Gosenshu Introduction

[NOTE: This introduction is incomplete and fragmentary; it's still a working draft with major parts not yet complete.]

The Gosen wakashu (GSS) is the second imperially commissioned anthology of Japanese poetry. It has long suffered in comparison with its predecessor, the Kokin wakashu (KKS), which quickly became the foundation of proper poetry.

The Composition of the GSS

We know frustratingly little about the circumstances surrounding the GSS' compilation. The collection itself has no preface, and all the sources of information about it date much later than the collection itself. Honcho monzui, a large collection of Chinese poetry and prose dating to the mid-11th century, says that in 951, Emperor Murakami charged five men to compile a new poetry collection and to gloss the text of the Man'yoshu. But neither this (nor any other contemporary source) say anything about when the work was completed, or when it was presented to the Emperor.

Nevertheless, it is clear from sources such as the Tale of Genji and the Tale of Flowering Fortunes that by the first decade of the 11th century, the GSS was established as one of the three imperial collections alongside the KKS and the Shui wakashu. This does not zero in on a completion date for the GSS, but it does show that it was recognized early on as having an official status equal to the KKS.

The Text of the Gosenshu =

As the previous discussion makes clear, there can be no urtext of the GSS since we don't even know when or if it was completed.

The base text

The text used for this translation is in the hand of Fujiwara no Teika 藤原定家, written in 1234 at the age of 73, the second to last manuscript of the GSS he made. For many years this text was only known through copies, including a tracing done in the Edo period. But in 2004 a facsimile edition of the original, held in the Reizei family archives, was finally published. We know of nine different Teika texts of the GSS, ranging from 1221 to 1236, as well as undated copies. But the 1234 manuscript (the Tenpuku 2 天福二 text) has been the standard text of the GSS since the 14th century.

As with Teika's other manuscripts, the text contains annotations (勘物); primarily about the authors, but a few notes about variant readings. The character 万 also appears on a handful of poems that are also found in the Man'yoshu, and there are a few other notes on poems that are duplicated in the KKS or elsewhere in the GSS itself. In addition, there are a good number of variant readings recorded in red ink. According to the colophon by Teika, these are the result of a collation with a text purportedly in the hand of Fujiwara no Yukinari. Teika evidently valued this information highly, and in the last manuscript he made in his life he incorporated many of them into his text.

Types of poems

I define three major types of poems in the GSS, taking the information from the prose preface at face value:

1 Occasional poems are composed in response to some external stimuli. For instance, a poet sees a cherry blossom and reads a poem. Or, a group of men are passing around a wine cup and composing poems about the spring night. These poems can either be composed by the poet in isolation, or in front of others.

2 Artificial poems are composed on a set topic. This includes poems for poetry competitions, screen paintings, poetic sequences, or those in response to Imperial command. I also include in this category prose prefaces such as 花をよめる ("read on flowers") -- while this could be occasional, there are many prefaces that read as 花を見てよめる ("The poet saw flowers and read this"). I don't think we can say with certainty that the original compilers saw a significant difference between these two types of prefaces, but it's possible that they did.

3 Personal poems are addressed to one person. Often these are called "private" poems but many of them were composed with the knowledge (or even hope) that they would be read by others. The bulk of these personal poems are love poems, but there are poems of friendship, apology, or thanks as well.

In addition to these three types, there are the poems with unknown contexts (題知らず).