Places, Images, Times & Transformations

Heian: A Time and Place

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Indeed, Heian Japan, as described in Genji and elsewhere, represented a most unusual example of a sophisticated environment redolent of, say, the court life of seventeenth or eighteenth century Europe, and of a level of sophistication otherwise unknown in the world, except in China. Women above a certain status, at least, were well educated and felt themselves the equal of the men of their society, at whom they were not afraid to poke fun in their writings.

The continuing influence and prestige of Chinese culture helped form attitudes and interests in the arts, and in the composition of poetry in particular, which remained the most prestigious form of literary expression during the Heian period. Men, trained to keep documents in classical Chinese, also wrote poetry in that language, in somewhat the same fashion as medieval monks wrote verse in Latin, but the tradition of poetry written directly in Japanese, notably in the 31-syllable form of the waka (sometimes referred to as tanka) became the dominant form that constituted the traditions of court poetry. Waka were written in earlier periods, but the first major collection of these brief and evocative poems were collected together in the highly influential Kokinshū (A Collection of Poems Ancient and Modern) which served as the basis for the long tradition of court poetry. The chief editor for this collection was the gifted court poet Ki no Tsurayuki, many of whose works are included in the anthology. Later students of poetry memorized as a matter of course the roughly thousand or so poems that make up this collection, and these poems are still read and appreciated today, although even young Japanese readers now require some glosses for what have become obscure words and phrases.

Much of the poetry written and preserved in the Heian period was closely related to nature, and to sights and scenes in and near the capital. For government officials and other well-educated people, Heian was the center of their world; nor did they know any other, since travel to the mainland of Asia was no longer easily possible. (Japanese travelers were only able to encounter Europe for the first time in the late 16th century.) For these men and women, to be forced to live in the provinces, perhaps as minor government officials, was to abandon any chance at worldly or artistic success.

Many poems in the Kokinshū picture familiar scenes in and around Kyoto. Here for example, is a 31-syllable poem by Tsurayuki himself:

The state of human

hearts I cannot know and yet

the blossoms of this

familiar village still greet

me with the scent of years past.

Kokinshū #42, translated by Rodd and Henkenius

The "familiar village" mentioned in the poem is Hatsuse, the location of Hase-dera, a beautiful Buddhist temple to the south of the city, a favorite religious pilgrimage site which plays an important role in The Tale of Genji. It is here that, while on a visit, Ukon, a lady-in-waiting in Prince Genji's household, finds through startling circumstances Tamakazura, the long lost daughter of Genji's closest friend, Tō no Chūjō. Genji, incidentally, contains many hundreds of poems by the author, woven into this narrative of a great prince and his political and amorous career.

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