatest of Japanese poets
Japanese poetry
Japanese poets first encountered Chinese poetry during the Tang Dynasty. It took them several hundred years to digest the foreign impact, make it a part of their culture and merge it with their literary tradition in their mother tongue, and begin to develop the diversity of their native poetry. For...
, and perhaps the greatest master of the waka
Waka (poetry)
Waka or Yamato uta is a genre of classical Japanese verse and one of the major genres of Japanese literature...
form - an ancient poetic form consisting of five lines with a total of 31 syllable
Syllable
A syllable is a unit of organization for a sequence of speech sounds. For example, the word water is composed of two syllables: wa and ter. A syllable is typically made up of a syllable nucleus with optional initial and final margins .Syllables are often considered the phonological "building...
s.
Teika's critical ideas on composing poetry were extremely influential and studied until as late as the Meiji era
Meiji period
The , also known as the Meiji era, is a Japanese era which extended from September 1868 through July 1912. This period represents the first half of the Empire of Japan.- Meiji Restoration and the emperor :...
. A member of a poetic clan, Teika was born to the noted poet Fujiwara no Shunzei
Fujiwara no Shunzei
was a noted Japanese poet and nobleman, son of Fujiwara no Toshitada. He was also known as Fujiwara no Toshinari or Shakua ; in his younger days , he gave his name as Akihiro , but in 1167, changed to Shunzei...
. After coming to the attention of the Retired Emperor Go-Toba
Emperor Go-Toba
was the 82nd emperor of Japan, according to the traditional order of succession. His reign spanned the years from 1183 through 1198....
(1180–1239; r. 1183-1198), Teika began his long and distinguished career, spanning multiple areas of aesthetic endeavor. His relationship with Go-Toba was at first cordial and led to commissions to compile anthologies, but later resulted in his banishment from the retired emperor's court. His descendants and ideas would dominate classical Japanese poetry for centuries afterwards.
Biography
Birth
Teika was born to a minor and distant branch of the aristocratic and courtly clan, the FujiwaraFujiwara family
The Fujiwara clan , descending from the Nakatomi clan, was a powerful family of regents in Japan.The clan originated when the founder, Nakatomi no Kamatari , was rewarded by Emperor Tenji with the honorific "Fujiwara", which evolved as a surname for Kamatari and his descendants...
, in 1162, sometime after the Fujiwara regents had lost their political pre-eminence in the Imperial court during the Hōgen Rebellion
Hogen Rebellion
The was a short civil war fought in order to resolve a dispute about Japanese Imperial succession. The dispute was also about the degree of control exercised by the Fujiwara clan who had become hereditary Imperial regents during the Heian period....
. His branch of the clan sought prestige and power in the court by aligning itself with the Mikohidari family, and by specializing in artistic endeavors, principally poetry. Such specialization was not unusual; branches of extended clans were not in a position to compete directly in politics with the head branch of the clan (or indeed other clans because of their junior status), but could compete in more restricted aesthetic pursuits. (The Mikohidari, also known as the Miko, were a cadet branch
Cadet branch
Cadet branch is a term in genealogy to describe the lineage of the descendants of the younger sons of a monarch or patriarch. In the ruling dynasties and noble families of much of Europe and Asia, the family's major assets – titles, realms, fiefs, property and income – have...
of the Fujiwaras, through Fujiwara no Michinaga
Fujiwara no Michinaga
represents the highpoint of the Fujiwara regents' control over the government of Japan.-Early life:He was the fourth or fifth son of Fujiwara no Kaneie by his wife Tokihime, daughter of Fujiwara no Nakamasa...
's sixth son, Fujiwara no Nagaie (1005–1064); the Mikohidari were themselves aligned with the more senior Kujō
Kujō family
The Kujō family was a Japanese noble family and a branch of the Fujiwara clan derived from Fujiwara no Tadamichi. They were counted as one of the Sekke, the five regent houses and therefore one of the most politically powerful families among the kuge .As one of the Sekke, the five regent houses,...
branch of the original Fujiwara, who opposed the Rokujō family
Rokujo family
The Rokujō family was a poetically conservative faction in the Japanese Imperial court, founded by Fujiwara no Akisue ; it was the first clan to specialize in attaining power and influence via success in poetry, and was originally opposed to their opposite numbers amongst the Minamoto clan ,...
)
Teika's grandfather was the venerable poet Fujiwara no Toshitada. His father was Fujiwara no Shunzei
Fujiwara no Shunzei
was a noted Japanese poet and nobleman, son of Fujiwara no Toshitada. He was also known as Fujiwara no Toshinari or Shakua ; in his younger days , he gave his name as Akihiro , but in 1167, changed to Shunzei...
(1114–1204), a well known and greatly respected poet (and judge of poetry competitions), who had compiled the seventh Imperial anthology of waka (the Senzai Wakashū). His sister would also become a well-respected poet of waka and renga
Renga
' is a genre of Japanese collaborative poetry. A renga consists of at least two or stanzas, usually many more. The opening stanza of the renga, called the , became the basis for the modern haiku form of poetry....
, known as Kengozen or Shunzei's Daughter
Shunzei's Daughter
Fujiwara Toshinari no Musume , 1171? – 1252?, was a Japanese poet; she was probably the greatest female poet of her day, ranked with Princess Shikishi...
, whom he would occasionally seek out for poetic advice. His elder brother, Fujiwara no Nariee (sometimes romanized as "Nariie"; 藤原 俊成), would be somewhat successful in court, but not nearly as much as his sister. Teika's foster-brother, the priest Jakuren
Jakuren
' was a Japanese Buddhist priest and poet. He was adopted by the noted poet Fujiwara no Shunzei upon the death of Shunzei's younger brother...
or "Sadanaga" c. 1139-1202 would be successful as a poet although his career was cut tragically short; he had been adopted by Shunzei when Shunzei's younger brother "retired from the world".
Career
Teika's goals as the senior male of his branch were to inherit and cement his father's position in poetry, and to advance his own reputation (thereby also improving the political fortunes of his own clan in the court). While his life would be marked by repeated illness and wildly shifting fortunes- only partially moderated by his father's long-lasting influence in court (Shunzei would live to the advanced age of 90), the young and poetically inclined Retired EmperorCloistered rule
The Insei system , or cloistered rule, was a specific form of government in Japan during the Heian period. In this bifurcated system, an Emperor abdicated, but he retained power and influence. The emperors who withdrew to live in monasteries continued to act in ways which were intended to...
Go-Toba
Emperor Go-Toba
was the 82nd emperor of Japan, according to the traditional order of succession. His reign spanned the years from 1183 through 1198....
's patronage would prove to lead to some of Teika's greatest successes.
Go-Toba's patronage
The Retired Emperor Go-Toba announced, in the second year of his abdication (1200, the second year of the ShōjiShoji (era)
was a after Kenkyū and before Kennin. This period spanned the years from April 1199 through February 1201. The reigning emperor was .-Change of era:* 1199 : The new era name was created to mark an event or a number of events...
era) that he would be conducting a poetry contest. Retired Emperors frequently became more influential after their retirement from the office of Emperor rather than as the actual Emperor, since they were free from the highly restricting ceremonial requirements and politics of the court. Go-Toba was 20 when he abdicated; he was the consummate amateur, skilled at playing the lute
Lute
Lute can refer generally to any plucked string instrument with a neck and a deep round back, or more specifically to an instrument from the family of European lutes....
, considered an authority on traditional learning and courtly precedent, excellent at playing Go
Go (board game)
Go , is an ancient board game for two players that originated in China more than 2,000 years ago...
, and fond of equestrian
Equestrianism
Equestrianism more often known as riding, horseback riding or horse riding refers to the skill of riding, driving, or vaulting with horses...
pursuits such as horseback archery, shooting at running dogs, and swordsmanship.
Go-Toba regarded all these pursuits as hobbies, taking one up and dropping another. One of these was his support of poetry, especially the waka
Waka (poetry)
Waka or Yamato uta is a genre of classical Japanese verse and one of the major genres of Japanese literature...
. Immediately after his abdication, he had announced that he would hold two poetry contests, each requiring a number of preeminent poets to compose some 100 waka in a particular thematic progression, known as the hyakushu genre of poem sequences. The first contest (Go-Toba no In shodo hyakushu - "Ex-Emperor Go-Toba's First Hundred-Poem Sequences") was considered a crucial political nexus; if a clan's poet did well and impressed the powerful (and youthful) Go-Toba, the clan would benefit considerably.
Teika's diary records that he looked forward to this chance to improve himself. He was 38, and had reached middle age. While he was recognized as a talented poet, his career was stagnant; he had been in the Palace Guards of the Left for twenty years, and had not been promoted for nearly 10. He was "Lesser Commander of the Palace Guards of the Left" with little prospect of further advancement.
He had wider political problems: The influence of his patrons, the Kujōs, over the Emperors had declined drastically. Minamoto no Michichika (d. 1202) had insinuated himself into Imperial circles through Go-Toba's former nursemaid; with this leverage, Michichika's adopted daughter (the then Shogun's daughter, who had decided to marry his daughter off to the Emperor, using Michichika as a go-between - contrary to the Shogun's usual policy if favoring Kujo Kanezane. The Shogun's lack of confidence allowed Michichika to push Go-Toba into firing Kanezane as kampaku in 1196) became Go-Toba's concubine (making Michichika the Retired Emperor Go-Toba's father in law), and she bore him his first heir in 1195; the shame of this usurpation led Go-Toba's first wife, Ninshi, to retire from the
court. As Ninshi was the daughter of the Kujō's leader Kujo no Kanezane, the Kujō's influence in court diminished considerably, even to the extent of Kanezane
Fujiwara no Kanezane
, also known as , is the founder of the Kujō family , although some sources cite Fujiwara no Morosuke as its founder....
and Yoshitsune
Minamoto no Yoshitsune
was a general of the Minamoto clan of Japan in the late Heian and early Kamakura period. Yoshitsune was the ninth son of Minamoto no Yoshitomo, and the third and final son and child that Yoshitomo would father with Tokiwa Gozen. Yoshitsune's older brother Minamoto no Yoritomo founded the Kamakura...
(d. 1206; once the regent and prime minister) being driven from the court in 1196; with the diminution of their influence, so dimmed Teika's prospects. Teika expressed his disappointment through poetry, such as this example, written when he was "passed over for promotion in the spring list" in 1187 (he would eventually be promoted in 1190, but as his good and encouraging friend Saigyo
Saigyo
was a famous Japanese poet of the late Heian and early Kamakura period.-Biography:Born Satō Norikiyo in Kyoto to a noble family, he lived during the traumatic transition of power between the old court nobles and the new samurai warriors. After the start of the Age of Mappō , Buddhism was...
died that year, it was cold comfort):
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In fact, Teika was initially not invited, the instigation of the rival Rokujō clan's leader, Suetsune and the connivance of Michichika. Suetsune and Teika were bitter enemies; just a few months before, Teika had humiliated Suetsune by calling him "that fake poet" and publicly refusing to participate in a poetry competition with Suetsune. His revenge was well-done; Teika was furious, writing in his Meigetsuki: :"I never heard of such a thing as choosing only senior poets
- "I gather that it was probably not the Emperor who decided on the rules for the hundred-poem competition. It was due entirely to the machinations of Michichika. One feels like flicking him away in disgust."
Teika's appeals to the unrelenting Michichika failed, and so Shunzei stepped in with an eloquent letter (the well-known Waji sojo; "Appeal in Japanese" - writing in Japanese as opposed to the official Chinese was considered a mark of sincerity) addressed to Go-Toba, arguing that such an exclusion was without precedent, and motivated by base jealousy on their opponent's part:
- "Of late the people who call themselves poets have all been mediocrities. The poems they compose are unpleasant to hear, wordy and lacking in finesse."
As Keene writes, "He denounced by name Teika's enemy Suetsune, calling
him an ignoramus, and urged Gotoba not to be misled by his machinations." Gotoba relented at this appeal
from a man he greatly respected (the second time Shunzei had so interceded on Teika's behalf; the first time was in 1185 when Teika had lost his temper and struck a superior - the lesser general
Masayuki - with a lamp). He allowed Teika, along with two other "young" poets, Fujiwara no Ietaka (1159–1237; 1158–1237, according to Brower), adopted son of Jakuren and pupil to Shunzei, and Takafusa (1148–1209) to enter the contest. Teika was overjoyed at this turn of events:
- "Early this morning came a message from Lord Kintsune that last evening the Ex-Emperor ordered my inclusion among the participants for the hundred-poem sequences.....To have been added to the list for this occasion fills me with inexpressible joy. Though they can hinder me no more, I am still convinced that the trouble was all due to the machinations of those evil men. And that it has turned out this way is a fulfillment of all my hopes and prayers for this life and the next."
Teika furiously worked for more than two weeks
to complete the full sequence, and when he finally turned his Shoji hyakushu in a day late, Go-Toba was so eager he read the poems immediately. Go-Toba's personal secretary, Minamoto Ienaga, kept a diary (the Minamoto Ienaga nikki) which eulogistically concerned itself with Go-Toba's poetic activities, and he records that it was Teika's hundred-poem sequence, and more specifically, poem number 93 which was directly responsible for Teika's being granted the special permission necessary to be admitted to the Retired Emperor's court (distinct from the reigning emperor's court; this special admittance was crucial to any future patronage); this is scarcely surprising as the 100-poem sequences submitted were of uniformly high quality (more poems originating in the sequences Go-Toba commissioned were included in the Shin Kokinshū than from any other source except the enormous "Poetry Contest in 1,500 Rounds").
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Interestingly, this poem is both a fine example of the jukkai ("personal grievances") genre and as Minamoto no Ienaga first pointed out, also an allusion to the poem (preserved, along with Go-Shirakawa's reply, in the Imperial anthology Senzai Wakashū) Shunzei had sent Retired Emperor Go-Shirakawa 14 years previously, imploring him to forgive Teika for striking a superior with a candlestick; "the allusion conveys the hope that just as Shunzei's poem obtained his erring son's restoration to rank and office under Go-Shirakawa, now Teika's own poem will win him admission to Go-Toba's Court despite his connection with the "disgraced" Kujō faction."
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Teika and Go-Toba would have a close and productive relationship; Teika would be favored in such ways as being appointed by Go-Toba as one of the six compilers (and de facto head compiler by virtue of his dedication and force of personality in addition to his already established reputation as a poet) of the eighth Imperial Anthology of waka poetry, the esteemed Shin Kokinshū (c. 1205, "New Collection of Japanese Poetry, Ancient and Modern") which Go-Toba ordered to be written after the success of the hundred-poem sequences (which furnished a base for the collection). In order to compile it, Go-Toba had resurrected the defunct institution, the Poetry Bureau in the seventh month of 1201, with fifteen yoryudo, or "contributing members", and three added later), who participated in the many poetry contests and similar activities that soon began taking place in the Bureau; of the Fellows, six (Minamoto Michitomo, Fujiwara Ariie, Teika, Fujiwara Ietaka, Fujiwara Masatsune and Jakuren, who would not live to finish the task, and was not replaced. Minamoto Ienaga was apparently detached from being Go-Toba's personal secretary to instead serve as the secretary for the compilation committee; his and Teika's diaries have survived, affording an unprecedentedly good view of the inner workings of how an imperial anthology was created) were chosen to compile the Shin Kokinshū in the eleventh month of 1201.
As if the honor of helping to compile the Shin Kokinshū and of having a remarkable 46 of his poems (including three from the Shoji hyakushu) included were not enough, Teika would later be appointed in 1232 by the Retired Emperor Go-Horikawa
Emperor Go-Horikawa
was the 86th emperor of Japan, according to the traditional order of succession. This reign spanned the years from 1221 through 1232....
to compile - by himself - the ninth Imperial Anthology, the Shinchokusen Wakashū (c. 1235; "New Imperial Collection"). Teika was the first person to have ever been a compiler of two Imperial anthologies.
Teika and Go-Toba quarrel
This favorable patronage and collaboration eventually soured even as Teika's relation with Emperor JuntokuEmperor Juntoku
was the 84th emperor of Japan, according to the traditional order of succession. His reign spanned the years from 1210 through 1221.-Genealogy:...
and Minamoto no Sanetomo
Minamoto no Sanetomo
Minamoto no Sanetomo was the third shogun of the Kamakura shogunate Sanetomo was the second son of the founder of the Kamakura shogunate Minamoto no Yoritomo, his mother was Hōjō Masako, and his older brother was the second Kamakura shogun Minamoto no Yoriie.His childhood name was...
deepened, over many things such as differences in how one should use "association and progression" (as Brower terms it) in poetic sequences. In 100-poem sequences and the like, the poems were usually in one of several groups (the four seasons were common ones, as was love); the poems generally formed an integrated sequence in which they dealt with the same subject matter, proceeding from stage to stage (for instance, a sequence on Love might proceed from loneliness, to falling in love, to a mature relationship, and then the sorrow when it ends) or which refer to elements of previous poems (a technique later central to renga
Renga
' is a genre of Japanese collaborative poetry. A renga consists of at least two or stanzas, usually many more. The opening stanza of the renga, called the , became the basis for the modern haiku form of poetry....
sequences). Go-Toba used such techniques consistently and often, whereas Teika's use was more erratic. During the compilation of the Shin Kokinshū, there were other differences, apparently over how wide-ranging a net to throw for poems:
Teika's displeasure manifested itself in more petty ways, such as refusing to attend a banquet in 1205 (300 years after the Kokinshū was completed) celebrating the official completion of the Shin Kokinshū because there was no precedent for such a banquet (apparently he was not convinced by the precedent of the banquet celebrating the completion of the Nihon Shoki
Nihon Shoki
The , sometimes translated as The Chronicles of Japan, is the second oldest book of classical Japanese history. It is more elaborate and detailed than the Kojiki, the oldest, and has proven to be an important tool for historians and archaeologists as it includes the most complete extant historical...
); Go-Toba reciprocated by cutting Teika out of the process of continually revising the Shin Kokinshū (while it was officially complete by the date of the banquet, it was de facto incomplete as the Japanese Preface only existed in rough drafts and because Go-Toba would continue revising the selection of poems for some time thereafter, only releasing the final edition approximately 6 years later, sometime after the ninth month of 1210; indeed, Go-Toba would continue revising it until his death, although the later revisions are not extant).
In addition, there apparently were serious personality conflicts, which lead Go-Toba to write once, after praising Teika's poetry, that:
- "The way Teika behaved, as if he knew all about poetry, was really quite extraordinary. Especially when he was defending his own opinion, he would act like the man who insisted a stag was a horse. He was utterly oblivious of others, and would exceed all reason, refusing to listen to anything other people had to say."
(The stag and horse anecdote refers to the ancient Chinese Chao Kao (d. 207 BCE), who revolted after an incident in which he brought a stag to the Imperial court, claimed it was actually a horse, and saw that more of the officials sycophantically agreed with him, rather than the emperor who pointed out that the horse was actually a stag.)
Donald Keene
Donald Keene
Donald Lawrence Keene is a Japanologist, scholar, teacher, writer, translator and interpreter of Japanese literature and culture. Keene was University Professor Emeritus and Shincho Professor Emeritus of Japanese Literature at Columbia University, where he taught for over fifty years...
believes that as Teika grew more important, he resented Go-Toba's peremptory use of him. In his later years, Go-Toba took issue not merely with Teika's personality, but also with his poetry, complaining of Teika's more liberal style that Teika (among other things) "by contrast, paid no attention whatsoever to the topic. For this reason in recent times even beginners have all come to be like this. It is outrageous. Only when one concentrates very hard upon a compound topic and composes a poem which centers upon the topic is the result of any interest. This modern style is sheer carelessness. It is absolutely essential to practice composing poems on compound topics in the correct way."
In any event, the precipitating events were two incidents, one in 1207 and the next in 1220. In 1207, Go-Toba decided to organize the creation of 46 landscape screens for the Saishō Shitennō Temple which he had built in 1205 (interestingly, apparently "in order to enlist divine aid in the overthrow the feudal government"); each of these screens would also have a waka on the famous landscape depicted, composed by a leading poet, who would compose the requisite 46, with the best poems for each landscape selected. Of course, Teika was asked to contribute, but one (on the "Wood of Ikuta", a famous and picturesque woodland attached to the Ikuta Shrine
Ikuta Shrine
' is a Shinto shrine in the Chūō Ward of Kobe, Japan, and is possibly among the oldest shrines in the country.According to Nihon Shoki, it was founded by the Empress Jingū at the beginning of the 3rd century AD to enshrine the kami Wakahirume, and was used as the base for a festival welcoming...
of Settsu Province
Settsu Province
was a province of Japan, which today comprises the eastern part of Hyōgo Prefecture and the northern part of Osaka Prefecture. It was also referred to as or .Osaka and Osaka Castle were the main center of the province.-History:...
, modern-day Kobe
Kobe
, pronounced , is the fifth-largest city in Japan and is the capital city of Hyōgo Prefecture on the southern side of the main island of Honshū, approximately west of Osaka...
; it was famous for being a battlefield between the Minamoto and Taira clans, as well as for its scenic beauty) was rejected by Go-Toba; not because it was a bad poem, but because it was a "poor model", as Keene puts it. Teika, already annoyed by the minimal notice for the contest and the lack of time for composing the poems (he had to turn them in two days after he was first informed of the contest), began complaining about Go-Toba and attacking his poetic judgement, both with regard to the Shin Kokinshū and the poems selected from the screens. Nothing came of this incident, but nevertheless, the damage had been done.
The second incident took place in the second month of 1220 and is described in a preface to the two poems concerned as recorded in Teika's personal anthology, the Shū gusō; during the 6-year period covering such events as Teika's banishment from Go-Toba's court and Go-Toba's participation in the Jōkyū War
Jokyu War
', also known as the Jōkyū Disturbance or the Jōkyū Rebellion, was fought in Japan between the forces of Retired Emperor Go-Toba and those of the Hōjō clan, regents of the Kamakura shogunate, whom the retired emperor was trying to overthrow....
of 1221, Teika's diary is silent. Teika was asked to participate in a poem competition on the 13th of the second month; Teika declined, citing as a reason the anniversary of his mother's death 26 years previous, in 1194. Go-Toba and his officials sent several letters to him, strongly urging him to come, and Teika eventually gave in, arriving with only two waka. The headnote to the two poems reads:
- "Having been summoned to the palace for a poetry gathering on the thirteenth day of the second month in the second year of Shokyu
[1220] , I had begged to be excused because of a ritual defilement, it being the anniversary of my mother's death. I thought no more about it, but quite unexpectedly in the evening of the appointed day, the Archivist Iemitsu come with a letter from the ex-emperor, saying that I was not the hold back on account of the defilement, but was to come in any case. I continued to refuse, but after the ex-emperor had sent two more letters insisting on my presence, I hastily wrote down the following two poems and took them with me."
The first waka was critical of Go-Toba but otherwise fairly innocuous, but the second was quite pointed, obliquely attacking Go-Toba both for forcing Teika to attend Go-Toba's contest when Teika was memorializing his mother and also for insufficiently promoting Teika (the final line is a variation on a phrase dealing with "double griefs"):
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Go-Toba saw this attack as both ingratitude of the rankest sort and the culmination of a series of affronts, this latest being petty resentment at what Go-Toba would have seen as a flimsy pretext for attempting to get out of the poetry competition. Accordingly, he banished Teika from his court, a banishment that would last for more than a year; this feud distressed devotees of poetry.
Teika in the ascendancy
Possibly another a factor in this estrangement was politics - Teika had had the good fortune of being selected in 1209 as a poetry teacher to the new and young shogunShogun
A was one of the hereditary military dictators of Japan from 1192 to 1867. In this period, the shoguns, or their shikken regents , were the de facto rulers of Japan though they were nominally appointed by the emperor...
, Minamoto no Sanetomo
Minamoto no Sanetomo
Minamoto no Sanetomo was the third shogun of the Kamakura shogunate Sanetomo was the second son of the founder of the Kamakura shogunate Minamoto no Yoritomo, his mother was Hōjō Masako, and his older brother was the second Kamakura shogun Minamoto no Yoriie.His childhood name was...
; the Shogunate was a rival and superior authority to that of the Emperors and the Imperial court. It was probably to the unhappy Sanetomo that Teika addressed the prefatory essay to his didactic collection, Kindai shūka ("Superior Poems of Our Time"), and his treatise on poetry Maigetsusho ("Monthly Notes"). Go-Toba would become an enemy of the then-bedridden Teika. Fortunately for Teika, Go-Toba would be exiled by the Kamakura shogunate
Kamakura shogunate
The Kamakura shogunate was a military dictatorship in Japan headed by the shoguns from 1185 to 1333. It was based in Kamakura. The Kamakura period draws its name from the capital of the shogunate...
in 1221 for the rest of life to the Oki Islands
Oki Islands
are a group of islands in the southwestern part of the Sea of Japan and belong to Japan.-Geography:The Oki Islands are situated between 40 to 80 kilometers north of the coast of Honshū.The islands are of volcanic origin and have a total area of 346,1 km2...
after Go-Toba led a failed rebellion against the Shogunate (the Jōkyū War
Jokyu War
', also known as the Jōkyū Disturbance or the Jōkyū Rebellion, was fought in Japan between the forces of Retired Emperor Go-Toba and those of the Hōjō clan, regents of the Kamakura shogunate, whom the retired emperor was trying to overthrow....
) which Go-Toba had long hated;
Teika's political fortunes improved in this period, as it was after Go-Toba's exile that Teika was appointed compiler of the ninth imperial anthology, the Shinchokusen Wakashū ("New Imperial Collection"; completed c. 1234). While it was a great honor, it was poorly received except by conservatives. According to Donald Keene
Donald Keene
Donald Lawrence Keene is a Japanologist, scholar, teacher, writer, translator and interpreter of Japanese literature and culture. Keene was University Professor Emeritus and Shincho Professor Emeritus of Japanese Literature at Columbia University, where he taught for over fifty years...
, Shunzei's Daughter
Shunzei's Daughter
Fujiwara Toshinari no Musume , 1171? – 1252?, was a Japanese poet; she was probably the greatest female poet of her day, ranked with Princess Shikishi...
"declared that if it had not been compiled by Teika she would have refused even to take it into her hands." (From a letter sent to Fujiwara no Tameie
Fujiwara no Tameie
was a Japanese poet and compiler of Imperial anthologies of poems.Tameie was the second son of poets Teika and Abutuni; and he was the central figure in a circle of Japanese poets after Jōkyū War in 1221. His three sons were Nijō Tameuji, Kyōgoku Tamenori and Reizei Tamesuke...
, Teika's son). She and others also criticized it for apparently deliberately excluding any of the objectively excellent poems produced by the three Retired Emperors exiled in the aftermath of the Jōkyū War This absence has been variously attributed to vengefulness on the part of Teika, or simply a desire to not potentially offend the Kamakura shogunate.
In 1232, Teika was advanced at the age of 70 to the court rank of "Gon Chūnagon" (Acting Middle Counselor.
But even Teika's improved fortunes could not insulate him entirely from the various famines and disasters that wracked the country in this period, and which greatly exacberated his illnesses:
- "Starving people collapse, and their dead bodies fill the streets. Every day the numbers increase....The stench has gradually reached my house. Day and night alike, people go by carrying the dead in their arms, too numerous to count." (Meigetsuki, 2nd day of the 7th month, 1231)
During the later portions of his life, Teika experimented with refining his style of ushin, teaching and writing it; in addition to his critical works and the manuscripts he studied and copied out, he experimented with the then-very young and immature form of renga
Renga
' is a genre of Japanese collaborative poetry. A renga consists of at least two or stanzas, usually many more. The opening stanza of the renga, called the , became the basis for the modern haiku form of poetry....
- "They are an amusement to me in my dotage." He died in 1241, in Kyoto
Kyoto
is a city in the central part of the island of Honshū, Japan. It has a population close to 1.5 million. Formerly the imperial capital of Japan, it is now the capital of Kyoto Prefecture, as well as a major part of the Osaka-Kobe-Kyoto metropolitan area.-History:...
, and was buried at a Buddhist
Buddhism
Buddhism is a religion and philosophy encompassing a variety of traditions, beliefs and practices, largely based on teachings attributed to Siddhartha Gautama, commonly known as the Buddha . The Buddha lived and taught in the northeastern Indian subcontinent some time between the 6th and 4th...
temple named "Shokokuji".
Rival descendants
One of his 27 children by various women (and one of two legitimate sons), Fujiwara no TameieFujiwara no Tameie
was a Japanese poet and compiler of Imperial anthologies of poems.Tameie was the second son of poets Teika and Abutuni; and he was the central figure in a circle of Japanese poets after Jōkyū War in 1221. His three sons were Nijō Tameuji, Kyōgoku Tamenori and Reizei Tamesuke...
(1198–1275; he is remembered as a reluctant heir, in youth inclining rather to court football
Kemari
Kemari is a form of football that was popular in Japan during the Heian Period. Kemari has been revived in modern times.-History:The first evidence of kemari is from A.D.644. The rules were standardized from the 13th century. It was the first Japanese sport to become highly developed.The game was...
at the encouragement of Go-Toba than to poetry), would carry on Teika's poetic legacy. Tameie's descendants would split into three branches: the conservative elder Nijō
Nijo poetic school
The refers to descendants of Fujiwara no Tameie's eldest son, Nijō Tameuji . The family name took after Nijō district of Kyoto where the family had resided. This hereditary house of Japanese waka poetry is generally known for its conservative slant toward the politics and poetics aimed at...
branch (founded by Tameie's elder son, Nijō Tameuji (1222–1286); the middle branch of the Kyōgoku founded by Fujiwara no Tamenori (1226–1279), which, before it went extinct in 1332 with the death of Fujiwara no Tamekane
Fujiwara no Tamekane
, also known as , was a poet, an official in the Imperial court of Emperor Fushimi, and a senior bureaucrat of the Kamakura shogunate.Tamekane was the grandson of poet Fujiwara no Tameie.In the Imperial Daijō-kan, he rose to the rank of Chūnagon and Dainagon....
, merged with the Reizei at the prompting of Nun Abutsu; and the younger, more liberal Reizei
Reizei family
The Reizei family is a branch of the clan Fujiwara.For eight centuries, the family secretly preserved, under imperial order, an important collection of documents. On April 4, 1980, this collection of about 200,000 pieces was made public by Tametō Reizei . The following year, a library in Tokyo was...
branch, founded by Tameie' younger son Fujiwara no Tamesuke (b. 1263) by Abutsu (d. circa 1283; a poet and a great diarist, especially remembered for her diary Isayoi Nikki ("Diary of the Waning Moon") chronicling her legal battles to get the Kamakura shogunate to stop Tameuji from disinheriting Tamesuke of the Hosokawa estate near the capital that Tameie had left Tamesuke).
It is a testament to Teika's importance that the poetic history of the next centuries is in large part a story of the battles between the rival branches; indeed, it is this rivalry that is chiefly responsible for the great number of forgeries attributed to Teika. When the Reizei lost a court case concerning possession of the Hosokawa estate Tameie had willed to Tamesuke, they were ordered to hand over the valuable manuscripts and documents inherited from Teika and Tameie over to the Nijō; they outwardly complied, but along with the few genuine documents whose existence the Nijō had already learned of, they mostly included forgeries which the Nijō had little choice but to accept. In retaliation, the Nijō manufactured a number of forgeries of their own, the better to buttress their claims. name="buttress-texts">pg 25 of Brower 1972
After a period of Reizei ascendancy under Rezei no Tamehide (great-grandson of Teika) (b. 1302?, d. 1372), they suffered a decline and a consequent rise in the fortunes of the Nijō, as Tamehide's son, Iametuni, became a Buddhist
Buddhism
Buddhism is a religion and philosophy encompassing a variety of traditions, beliefs and practices, largely based on teachings attributed to Siddhartha Gautama, commonly known as the Buddha . The Buddha lived and taught in the northeastern Indian subcontinent some time between the 6th and 4th...
monk. However, the Nijō soon suffered setbacks of their own under the wastrel Nijō no Tameshige (b. 1325, d. 1385), whose promising son, Nijō no Tametō (b. 1341, d. 1381), died comparatively young, killed by a brigand.
In a further disaster for the Nijō, Tametō's son, Nijō no Tamemigi was killed by a brigand as well in 1399 (?), effectively wiping out the Nijō as an organized force. Under the grandson of Tamehide, Tanemasa (b. 1361, d. 1417), the Rezei achieved temporary victory in the time of Shōtetsu
Shotetsu
Shōtetsu was a Japanese poet during the Muromachi period, and is considered to have been the last poet in the courtly waka tradition ; a number of his disciples were important in the development of the renga art form, which led to the haiku....
. Ironically, the once-liberal Reizei would become associated during and after the Meji Era with the ultra-conservatives of the "Palace School".
Poetic achievements
- "In this art of poetry, those who speak ill of Teika should be denied the protection of the gods and Buddhas and condemned to the punishments of hell." -ShōtetsuShotetsuShōtetsu was a Japanese poet during the Muromachi period, and is considered to have been the last poet in the courtly waka tradition ; a number of his disciples were important in the development of the renga art form, which led to the haiku....
Teika selected the works for the Ogura Hyakunin Isshu
Hyakunin Isshu
is a traditional anthology style of compiling Japanese waka poetry where each contributor writes one poem for the anthology. Literally, it translates to "one hundred people, one poem [each]"...
, an anthology of a hundred poems by a hundred poets. His Ogura Hyakunin Isshū was later thought to be a book of waka theory in which all types of ideal waka and all techniques were laid out; disputes over specific style and whether to be conservative or liberal that divided his descendants into a number of feuding schools/clans like the Reizei, Kyogoku
Kyōgoku clan
The were a Japanese samurai kin group which rose to prominence during the Sengoku and Edo periods. The clan claimed descent from the Uda Genji. The name derives from the Kyōgoku quarter of Kyoto during the Heian period....
, and Nijō
Nijo poetic school
The refers to descendants of Fujiwara no Tameie's eldest son, Nijō Tameuji . The family name took after Nijō district of Kyoto where the family had resided. This hereditary house of Japanese waka poetry is generally known for its conservative slant toward the politics and poetics aimed at...
.
Teika made many manuscript copies of Japanese classics, including such landmarks of Japanese literature as The Tale of Genji
The Tale of Genji
is a classic work of Japanese literature attributed to the Japanese noblewoman Murasaki Shikibu in the early 11th century, around the peak of the Heian period. It is sometimes called the world's first novel, the first modern novel, the first psychological novel or the first novel still to be...
, The Tales of Ise and the Kokinshū anthology. In his days, the ancient Japanese pronunciations were lost or difficult to understand, rendering the orthography
Orthography
The orthography of a language specifies a standardized way of using a specific writing system to write the language. Where more than one writing system is used for a language, for example Kurdish, Uyghur, Serbian or Inuktitut, there can be more than one orthography...
of kana
Kana
Kana are the syllabic Japanese scripts, as opposed to the logographic Chinese characters known in Japan as kanji and the Roman alphabet known as rōmaji...
confused and uncertain. Teika researched old documents and recovered the earlier system of deciding between interpretations of kana
Kana
Kana are the syllabic Japanese scripts, as opposed to the logographic Chinese characters known in Japan as kanji and the Roman alphabet known as rōmaji...
, and developed a systematic orthography which was used until the modern Meiji period. He applied his kana system to his manuscripts, which were known for their accuracy and general high quality and called Teika bon ("Teika text"). Using his method he was able to document the accurate pronunciation of earlier waka like the ones in the Kokin Wakashū. His manuscripts were also appreciated for his eponymous distinct and bold style of calligraphy
Calligraphy
Calligraphy is a type of visual art. It is often called the art of fancy lettering . A contemporary definition of calligraphic practice is "the art of giving form to signs in an expressive, harmonious and skillful manner"...
. The Adobe font "Kazuraki SPN", released in 2009, is based upon the calligraphic style of Fujiwara Teika.
Teika is also remembered, like his father, as being something of an innovator- the Encyclopædia Britannica
Encyclopædia Britannica
The Encyclopædia Britannica , published by Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., is a general knowledge English-language encyclopaedia that is available in print, as a DVD, and on the Internet. It is written and continuously updated by about 100 full-time editors and more than 4,000 expert...
says:
- "Teika employed traditional language in startling new ways, showing that the prescriptive ideal of "old diction, new treatment"
[kotoba furuku, kokoro atarashi] inherited from Shunzei might accommodate innovation and experimentation as well as ensure the preservation of the language and styles of the classical past."
The "old diction" here are phrases and words from the "Three Collections": the Kokinshū, the Gosen Wakashū, and the Shūi Wakashū, but not much older than that (for instance, the diction of the Man'yōshū was considered too old). Teika wrote in his Maigetsusho that the best poems were spontaneous and original, but nevertheless traditional:
- "But such a notion is quite erroneous. For if we were to call such verses as that superior, then any poem at all we might write could be a fine one. No, first the powers of invention must be freed by reciting endless possibilities over and over to oneself. Then, suddenly and spontaneously, from among all the lines one is composing, may emerge a poem whose treatment of the topic is different from the common run, a verse that is somehow superior to the rest. It is full of poetic feeling, lofty in cadence, skillful, with resonances above and beyond the words themselves. It is dignified in effect, its phrasing original, yet smooth and gentle. It is interesting, suffused with an atmosphere subtle yet clear. It is richly evocative, its emotion not tense and nervous but sensible from the appropriateness of the imagery. Such a poem is not to be composed by conscious effort, but if a man will only persist in unremitting practice, he may produce one spontaneously."
The following is an example of how Teika used old and classic imagery such as Takasago and Onoe, as well as pine and cherry trees, in fresh ways:
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His poems were described as remarkable for their elegance and exemplars of Teika's ideals, in his early and later years (respectively; Teika considerably modified his personal beliefs during his 40s, after the death of Shunzei, and simplified his style of composition), of the styles of yoen- one of the ten orthodox styles Teika defined and defended in his poetic criticism, with some of the others being the onihishigitei ("demon-quelling force") style, the style of sabi or "loneliness" (closely related to mono no aware
Mono no aware
, literally "the pathos of things", also translated as "an empathy toward things", or "a sensitivity to ephemera", is a Japanese term used to describe the awareness of , or the transience of things, and a gentle sadness at their passing.-Origins:...
), the style of yugen, or "mystery and depth"; the yoen style was concerned with "ethereal beauty", and ushin ("deep feeling" or "conviction of feeling". This shift in style from yoen to ushin was intended to achieve a certain sort of makoto, or integrity
Integrity
Integrity is a concept of consistency of actions, values, methods, measures, principles, expectations, and outcomes. In ethics, integrity is regarded as the honesty and truthfulness or accuracy of one's actions...
; Teika sometimes referred to his aim as ushin ("deep feeling"), which confusingly was also the name of one of the ten styles. The yoen style was one of the most popular in his time due in no small part to Teika's of it (yoen had first been described by Fujiwara no Mototoshi in the 1150s, but had been only marginally successful); years later, the Symbolists would admire and emulate (to a degree) his use of language to evoke atmosphere in his brief poems in the yoen style. An excellent example (and one later chosen for an Imperial anthology) is the first poem below:
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Partial bibliography
- Shoji hyakushu (1200; "Hundred-Poem Sequence of the Shoji era")
- Gotoba-in Kumano Gokō Ki (1201; "The Visit of the Cloistered Emperor to KumanoKumano ShrineA ' is a type of Shinto shrine which enshrines the three Kumano mountains: Hongū, Shingū, and Nachi . There are more than 3000 Kumano shrines in Japan, and each has received its kami from another Kumano shrine through a process of propagation called or...
"). A diary Teika wrote about a trip to Kumano he took with Go-Toba and Michichika; like his other diary, it is written in classical Chinese, except for the wakas along the way to the shrines there that Go-Toba was so devoted to that this trip was but one of more than thirty. Teika seems not to have enjoyed the trip; his diary often records concern over his health and matters of decorum such as the proper clothes to wear. - Eiga taigai or Eika no Taigai (c. 1216, 1222?; "Essentials of Poetic Composition"). Besides normal advice and criticism of poetry such as pedantic rules on honkadoriHonkadoriIn Japanese poetry, is an allusion within a poem, to an older poem which would be generally recognized by its potential readers. Honkadori possesses qualities of yūgen and in Japanese art. The concept emerged in the 12th century during the Kamakura period...
- poems used as a base in honkadori should always be old poems and from either the Kokinshū, Shūi Wakashū, or the Gosen Wakashū with no more than two and a half lines borrowed from the originals; similarly, borrowed elements were to be moved within the new poem and the new poem should have a different theme), Teika also tellingly recommends certain classic works for aspiring poets to study: the Tales of Ise, Sanjurokkasen (or "Poems of the Thirty-Six Immortals") and the first two portions of The Collected Works of Po Chü-i. Portions of the Eiga taigai have been translated into English - Hyakunin isshuHyakunin Isshuis a traditional anthology style of compiling Japanese waka poetry where each contributor writes one poem for the anthology. Literally, it translates to "one hundred people, one poem [each]"...
(c. 1235 "Single Poems by One Hundred Poets"; this collection became the foundation of the modern Japanese New YearJapanese New YearThe is one of the most important annual festivals, with its own unique customs, and has been celebrated for centuries. Due to the importance of the holiday and the preparations required, the preceding days are quite busy, particularly the day before, known as Ōmisoka.The Japanese New Year has been...
game karutaKarutais a Japanese card game.The basic idea of any karuta game is to be able to quickly determine which card out of an array of cards is required and then to grab the card before it is grabbed by an opponent. There are various types of cards which can be used to play karuta...
.) - Hyakunin Shūka (1229-1236?; an 101 poem anthology arranged at the request of Utsunomiya Yoritsuna to be copied onto 101 strips of paper and pasted onto the walls of his villa; it has 97 poems in common with Hyakunin isshu, suggesting that perhaps it is a misidentified and variant version of the Isshu.)
- Kindai shūka (c. 1209; "Superior Poems of Our Time"; a collection of poems Teika felt to be excellent models, with a preface dealing with his critical philosophy, sent to Sanetomo to instruct him in how his poems should emulate the great ancient Japanese poets- teaching by example. This sequence was constructed when he was 47, after the death of Shunzei, which depressed Teika, as evidenced by his writing in the Kindai shūka that he had "forgotten the color of the followers of words; the well-springs of inspiration have run dry.")
- Maigetsusho (c. 1219; "Monthly Notes"; an epistle of corrections of one hundred poems, sent to a student of Teika's. Besides the corrections, it bore a preface which is a major source of information regarding Teika's view on the aesthetics of poetry; ShōtetsuShotetsuShōtetsu was a Japanese poet during the Muromachi period, and is considered to have been the last poet in the courtly waka tradition ; a number of his disciples were important in the development of the renga art form, which led to the haiku....
states that it was sent to Minamoto no Sanetomo; Ton'aTon'a, also spelled as Tonna; lay name – Nikaidō Sadamune 二階堂貞宗. A Japanese Buddhist poet, student of Nijō Tameyo 二条為世. Ton'a took a tonsure at Enryaku-ji Temple, but was later associated with the Ji sect 時宗 . He looked up to Saigyō's poetic genius...
holds rather that it had been sent to the "Kinugasa Great Inner Minister", or Fujiwara no Ieyoshi.) - Matsura Monogatari ("The Tale of Matsura"; an experimental novel believed to be written by Teika, though Teika's manuscript claims that he was merely copying it.)
- Meigetsuki ("The Record of the Clear Moon"; sometimes called "Diary of the Clear Moon" or possibly "Chronicle of the Bright Moon"; as the second translation suggests, this was a diary Teika kept in classical Chinese between the ages of approximately 18 (in 1180) to just before his death, around 1241; the entries for 1180 and 1181 may have been written when Teika was an old man, but the bulk of the diary covers the 47 years between 1188 and 1235. As its comprehensiveness might suggest, it is an extremely valuable resource for understanding the court and Teika's place in the Imperial court, even despite its incompleteness- available extant versions consist of 56 scrolls (the Reizei family possesses in its family library holographHolographA holograph is a document written entirely in the handwriting of the person whose signature it bears. Some countries or local jurisdictions within certain countries give legal standing to specific types of holographic documents, generally waiving requirements that they be witnessed...
s of 56 and copies of two more), while scholars estimate that the original consisted of over 180 scrolls.) Among its many interesting passages (some quoted previously) about Teika's career and life is a famous passage from the ninth month of 1180 about Teika's indifference to political or military advancement, in which he aristocratically remarked that "Reports of disturbances and punitive expeditions fill one's ears, but I pay them no attention. The red banners and the expeditions against the traitors are no concern of mine." (Here, "red banners" probably refers to the Imperial standard; the last line is possibly a reference to a poem by Po Chu-i in which he tells of how he has been effectively exiled and passes his time playing GoGo (board game)Go , is an ancient board game for two players that originated in China more than 2,000 years ago...
). - Nishidaishū (Anthology of 1811 poems from the first 8 Imperial anthologies.)
- Shuka no daitai ("A Basic Canon of Superior Poems")
- Teika Jitte (1207–1213; an anthology of 286 poems, chiefly derived from the Shin Kokinshū; long believed a forgery, but some modern scholars contend that it is a genuine work.)
- Shū gusō (?); Teika's personal anthology of poems. It is of interest as one of the more complete sources of Teika's poems- for instance, the two poems which offended Retired Emperor Go-Toba so much and caused the rift between Teika and him are preserved here only.
External links
- Hyakunin isshu-(Public domainPublic domainWorks are in the public domain if the intellectual property rights have expired, if the intellectual property rights are forfeited, or if they are not covered by intellectual property rights at all...
translation online) - Brief biography of Teika and links to ~41 translated poems.
- Entry at Encyclopædia BritannicaEncyclopædia BritannicaThe Encyclopædia Britannica , published by Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., is a general knowledge English-language encyclopaedia that is available in print, as a DVD, and on the Internet. It is written and continuously updated by about 100 full-time editors and more than 4,000 expert...
- Page on the Meigetsuki
- Picture of a portion of a hand-scroll of the Meigetsuki
- Article on Teika and a supernovaSupernovaA supernova is a stellar explosion that is more energetic than a nova. It is pronounced with the plural supernovae or supernovas. Supernovae are extremely luminous and cause a burst of radiation that often briefly outshines an entire galaxy, before fading from view over several weeks or months...
he witnessed