The Wakan rōeishū: cannibalization or singing in harmony?

要旨

The Wakan roeishU (fO~AAIDl<~.ca.1012) 1 embodies a key moment in the process of assimilating Chinese poetry into the Japanese poetic tradition.It crystallized a canon of Chinese poetry specifically for Heian Japan that exerted a far reaching influence.For example, a line of Chinese poetry from the Wakan roeishU even surfaces in Kawabata Yasunari's acceptance speech for the Nobel prize in 1968.Kawabata cites the Japanese art historian •Yashiro Yukio who states that "one of the special characteristics of Japanese art can be summed up in a single poetic sentence: 'The time of the snows, of the moon, of the blossoms-then more than ever we think of our comrades."' 2This "poetic sentence" (shigo [WJ~B]) is actually an adaptation 3 of one line from a couplet by Bai Juyi (S.@~, 772-846), no.734 of the Wakan roeishu, "?JfWJ~~-Wifm:ft, ~ !H~IWJ jjiti:{!" ("Lute, poetry, wine-these friends all have abandoned me, Snow, moon, blossoms-these times, more than ever I think of you").This is the locus classicus for setsugekka, now a fixed expression in Japanese for the seasonal beauties of nature, but actually three characters from one line of one couplet from Bai Juyi's poem, "

主題