Linked Verse in Medieval Japan

History, Commentary, Performance
Erscheinungsjahr 2025
ISBN: 978-0-231-19114-2
Verlag: Columbia University Press

Buch, Englisch, 976 Seiten, Print PDF, Format (B × H): 156 mm x 235 mm

Linked verse (renga) was the most popular form of poetry in Japan’s medieval era (c. 1200–1600 CE). Renga poets linked verses of seventeen and fourteen syllables into long sequences in accordance with complex rules and literary allusions; the first verse, which initially stood alone, was the ancestor of the modern haiku. Courtiers, warriors, and commoners alike practiced linked verse in an atmosphere of literary artistry, scholarship, social sensitivity, and charged competition. The masters were often invited at great expense to warrior domains to preside at linked-verse sessions and provide instruction in the art. Some of Japan’s most famous poets, notably Sogi and Basho, composed not only revered renga works but also books of guidance, history, theory, and commentary.

This book is the most comprehensive work in English on premodern Japanese linked verse. It includes a history of the genre in both its formal (ushin) and unorthodox (haikai) manifestations through the work of Basho, an introduction to linked-verse composition and commentaries, and an overview of the art’s performative aspects. These three parts are each linked to original English translations: an early treatise on renga history, theory, and rules; a particularly intricate hundred-verse sequence and its contemporary commentaries; and two guides to mental attitude and deportment at a renga session. Wide-ranging and erudite, Linked Verse in Medieval Japan is a masterful account of the history, theory, and practice of one of Japan’s great art forms.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Horton, H. Mack

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Europäische Literatur
• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Literaturen sonstiger Sprachräume Ost- & Südostasiatische Literatur
• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Literaturwissenschaft: Lyrik und Dichter

Über Autor(innen)

Horton, H. Mack
H. Mack Horton is Catherine and William L. Magistretti Chair of East Asian Languages and Cultures at University of California, Berkeley. He is the author of Song in an Age of Discord: The Journal of Sôchô and Poetic Life in Late Medieval Japan (Stanford University Press, 2002), The Journal of Sôchô (Stanford University Press, 2002), and Traversing the Frontier: The Man'yôshû Account of a Japanese Mission to Silla in 736-37 (Harvard University Asia Center, 2012).

H. Mack Horton is the Catherine and William L. Magistretti Distinguished Professor of Japanese Literature at the University of California, Berkeley. His books include Song in an Age of Discord: The Journal of Sôchô and Poetic Life in Late Medieval Japan (2002); Traversing the Frontier: The Man’yoshu Account of a Japanese Mission to Silla in 736–737 (2012); and The Rhetoric of Death and Discipleship in Premodern Japan: Socho’s Death of Sogi and Kikaku’s Death of Master Basho (2019).