6 - Anthologization and Sino-Japanese literature:Kaifūsōand the three imperial anthologies

Summary

In contrast to Western antiquity, poetry anthologies have been a prominent form of literary production in East Asia. This ideology of anthologization fit the needs of the early Japanese state. In Japan the tradition of imperial anthologies, prefigured by the eighth-century Kaifuso, was pioneered by the three ninth-century kanshi anthologies and continued in the line of twenty-one imperial waka anthologies from the Kokinwakashu into the fifteenth century. Sixty years after Kaifuso, Emperor Saga and his successor Junna, both sons of Emperor Kanmu, the founder of the Heian capital, commissioned three imperial anthologies in a short period of thirteen years: Ryounshu, Bunka shureishu, and Keikokushu. Saga vigorously promoted literature. The early Sino-Japanese anthologies represent the foundations of court poetry in Japan and show the importance of kanshi both as a domestic and cross-cultural medium of communication and entertainment. The early Sino-Japanese anthologies highlight kanshi as a transnational skill and a medium of cross-cultural communication.