Abbreviations for Multivolume Primary Sources
| NKBT | Nihon koten bungaku taikei, 106 vols. (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1957–1968) |
| NKBZ | Nihon koten bungaku zenshū, 51 vols. (Tokyo: Shōgakukan, 1970–1976) |
| SNKBS | Shinchō Nihon koten shūsei, 95 vols. (Tokyo: Shinchōsha, 1997–2005) |
| SNKBT | Shin Nihon koten bungaku taikei, 100 vols. (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1990–2005) |
| SNKBZ | Shinpen Nihon koten bungaku zenshū, 88 vols. (Tokyo: Shōgakukan, 1994–2002) |
Preface
1. Augustin Berque, Japan: Nature, Artifice, and Japanese Culture, trans. Ros Schwartz (Yelvetoft Manor: Pilkington Press, 1997), 79–80.
2. Ursula K. Heise, in “Forum on Literatures of the Environment,” PMLA 114, no. 5 (1999): 1097–1098.
3. Kate Soper, What Is Nature? Culture, Politics, and the Non-Human (Oxford: Blackwell, 1995), 155–156.
Introduction: Secondary Nature, Climate, and Landscape
1. “Nihon bungaku no tokuchō,” in Shinsōgō zusetsu kokugo, rev. ed., ed. Nishihara Kazuo, Tsukakoshi Kazuo, Katō Minoru, Watanabe Yasuaki, and Ikeda Takumi (Tokyo: Tōkyō shoseki, 2000), 2.
2. Haga Yaichi, “Kokuminsei jūron,” in Ochiai Naobumi, Ueda Kazutoshi, Haga Yaichi, Fujioka Sakutarō shū, ed. Hisamatsu Sen’ichi, Meiji bungaku zenshū 44 (Tokyo: Chikuma shobō, 1968), 235–281.
3. See, for example, Masaharu Anesaki, Art, Life, and Nature in Japan (Tokyo: Tuttle, 1973), cited in Arne Kalland, “Culture in Japanese Literature,” in Japanese Images of Nature: Cultural Perspectives, ed. Pamela J. Asquith and Arne Kalland (Richmond, Eng.: Curzon Press, 1997), 244.
4. Ki no Tsurayuki, kana preface, in Kokin wakashū, ed. Kojima Noriyuki and Arai Eizō, SNKBT 5 (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1989), 4.
5. Fujiwara no Shunzei, Koraifūteishō, in Karonshū, ed. Hashimoto Fumio, Ariyoshi Tamotsu, and Fujihira Haruo, NKBZ 50 (Tokyo: Shōgakukan, 1975), 273, 371.
6. Fujiwara no Teika, Maigetsushō, in ibid., 515.
7. A similar stance is taken by Retired Emperor Juntoku (1197–1242; r. 1210–1221) in book 6 of his Yakumo mishō (Layered Clouds Honorable Notes, early thirteenth century). See Sasaki Nobutsuna, ed., Nihon kagaku taikei (Tokyo: Kazama shobō, 1956–1965), 3:73–94.
8. Nishioka Hideo, Kandan no rekishi: Nihon kikō shichihyakunen shūkisetsu (Tokyo: Kōgakusha, 1949), cited in Takahashi Kazuo, Nihon bungaku to kishō, Chūkū shinsho 512 (Tokyo: Chūō kōronsha, 1978), 12–13.
9. In this book, dates in the premodern luni-solar calendar are referred to by capitalized, numbered months, such as “fifteenth day of the First Month,” while dates in the modern solar calendar are referred to, for example, as “January 5.”
10. The average peak for the ninth century was April 10; for the fifteenth century, April 10; and for the sixteenth century, April 16. See Yamato Takeo, “Nihon sakurabana shiryō to Ōa no kikō sōkan,” Kigaku 22, no. 1 (1952), cited in Takahashi, Nihon bungaku to kishō, 234.
11. The highest temperature for 1881 was in August, when it reached 89.6 degrees Fahrenheit. The lowest temperature in the same year was in January, when it averaged 27.32 degrees Fahrenheit. See Takahashi, Nihon bungaku to kishō, 15.
12. Kira Tatsuo, “Nihon bunka no shizen kankyō,” in Seitaigaku kara shizen (Tokyo: Kawade shobō shinsha, 1983), 140–148.
13. Takahashi, Nihon bungaku to kishō, 58.
14. The typhoons begin in the South Pacific, in tropical, low-pressure areas; reach wind speeds of up to thirty-eight miles per hour at the center; and cause extensive damage and large rainfall. In classical Japanese, a typhoon is referred to as nowaki.
15. Yasuda Yoshinori, “Rettō no shinzen kankyō,” in Nihon rettō to jinrui shakai, Iwanami kōza tsūshi 1 (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1993), 41–81.
16. Sen no Rikyū, “Records of the Words of Rikyū,” in Wind in the Pines: Classic Writings of the Way of Tea as a Buddhist Path, ed. Dennis Hirota (Fremont, Calif.: Asian Humanities Press, 1995), 223.
17. English-language scholarship on Japanese views of nature, like much of Japanese scholarship, fails to distinguish between these two fundamental perspectives and tends to be ahistorical or ignore a long history of premodern evolving views.
18. Hizen no kuni fudoki, in Fudoki, NKBT 2 (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1958), 393. Hizen Province, in western Kyushu, is now occupied by Saga and Nagasaki prefectures.
19. Iinuma Kenji, “Kankyō rekishigaku josetsu: shōen no kaihatsu to shizen kankyō,” Minshūshi kenkyū, May 2001, 11.
20. For the history and characteristics of the satoyama, see K. Takeuchi, R. D. Brown, I. Washitani, A. Tsunekawa, and M. Yokohari, eds., Satoyama: The Traditional Rural Landscapes of Japan (Tokyo: Springer, 2003).
21. Uji shūi monogatari, NKBZ 28 (Tokyo: Shōgakukan, 1973), 74–75; “How a Young Lad from the Country Wept on Seeing the Cherry-Blossom Falling,” in A Collection of Tales from Uji, trans. D. E. Mills (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970), 150.
1. Poetic Topics and the Making of the Four Seasons
1. For example, the Festival to Pray for a Rich Harvest (Toshigoi no matsuri) was held on the fourth day of the Second Month (mid-spring) to pray for a bountiful harvest of the five grains, peace for the country, and the good health of the emperor.
2. Satsuki no tama is thought to have been a medicine ball (kusudama) to ward off evil on the fifth day of the Fifth Month, but it is best interpreted in this poem as the fruit of the mandarin orange (tachibana).
3. Ōtomo no Yakamochi (d. 785), perhaps with the help of Ōtomo no Sakanoue no Iratsume (Lady Sakanoue [700–750]), may have selected outstanding seasonal poems from the past and placed them in prominent positions in book 8 as models for the present. The opening poems in each section of the book are from the second Man’yōshū period (672–710), while the overwhelming majority of the poems are from the third Man’yōshū period (710–733). The “old” poems are at the beginning of each major section, followed by “new” poems from the present or recent past. Itō Haku points out that this “old–new” structure informs the first sixteen of the twenty books of the Man’yōshū, in “Manyōshū ni okeru ‘inishie’ to ‘ima’: maki kyū no kōzōron o tōshite,” Kokugo to kpkubungaku, December 1, 1971, 1–15.
4. The early zōka were defined by context (public occasions related to the imperial family), while sōmon and banka were defined by content (love and death, respectively). These miscellaneous poems appear as early as the Genmei era (661–721), are prominent in book 1 of the Man’yōshū, and continue to be a central genre in subsequent books. Banquet poetry, by contrast, emerges in books 5 and 6, which collect poetry from the Jinki (724–729) and Tenpyō (729–749) eras, and then comes to the fore in books 8 and 10, when seasonal poems emerge.
5. Aso Mizue has argued that the plum-blossom poetry banquet was a major impetus for banquet poetry on seasonal topics, in “Man’yōshū no shiki bunrui,” in Ronshū jōdai bungaku, ed. Man’yō shichiyōkai (Tokyo: Kasama shoin, 1973), 10–11. A number of important seasonal banquets were held in the early Tenpyō era, from around 730 to 738.
6. This poem, probably by Ōtomo no Tabito, is from a group of four (Man’yōshū, 5:849–852) that were added to the original thirty-two plum poems (5:815–846) at Tabito’s banquet.
7. The Kokinshū topics are not as clearly defined as the list suggests; for example, in summer, the small cuckoo and orange blossoms often are in the same poem. Also, a topic may appear once and then reappear with another topic. A number of poetic places (utamakura), which are not indicated here, are also interwoven into the seasonal motifs. For example, Mount Yoshino appears repeatedly in the snow sequence (nos. 317, 321, 325, 327, 332) in the winter book of the Kokinshū.
8. In this poem, Kaguyama (Mount Kagu) is the gateway for spring, since, as the “Heavenly Hills,” it is closest to the heavens. Kaguyama is in the Nara basin, but even after the capital moved to present-day Kyoto, the aristocrats continued to write about the hills of Nara, which were rich in cultural connotations.
9. A salient example is the second poem in the Shinkokinshū (New Anthology of Poetry Old and New, 1205), by Emperor GoToba: “Faintly, it seems, spring has arrived in the sky—mist trailing over Heavenly Kagu Mountain” (Honobono to haru koso sora ni kjnikerashi Ama no Kaguyama kasumi tanabiku [Spring 1, no. 2]).
10. Kawamura Teruo, Sekkanki wakashi no kenkyū (Tokyo: Miyai shoten, 1991), 368, 405–420.
11. The ume, which was imported from China, is actually a kind of apricot, but it is traditionally translated as “plum.”
12. The Man’yōshū has eight poems (nos. 1846–1853) on the willow in the “Spring Miscellaneous” section of book 10.
13. There is only one poem in the Man’yōshū (20:4500) on the scent of the plum.
14. There are a few instances in the Kokinshū in which the word “flower” (hana) refers to the plum blossom, such as in Ki no Tsurayuki’s poem (Spring 1, no. 42), but generally hana in the spring books refers to the cherry blossom from mid- to late spring.
15. Opinions were divided on whether yellow kerria was a grass flower or just a grass. Sei Shōnagon’s Makura no sōshi (The Pillow Book, ca. 1000) includes the eight-layered yamabuki among the grass flowers (kusa no hana), while in Tsurezuregusa (Essays in Idleness, 1310–1331?), Priest Kenkō lists both yellow kerria and wisteria (fuji) as grasses (kusa).
16. The poem plays on the verbs utsurou, which can mean both “to move” and “to reflect,” and fuku (to blow), which is also embedded in the word yamabuki (literally, “mountain blows”). The flowers reflected on the surface of the water appear to be scattering at the bottom of the river.
17. The summer book of the Kokinshū has only 34 poems compared with 134 poems in the two spring books.
18. The Man’yōshū includes as many as seventy poems on the mandarin orange (with about half on the flower [hanatachibana]), making it the equal of the plum blossom and the bush clover as a seasonal topic.
19. The “person of long ago” is probably a lover whom the poet has lost. The poem also appears in section 60 of The Tales of Ise (Ise monogatari, ca. 947).
20. One etymological theory is that the sa- in samidare refers to satsuki (Fifth Month) and that -midare refers to the dripping of water (mizu tareru). From the late Heian period, three Chinese graphs, 
(literally, “Fifth Month Rain”), were used for the word. In the medieval period, the Chinese compound bai-u (plum rain, when the fruit of the plum ripens) and its Japanese reading (ume no ame) were used to denote the time of the long rains. In the Edo period, this compound was read as tsuyu, and samidare referred to the rain itself, the season of the long rains, or both.
21. The Tanabata poems in the “Autumn Miscellaneous” section of book 10 of the Man’yōshū include a large group of thirty-eight (nos. 1996–2033), probably written around 680, that are labeled “From Hitomaro’s Poetry Collection.” Most of the Tanabata poems, however, come from a later period.
22. In Satomura Jōha’s treatise Renga shihōshō (Shihōshō; Collection of Treasures, 1586), ominaeshi is categorized as a seasonal word for the Seventh Month, the first month of autumn, a tradition carried on by early Edo haikai handbooks such as Matsue Shigeyori’s Hanahikusa (Sneeze Grass, 1636) and Kefukigusa (Blown-fur Grass, 1645), and Kitamura Kigin’s Zōyamanoi (Additional Mountain Well, 1667).
23. Of the momichi poems in books 8 and 10 of the Man’yōshū, three refer to red leaves and seventeen to yellow leaves.
24. The chrysanthemum became an autumn topic, while the zangiku (lingering chrysanthemum) became an early-winter topic. Renga and haikai handbooks categorize the chrysanthemum as a seasonal word for the Ninth Month, the last phase of autumn, following the association of the chrysanthemum with the ninth day of the Ninth Month.
25. For more detail, see Arai Eizō, “Kokin wakashū shiki no bu no kōzō ni tsuite no ichi kōsatsu: tairitsuteki kikōron no tachiba kara,” in Kokinwakashū, ed. Nihon bungaku kenkyū shiryō kankōkai, Nihon bungaku kenkyū shiryō sōsho 15 (Tokyo: Yūseido, 1976), 92–117.
26. The notion of love as it appears in the Kokinshū differs significantly from the modern Western idea of “love,” which implies passionate involvement with someone. In classical poetry, love (koi) means yearning to be with someone of the opposite sex who is absent or beyond reach. A graph often used in the Man’yōshū for “love” is 
(ko-hi; literally, “lonely sorrow”). Koi is about the pain of being apart or separated from the object of desire; it is rarely about the joy of being together.
27. The importance of waterfowl (mizutori) in Heian-period waka is evident in the fact that the Horikawa hyakushu (Horikawa Poems on One Hundred Fixed Topics, 1105) chooses it as one of the fifteen winter topics.
28. Tentoku yonen sangatsu sanjūnichi dairi uta-awase, in Uta-awase, ed. Hagitani Boku and Taniyama Shigeru, NKBT 74 (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1965), 82.
29. Ibid., 83.
30. The Roppyakuban uta-awase immediately follows the Senzaishū, the seventh imperial waka anthology, which was also edited by Shunzei.
31. The return to the Makura no sōshi, together with the extensive use of The Tale of Genji topics, such as evening faces (yūgao) and autumn tempest (nowaki), may have been part of the effort of the organizers, particularly the Kujō family (northern branch of the Fujiwara clan), founded by Kujō Kanezane (1149–1207), to relive the time when the Fujiwara Regency (sekkanke) was at its height, in the mid-Heian period. See Shinozaki Yukie, “Roppyakuban uta-awase kadai-kō: Shiki no bu o megutte,” Kokubungaku kenkyū, May 1990, 62.
32. According to the Waka genzai shomokuroku (Contemporary Catalogue of Japanese Poetry, ca. 1166), a late Heian catalogue, the first hyakushu-uta was composed by Minamoto no Shigeyuki (d. 1000), who offered his hundred poems to the crown prince (later Emperor Reizei) in 967.
33. Hashimoto Fumio and Takizawa Sadao, Kōhon Eikyū yonen hyakushu waka to sono kenkyū (Tokyo: Kasama shoin, 1978), 162. In contrast to the Horikawa hyakushu, 87 percent of whose topics overlap with those in earlier collections, only 33 percent of the topics in the Eikyū yonen hyakushu (Poems on One Hundred Fixed Topics in the Fourth Year of Eikyū, 1116) correspond to those found in earlier collections. If the Horikawa hyakushu draws heavily on the Wakan rōeishū (Japanese and Chinese-Style Poems to Sing, ca. 1013), the Eikyū yonen hyakushu draws on the Senzai kaku (Superior Verses of a Thousand Years, ca. 947–957), a topically arranged anthology based on two-line excerpts from kanshi.
34. The seasonal words for the pastoral landscape include, for spring, young bracken (sawarabi), spring rain (harusame), spring horses (harukoma), rice-seedling bed (nawashiro), violet (sumiregusa), iris (kakitsubata); for summer, hollyhock (aoi), young rice seedlings (sanae), firelight (tomoshi), insect-repelling fires (kayaribi), lotus, ice room, spring (izumi); for autumn, reeds (ogi), kangaroo grass (karukaya), boneset (fujibakama), morning glory (asagao), fulling cloth (tōi); and for winter, early winter, cold house, wicker fish trap (ajiro), god dance (kagura), falconry (takagari), charcoal oven (sumigama), and charcoal fire in ash (uzumibi).
35. Nawashiro first appears as a fixed topic in the Kokiden nyōgo uta-awase (Kokiden Consort Poetry Contest, 1041).
36. Sanae first appears as a topic in the Gon Dainagon no ie no uta-awase (Poetry Contest at the House of the Provisional Major Counselor, 1096).
37. Another example of seasonal ambiguity is the willow, which became associated primarily with the beginning of spring, but also appears in summer and winter topics.
38. Kazamaki Keijirō, “Hachidaishū shikibu no dai ni okeru ichi jiitsu,” in Shinkokin jidai, vol. 6 of Kazamaki Keijirō zenshū (Tokyo: Ōfūsha, 1970), 63–83.
39. Ariyoshi Tamotsu, Shinkokinshū no kenkyū, zoku hen (Tokyo: Kasama shoin, 1996), 136.
2. Visual Culture, Classical Poetry, and Linked Verse
1. The descriptions of the most prominent color combinations of the kasane are based on the historical reconstructions in Ihara Aki, Heian chō no bungaku to shikisai, Chūkō shinsho 673 (Tokyo: Chūō kōronsha, 1982), frontispiece. Since the robes from the Heian period do not survive, these colors are based on non-visual evidence found in documents, resulting in a range of interpretations.
2. Ibid., 27–28.
3. Takeda Tsuneo, Nihon no kaiga to saiji: Keibutsuga shiron (Tokyo: Perikansha, 1990), 20–21.
4. Ōnakatomi no Yoshinobu, Yoshinobu shū, in Chūkō, vol. 1 of Shikashū taisei, ed. Wakashi kenkyūkai (Tokyo: Meiji shoin, 1973), 571–572.
5. The paintings do not survive, but the twenty-four waka are preserved in the Shūi gusō (My Gathered Writings, 1216), a private collection of poetry by Fujiwara no Teika. See Ishikawa Tsunehiko, ed., Shūi gusō kochū, Chūsei no bungaku (Tokyo: Miyai shoten, 1989).
6. Ogata Kenzan’s Teika-ei jūnikagetsu waka kachōzu kflkuzara (1702), a set of twelve square dishes with seasonal motifs, each with a poem on the reverse side, is in the MOA Museum of Art, Atami. Photographs of the set are in Suntory bijitsukan, ed., Uta o egaku, e o yomu: waka to Nihon bijutsu (Tokyo: Suntory bijutsukan, 2004), 124–125.
7. Depending on the design of the tree or flower, the points were different. The designs with the highest value (twenty points) were pine with crane; cherry blossoms with tent curtain (maku); miscanthus grass with moon; willow with Ono no Tōfū (894–966), a noted Heian calligrapher; and paulownia with phoenix. Combination designs—such as plum blossoms and warbler, wisteria and cuckoo, sweet flag and Eight Bridges, peony and butterfly, bush clover and wild boar, miscanthus grass and wild geese, chrysanthemum and sake cup, bright foliage and deer, and willow and swallow—earned the next highest marks (ten points).
8. For more details on flower cards, see Sakai Yasushi, Nihon yūgishi (Tokyo: Kensetsusha, 1933).
9. On the relationship of Heian-period painting to poetic places, see Yoshiaki Shimizu, “Seasons and Places in Yamato Landscape and Poetry,” Ars Orientalis 12 (1981): 1–14.
10. Fujiwara no Tameaki, Chikuenshō, in Nihon kagaku taikei, ed. Sasaki Nobutsuna (Tokyo: Kazama shobō, 1956), 3:426.
11. Shōtetsu monogatari, in Karonshū, nōgakuronshū, ed. Hisamatsu Sen’ichi and Nishio Minoru, NKBT 65 (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1961), 176. For a translation, see Conversations with Shōtetsu, trans. Robert H. Brower, with introduction and notes by Steven D. Carter, Michigan Monographs in Japanese Studies, no. 7 (Ann Arbor: Center for Japanese Studies, University of Michigan, 1992), 77–78.
12. Tamamushi Satoko, “Waka o hakobu katachi: byōbu-e kara kosode made,” in Uta o egaku, e o yomu, ed. Suntory bijitsukan, 134–135.
13. Mito Nobue, “Unkin,” in Uta o egaku, e o yomu, ed. Suntory bijitsukan, 106–107.
14. Ida Tarō, “Kigō no bonsai,” in Mitate yatsushi no sōgō kenkyū: purojekkuto hōkokushō dai yongō (Tokyo: Ningen bunka kikō kokubungaku shiryōkan, 2009), 37–43.
15. Mito Nobue, “Mitate to nazuke: waka to no arata na deai,” in Uta o egaku, e o yomu, ed. Suntory bijitsukan, 115–116.
16. Nijō Yoshimoto, Hekirenshō, in Renga ronshū, nōgakushū, haironshū, ed. Ijichi Tetsuo, Omote Akira, and Kuriyama Riichi, NKBZ 51 (Tokyo: Shōgakukan, 1973), 44. Nijō Yoshimoto’s Renri hishō (Secret Notes on the Principles of Linking, ca. 1349), which is said to be a revised version of Hekirenshō, has an identical list of seasonal topics for the twelve months. See Ijichi Tetsuo, ed., Renga ronshū, Iwanami bunko (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1953), 1:38.
17. The yobukodori (cuckoo [Cuculus canorus]) differs from the hototogisu (little cuckoo [Cuculus poiocephalus]), translated here as “small cuckoo.”
18. Nijō Yoshimoto, Hekirenshō, 58.
19. Satomura Jōha, Shihōshō, in Renga ronshū, ed. Ijichi Tetsuo, Iwanami bunko (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1956), 2:233.
20. Ibid., 234.
21. The Senzai kaku, a collection of selected lines from Chinese-style poetry (kanshi), is arranged in the following order: four seasons (shiji), annual observances (jisetsu), astronomical and atmospheric phenomena (tenshō), terrestrial phenomena (chiri), human affairs (jinji), imperial palace, dwellings (kyosho), grass and trees (sōmoku), animals, enjoying banquets, excursions (yūhō), parting (ribetsu), hermits (in’itsu), Buddhism, and the Way of the immortals (sendō). For the text, see Kaneko Hikojirō, Heian jidai bungaku to Hakushi monjū: Kudai waka Senzai kaku kenkyū hen (Tokyo: Baifūkan, 1955), 641–766.
22. Akabane Shuku, “Fujiwara Teika no jūdai hyakushu,” Bungei kenkyū, September 1964; Kubota Jun, Shinkokin kajin no kenkyū (Tokyo: Tōkyō daigaku shuppankai, 1973). The Waka iroha (ABC’s or Primer of Classical Poetry), a poetry treatise written by Jōkaku in the twelfth century, contains a similar list.
23. Mitsuta Kazunobu, “Renga shinshiki no sekai: renga shikimoku moderu teiritsu no kokoromi,” Kokugo kokubun, May 25, 1996, 346–347.
24. For example, a descending object such as snow could be followed by an ascending object such as spring mist, but a descending object had to be separated from another descending object by at least three verses.
25. Among mountain places (sanrui), hill and peak were classified as static, while waterfall represented movement. Stasis or movement could occur only once or twice in a row, as in stasis / stasis / movement or movement / movement / stasis. See Okuda Isao, Rengashi, sono kōdō to bungaku (Tokyo: Hyōronsha, 1976), 31–36.
26. The flower verse was called the hana no ku; the moon verse, tsuki no ku; and the love verse, koi no ku.
27. Sōgi, Shōhaku, and Sōchō, Minase sangin hyakuin, in Rengashū, ed. Ijichi Tetsuo, NKBT 39 (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1960), 345–347.
28. Evening (time of day), mist (ascending).
29. Tree (plant).
30. Wind, tree (plant).
31. Night (time of day), boat (water). “Miscellaneous” (zō) indicates non-seasonal, and thus was commonly used when moving from one season to another in a sequence.
32. Night (time of day), mist (ascending), moon (luminous object).
33. Frost (descending).
34. Insect (animal), grass (plant).
35. For a commentary on Minase sangin hyakuin and a chart on the rules for the distribution of topics as they are observed in this sequence, see Kaneko Kinjirō, Sōgi meisaku hyakuin chūshaku, Kaneko Kinjirō renga kōsō 4 (Tokyo: Ōfūsha, 1985), 89–98.
36. Nijō Yoshimoto, Tsukuba mondō, in Renga ronshū, haironshū, ed. Kidō Saizō and Imoto Nōichi, NKBT 66 (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1961), 82.
37. Mitsuta, “Renga shinshiki no sekai.”
38. Tomiyasu Fūsei, ed., Haiku saijiki: Shin’nen no bu (Tokyo: Heibonsha, 1959).
39. Takahama Kyoshi, Shinsaijiki (1934; rpt., Tokyo: Sanseidō, 1951).
40. Mizuhara Shūōshi, Katō Shūson, and Yamamoto Kenkichi, eds., Nihon daisaijiki: karā zusetsu (Tokyo: Kōdansha, 1983).
41. Kazamaki Keijirō, “Fūgashū to Mokkei,” in Genji monogatari no seiritsu, vol. 4 of Kazamaki Keijirō zenshū (Tokyo: Ōfūsha, 1966), 444–447.
42. Fūgashū, in Chūsei wakashū, ed. Inoue Muneo, SNKBZ 49 (Tokyo: Shōgakukan, 2000), 286.
43. Okuda Isao, “Renga ni okeru fūkei,” Seishin joshi daigaku ronshū, December 1989, 23–36.
44. Tsurusaki Hiroo, “Rengashi no egokoro: renga to suiboku sansuiga, toku ni Shōshō hakkei-zu ni tsuite,” Geinōshi kenkyū, no. 43 (1973): 38-49.
3. Interiorization, Flowers, and Social Ritual
1. Kawamoto Shigeo, “Sumai no keifu to kazari no keifu,” in “Kazari” to “tsukuri” no ryōbun, ed. Tamamushi Satoko, Kōza Nihon bijutsushi 5 (Tokyo: Tōkyō daigaku shuppankai, 2005), 35. See also Kawamoto Shigeo, Shinden-zukuri no kūkan to gishiki (Tokyo: Chūō kōron bijutsu shuppan, 2005).
2. An early example of the pillar-space type of architecture is the Daigokuden (main building) in the Heijō (Nara) and Heian (Kyoto) imperial palaces, where the emperor carried out public rituals.
3. Itō Teiji, “Nihon no dezain,” in Nihonjin no kachikan, ed. Itō Shuntarō, Kōza hikaku bunka 7 (Tokyo: Kenkyūsha, 1976), 335–339.
4. Princess Kishi (951–986), also called Noriko, was the daughter of Emperor Murakami (926–967; r. 946–967).
5. Tachibana Narisue, Kokon chomonjū ge, ed. Nishio Kōichi and Kobayashi Yasuharu, SNKBS 76 (Tokyo: Shinchōsha, 1986), 337–338.
6. On the relationship of waka to the sumahama (island beach) and the garden, see Nishiki Jin, “Waka ni okeru suhama to teien,” Bungaku, June 2006, 79–94.
7. The sequence of the plays is based on a seasonal performance chart of the Kanze school received from Yamanaka Reiko of the Nogami Memorial Noh Theater Research Institute at Hōsei University. See also Horigami Ken and Baba Akiko, Nō no shiki (Tokyo: Tachibana shuppan, 2001).
8. Furuido Hideo, Buyō techō (Tokyo: Shinshokan, 2000).
9. However, as rikka became more important and more formal, particularly as offerings to the gods, the renga flower arrangements (renga no hana) were made in advance of the session. See Sendenshō (1643) and Ōi Minobu, “Ikebana to renga,” both in Ikebana jiten, ed. Ōi Minobu (Tokyo: Tōkyōdō shuppan, 1976), 372, 33–34.
10. Ikenobō Senkō, Ikenobō Sen’ō kuden (Zoku Gunsho ruijū 553), in Ikebana jiten, ed. Ōi, 393–394.
11. A tree branch could function as a shin (center) in a particular month and then as a soe (augmentation) in other months. According to the Sendenshō, maple branches could be both the shin in the Seventh and Eighth Months (autumn) and the soe in other months. See Sendenshō, in Kudō Masanobu, Ikebana no seiritsu to hatten, Nihon ikebana bunkashi 1 (Kyoto: Dōhōsha shuppan, 1992), 79, 186.
12. Ibid., 189.
13. Kurokawa Dōyū, “Enpekiken-ki,” in Ikebana jiten, ed. ōi, 60.
14. Mon’ami was noted as a rikka artist and wrote a number of treatises, including Monami densho (Transmissions on the Flower by Monami, early sixteenth century). Sōami, who established the Sōami school of painting, also was noted for his work on and talent in parlor-style architecture, renga, the tea ceremony, incense competition, and standing-flower arrangement.
15. Ikenobō, Ikenobō Sen’ō kuden, 389, 391.
16. Sendenshō, in Kudō, Ikebana no seiritsu to hatten, 82–83, 182.
17. Rikka imayō sugata, in Ikebana jiten, ed. Ōi, 335.
18. Chōbunsai Eishi’s print Shinnen no iwai (Asian Art Museum, Berlin) is reproduced in Kobayashi Tadashi, ed., Ikebana no fūzoku, Ikebana bijutsu zenshū 9 (Tokyo: Shūeisha, 1983), 16, fig. 8.
19. Ikenobō, Ikenobō Senō kuden, 394.
20. Sendenshō, in Kudō, Ikebana no seiritsu to hatten, 77–79, 179–180.
21. Ikenobō, Ikenobō Sen’ō kuden, 385, 396. The Rikka byōbu zu (Screen Painting of Rikka, ca. 1630 [Fumihide Nomura Collection, Kyoto]), attributed to Iwasa Matabei, shows various rikka arrangements by Ikenobō Senkō II that are appropriate to the occasion. The painting is reproduced in Donald Richie and Meredith Weatherby, eds., The Masters’ Book of Ikebana: Background and Principles of Japanese Flower Arrangement (Tokyo: Bijutsu shuppansha, 1966), figs. 61, 62.
22. Hayashiya Tatsusaburō, “Ikebana no nagare,” in Ikebana no bunkashi, ed. Hayashiya Tatsusaburō, vol. 3 of Zusetsu ikebana taikei, ed. Tamagami Takuya, Hayashiya Tatsusaburō, and Yamane Yōzō (Tokyo: Kadokawa shoten, 1970), 1:13–14.
23. Bonseki emerged in the Kamakura period and became popular at the same time as the kare-sansui.
24. Katō Sadahiko, “Yatsushi to teien bunka,” in Zusetsu mitate to yatsushi: Nihon bunka no hyōgen gihō, ed. Ningen bunka kenkyū kikō kokubungaku kenkyū shiryōkan (Tokyo: Yagi shoten, 2008), 163.
25. Sendenshō, in Kudō, Ikebana no seiritsu to hatten, 190.
26. According to one of the poems in the Rikyū hyakushu, “If you give tea to those returning from flower viewing, don’t hang a picture of birds and flowers or put out any flowers” (Hanami yori kaeri no hito ni chanoyu seba kachō no e wo mo hana mo okumaji). Another poem in the series notes: “If you hang a scroll of poetry in the alcove, know to avoid using poetry elsewhere in the room” (Toko ni mata waka no tagui woba kakeru nara hoka ni utagaki woba kazaranu to shire). Translated at www.teahyakka.com; for the full text, see “Chadō kyōyu hyakushu ei,” in Chadō koten zenshū, ed. Sen Sōshitsu (Kyoto: Tankō shinsha, 1962), 10:133–150.
27. Hayashiya, “Ikebana no nagare.”
28. Kitao Shigemasa’s print Bijin hana-ike is reproduced in Kobayashi, ed., Ikebana no fūzoku, 22, fig. 13.
29. Kobayashi Tadashi, “Ikebana to ukiyoe,” in Ikebana no fūzoku, ed. Kobayashi, 101.
30. Nakao Sasuke, “Nihon no hana no rekishi,” in Hana to ki no bunkashi, Iwanami shinsho 357 (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1986), 105–178.
4. Rural Landscape, Social Difference, and Conflict
1. Miyake Hiroshi, “Sōron: kyōdōtai no densho to kosumolojii,” in Minzoku to girei: sonraku kyōdōtai no seikatsu to shinkō, ed. Miyake Hiroshi, Taikei Bukkyō to Nihonjin 9 (Tokyo: Shunjūsha, 1986), 21.
2. According to Augustin Berque, “Although the mountains in Japan are not very high—apart from Mount Fuji, the highest peaks are not more than 3000 metres [9843 feet]—they are however omnipresent, covering nearly three-fifths of the country. Only on the Kantō plain (in the Tokyo region) and, to a lesser extent, that of Tokachi (on Hokkaido), do mountains not form the immediate backdrop to inhabited areas” (japan: Nature, Artifice, and Japanese Culture, trans. Ros Schwartz [Yelvetoft Manor: Pilkington Press, 1993], 47).
3. The most prominent shrines of this type are Sumiyoshi Shrine (in present-day Osaka) and Itsukushima Shrine, which is built in the water.
4. Takahashi Chihaya, “Tori no Nihonshi,” in Kachō fūgetsu no Nihonshi (Tokyo: Moku shuppan, 2000), 157–213.
5. Ten poems on sparrows, as a bird that picks up fallen rice seeds in a field or nests in bamboo or in the eaves of a house, appear in volume 17 of the Fubokuwakashō (Japanese Collection, ca. 1310), compiled by Fujiwara no Nagakiyo. The Fubokuwakashō includes 17,350 waka from kashū (private poetry collections), uta-awase (poetry contests), hyakushu (poems on a hundred fixed topics), and other types of collections. It is arranged by topical categories, by the seasons, and by miscellaneous topics, and it includes a much wider range of topics than that found in the imperial waka anthologies. See Fujiwara Nagakiyo, comp., Fuboku wakashō, ed. Kokusho kankōkai, Daiikki kankō 15 (Tokyo: Kokusho kankōkai, 1906).
6. Gan-karigane, in Kyōgen shūsei, ed. Nonomura Kaizō and Andō Tsunejirō (Tokyo: Shun’yōdō, 1931), 112–113.
7. See, for example, Ōtomo no Yakamochi’s poem in the Shūishū (Collection of Gleanings, 1005–1007), Spring 1, no. 21.
8. The crane (tsuru) is thought to cover its chicks with its wings on cold nights.
9. “Karukaya,” in Kojōruri, sekkyōshū, ed. Shinoda Jun’ichi and Sakaguchi Hiroyuki, SNKBT 90 (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1999), 272. The same occurs in “Sanshō dayū” (Sanshō the Wealthy), another sekkyōbushi.
10. Kurata Minoru, “Suzume,” in “Kotenbungaku dōbutsushi,” ed. Kokubungaku: kaishaku to kyōzai no kenkyū, special issue, Kokubungaku: kaishaku to kyōzai no kenkyū 39, no.12 (1994): 53.
11. Kaneko Hiromasa, Konishi Masayasu, and Sasaki Kiyomitsu, Nihonshi no naka no dōbutsu jiten (Tokyo: Tōkyōdō shuppan, 1992), 106–107.
12. In the Edo period, parts of rice fields were marked off, preventing farmers from chasing away wild geese—a situation described in “Gan kamo no ine wo kurau nangi no koto” (The Difficulty Caused by Wild Geese and Wild Ducks Eating Rice Plants [3:7]), in Asai Ryōi’s Ukiyo monogatari (Tales of the Floating World, 1665–1666), in Kana-zōshi shū, ed. Taniwaki Masachika, Oka Masahiko, and Inoue Kazuhito, SNKBZ 64 (Tokyo: Shogakukan, 1999), 164–167.
13. In Utsuho monogatari (The Tale of the Hollow Tree, tenth century), Ariwara Tadayasu, while poor, cooks pheasant to honor his dear son-in-law, Minamoto no Nakayori.
14. Both the noh play Ukai (Cormorant Fishing) and the kyōgen (comic) play Tako (Octopus) involve kuyō. For a translation of Ukai, see Arthur Waley, The Nō Plays of Japan (Rutland, Vt.: Tuttle, 1976), 127–133. For a translation of Tako, see Carolyn Haynes, “Parody in Kyōgen: Makura Monogurui and Tako,” Monumenta Nipponica 39 (1984): 261–279.
15. “How a Man Called Umanojō Shot a Male Mandarin Duck in Akanuma in Michinoku Province and Then Received the Tonsure,” trans. Burton Watson, in The Demon at Agi Bridge and Other Japanese Tales, ed. Haruo Shirane (New York: Columbia University Press, 2011), 132–133.
16. “Kari no sōshi,” in Muromachi monogatari shū, ed. Ichiko Teiji, Akiya Osamu, Sawai Taizō, Tajima Kazuo, and Tokuda Kazuo, SNKBT 54 (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten 1989), 1:312–324. For an analysis, see Tokuda Kazuo, “Kari,” in “Kotenbungaku dōbutsushi,” 68–69.
17. Tokugawa bijutsukan, ed., E de tanoshimu Nihon mukashibanashi: otogi-zōshi to ehon no sekai (Tokyo: Tokugawa bijutsukan, 2006), 40.
18. In Hajitomi, a priest is making an offering of a standing-flower (rikka) arrangement at the Unrin-in in Kitayama, north of the capital, when a woman appears and confesses that she is the spirit of Yūgao (Evening Faces); she asks the priest to visit the area of the Fifth Ward (Gojō), and then disappears. When the priest goes to the Fifth Ward, she appears in the trellis of evening-faces blossoms and tells the story of the Shining Genji and his lover Yūgao. She then disappears as if in a dream. For a translation, see Janet Goff, Noh Drama and The Tale of Genji: The Art of Allusion in Fifteen Classical Plays (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1991), 111–114.
19. Bashō, in Yōkyokushū, ed. Itō Masayoshi, SNKBS 3 (Tokyo: Shinchōsha, 1988), 99. For a translation, see Japanese Classics Translation Committee, ed., The Noh Drama: Ten Plays from the Japanese (Rutland, Vt.: Tuttle, 1955), 127–141.
20. Donald Shively, “Buddhahood for the Nonsentient,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 20, nos. 1–2 (1957): 139.
21. The idea that plants have a Buddha nature appears as early as Huiyuan (532–592), who wrote that although plants and non-sentient beings lack a mind, the Buddha nature inheres in them. See Fabio Rambelli, Vegetal Buddhas: Ideological Effects of Japanese Buddhist Doctrines on the Salvation of Inanimate Beings, Occasional Papers 9 (Kyoto: Scuola Italiana di Studi sull’ Asia Orientale, 2001), 9; and Yoshiaki Shimizu, “The Vegetable Nehan of Itō Jakuchū,” in Flowing Traces: Buddhism in the Literary and Visual Arts of Japan, ed. James H. Sanford, William R. LaFleur, and Masatoshi Nagatomi (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1992), 201–233.
22. Shively, “Buddhahood for the Nonsentient,” 144.
23. For a translation, see Kakitsubata, trans. Susan Blakeley Klein, in Twelve Plays of the Noh and Kyōgen Theaters, ed. Karen Brazell, Cornell University East Asia Papers, no. 50, rev. ed. (Ithaca, N.Y.: East Asia Program, Cornell University, 1990), 63–80.
24. Mochida Kimiko, “Shizenkan hihyō,” in Kibō no rinrigaku: Nihon bunka to bōryoku o megutte (Tokyo: Heibonsha, 1998), 68.
25. Susan Blakeley Klein, “Turning Damsel Flowers to Lotus Blossoms,” in The Noh Ominameshi: A Flower Viewed from Many Directions, ed. Mae Smethurst and Christina Laffin, Cornell East Asia Series, no. 118 (Ithaca, N.Y.: East Asia Program, Cornell University, 2003), 47–87.
26. Kageyama Haruki, Shinzō: kamigami no kokoro to katachi (Tokyo: Hōsei daigaku shuppankyoku, 1978), 17.
27. Sonoda Minoru, “Shinto and the Natural Environment,” in Shinto in History: Ways of the Kami, ed. John Breen and Mark Teeuwen (Richmond, Eng.: Curzon Press, 2000), 32–46.
28. Matsuoka Seigō, Kachō fūgetsu no kagaku (Kyoto: Enkōsha, 1994), 76–83.
29. Seta Katsuya, “Kirareru kyoju to sanrin: kaihatsu no jidai,” in Ki no kataru chūsei, Asahi sensho 664 (Tokyo: Asahi shinbunsha, 2000), 5–33.
30. Seta Katsuya, “Senkyoshi ga mita sanrin no keikan,” in Ki no kataru chūsei, 34–36.
31. Hōjō Katsutaka, “Juboku bassai to zōsen, zōtaku: bassai teikō denshō, bassai girei, kamigoroshi,” in Kankyō to shinsei no bunkashi: Kankyō to shinsei no kattō, ed. Masuo Shinichirō, Kudō Ken’ichi, and Hōjō Katsutaka (Tokyo: Bensei shuppan, 2003), 2:61.
32. Ibid., 57–59.
33. Sanjū sangendō munagi no yurai, which is the third and most famous part of a puppet play called Gion nyōgo kokonoe nishiki (Gion Consort and the Nine-Layered Brocade), first performed in 1760, became popular and is now staged as an independent play. For the jōruri version, see Sanjūgendō munagi no yurai, in Gidayū shū, ed. Kaiga Hentetsu (Tokyo: Hakubunkan, 1917), 2:159–169. The kabuki version is in Toita Yasuji, ed., Kabuki meisakusen (Tokyo: Tōkyō sōgensha, 1957), 11:103–146.
34. Fabio Rambelli, Buddhist Materiality: A Cultural History of Objects in Japanese Buddhism (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2007), 146, citing Murayama Shūichi, Henbō suru kami to hotoketachi (Kyoto: Jinbun shoin, 1990), 190–191.
35. Ichiko Teiji, Chūsei shōsetsu no kenkyū (Tokyo: Tōkyō daigaku shuppankai, 1955), 348.
36. It was not until the Muromachi period, in the picture scrolls that accompany the popular tales, that highly realistic depictions of animals became widespread. As Tokuda Kazuo has pointed out, the importation of Aesop’s Fables (with its extensive use of animals) to Japan in the late sixteenth century, its printing in the early seventeenth century (as Isoho monogatari), and its immediate popularity were probably the result of an existing widespread interest in animals as characters in narratives. See Tokuda Kazuo and Yashiro Seiichi, Otogi-zōshi, Isoho monogatari, Shinchō koten bungaku arubamu 16 (Tokyo: Shinchōsha, 1991).
5. Trans-Seasonality, Talismans, and Landscape
1. Oxford English Dictionary Online, s.v. “talisman,” http://www.oed.com.
2. The image of an open fan, which suggested unending space, was considered felicitous.
3. Ichiko Teiji, Chūsei shōsetsu no kenkyū (Tokyo: Tōkyō daigaku shuppankai, 1955), 310.
4. In the Heian period, this pun became the foundation for a famous parting (ribetsu) poem by Ariwara no Yukihira in the Kokinshū (Collection of Japanese Poems Old and New, ca. 905): “If, after I leave, I hear you say ‘wait / pine,’ which grows at the peak of Inaba Mountain, I will return right away” (Tachiwakare Inaba no yama no mine ni ouru matsu to shi kikaba ima kaerikomu [Partings, no. 365]). Inaba (in present-day Tottori Prefecture) consequently became a poetic place (utamakura) associated with the pine.
5. People in the ancient and Heian periods had difficulty determining if the bamboo was a tree or a grass, as indicated by this poem in the Kokinshū: “It appears that my life will be neither here nor there, like the bamboo, which is neither tree nor grass” (Ki ni mo arazu kusa ni mo aranu take no yo no hashi ni waga mi wa narinuberanari [Miscellaneous 2, no. 959]).
6. In early usage, the word tsuru referred to the crane in everyday situations, while the word tazu was poetic diction. Loneliness is expressed in this poem by Yamabe no Akahito: “As the tide rises at Wakanoura, the flats disappear, and the cranes head for the shore of reeds, crying” (Waka no ura ni shio michikureba kata wo nami ashibe wo sashite tazu nakiwataru [Man’yōshū, 6:919]).
7. Yearning for family is expressed in this poem by Ōtomo no Tabito: “Is it because it yearns for its wife, as I do, that the crane in the reeds at Yunohara cries constantly?” (Yunohara ni naku ashitazu wa aga gotoku imo ni koure ya toki wakazu naku [Man’yōshū, 6:961]).
8. Kobayashi Tadashi and Murashige Yasushi, eds., Shōsha na sōshokubi: Edo shoki no kachō, Kachōga no sekai 5 (Tokyo: Gakushū kenkyūsha, 1981), fig. 158.
9. Ibid., figs. 56, 57.
10. The peacock, for example, does not appear in the Man’yōshū, Kokinshū, or Shinkokinshū (New Anthology of Poetry Old and New, 1205).
11. Kaneko Hiromasa, Konishi Masayasu, and Sasaki Kiyomitsu, Nihonshi no naka no dōbutsu jiten (Tokyo: Tōkyōdō shuppan, 1992), 120–121.
12. Tosa Mitsuyoshi’s screen painting Phoenixes and Paulownia (Cleveland Museum of Art) is reproduced in Miyeko Murase, Masterpieces of Japanese Screen Painting: The American Collections (New York: Braziller, 1990), 35–38.
13. In the Edo period, paulownia was also used to make chests of drawers (tansu).
14. Kaneko, Konishi, and Sasaki, Nihonshi no naka no dōbutsu jiten, 98–99.
15. Shimada Shūjirō, Takeda Tsuneo, et al., “Nihon no kachōga, seiritsu to tenkai,” in Kachōga shiryō shūsei, ed. Takeda Tsuneo and Tsuji Nobuo, Kachōga no sekai 11 (Tokyo: Gakushū kenkyūsha, 1983), 90–123.
16. Yokoi Yayū, “Hyakugyo no fu,” in Chūkō hairon haibunshū, ed. Shimizu Takayuki and Matsuo Yasuaki, vol. 14 of Koten haibungaku taikei (Tokyo: Shūeisha, 1971), 460.
17. For example, Mount Miwa, which plays a key role in the Man’yōshū and the Nihon shoki (Chronicles of Japan, 720), was thought to be a dwelling place of a god (himorogi). See Gorai Shigeru, “Nihon no shūkyō to shizen,” in “Shizen,” special issue, Nihon no bigaku 3, no. 10 (1987): 38–41.
18. The design of a lake island has been connected to Shinto shrines built on islands in lakes. See Hasegawa Masami, Nihon teien yōsetsu (Tokyo: Shirakawa shoin, 1978), 76–77.
19. An example of a surviving rough seashore is the shore of the lake at Mōtsū-ji temple in Hiraizumi.
20. The design of a cove beach appears, for example, on the cover of the Heike nōkyō (Heike Sutra Container, 1164) at the Itsukushima Shrine. See Iwasaki Haruko, Nihon no ishō jiten (Tokyo: Iwasaki bijitsusha, 1984), 143.
21. In the Nara period, Mount Hōrai was depicted as being populated with imaginary animals and plants, but from the Heian period, they were replaced by the more realistic but equally auspicious images of the pine, bamboo, and plum and the turtle and crane.
22. Hōrai, Hōjō, and Eishū are mentioned together as three sacred mountains (sanshenshan) in the biography of Qin Shihuang, First Emperor of the Qin, in Sima Qian’s Shiji (Jp. Shiki; Records of the Grand Historian, 109–91 B.C.E.).
23. Hasegawa, Nihon teien yōsetsu, 184–185.
24. Higuchi Takahiko, Keikan no kōzō: Randosukēpu to shite no Nihon no kūkan (Tokyo: Gihōdō, 1971), 118; The Visual and Spatial Structure of Landscapes, trans. Charles S. Terry (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1983).
25. Fūsui actually posits five guardian gods, five directions, and five seasons, but for Japanese architects and gardeners, the fifth was not important compared with the other four.
26. Jiro Takei and Marc P. Keane, Sakutei: Visions of the Japanese Garden: A Modern Translation of Japan’s Gardening Classic (Boston: Tuttle, 2008), 9–10, 83–86, 196.
27. For an analysis of this passage, see Mori Osamu, Heian jidai teien no kenkyū (Kyoto: Kuwana bunseidō, 1945), 173–174.
28. “Fukiage jō,” in Utsuho monogatari, ed. Kōno Tama, NKBT 10 (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1959), 1:308.
29. The name Tokoyo (Eternal Land) appears in a pair of poems on Urashima in the Man’yōshū (9:1740 and 1741).
30. “Urashima Tarō,” in Otogi-zōshi, ed. Ichiko Teiji, NKBT 38 (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1958), 340–341.
31. Tokuda Kazuo, “Shihō shiki no fūryū,” in Otogi-zōshi kenkyū (1988; rpt., Tokyo: Miyai shoten, 1990), 47–79.
32. Ibid., 54.
33. Matthew P. McKelway, Capitalscapes: Folding Screens and Political Imagination in Late Medieval Kyoto (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2006), 15.
34. Tokuda, “Shihō shiki no fūryū,” 74–75.
35. Takeda Tsuneo, Nihon kaiga to saiji: keibutsuga shiron (Tokyo: Perikansha, 1990), 5–6.
36. Shinbō Tōru, “Shōgonsuru hana to tori: Shūkyōga ni kakareta kachō,” in Yamatoe no shiki: Kamakura no kachō, ed. Shinbō Tōru, Kachōga no sekai 1 (Tokyo: Gakushū kenkyūsha, 1982), 59.
37. “Ikebana, futatsu no genryū,” in Tokubetsuten ikebana: Rekishi o irodoru Nihon no bi, ed. Kyotofu Kyoto bunka hakubutsukan, Edo Tokyo hakubutsukan, and Yomiuri shinbunsha (Tokyo: Yomiuri shinbun, 2009), 30.
38. Another plant to which talismanic power has been attributed is the hollyhock (aoi), which was originally found in the hills and mountains of the Kyoto basin. At the Kamo Festival—otherwise known as the Aoi Festival—in Kyoto, the aoi becomes the resting place for a god. As an early-summer drought-resistant plant credited with a strong life force, the hollyhock was also highly regarded by farmers as a sign of a rich harvest. These various associations, including one with the imperial family, resulted in the aoi becoming a major cultural symbol.
6. Annual Observances, Famous Places, and Entertainment
1. On the distinction between public and private observances, see Kanzaki Noritake, Matsuri no shokubunka, Kadokawa sensho 382 (Tokyo: Kadokawa shoten, 2005), 12.
2. The celebration of the first day of the First Month was not taken up by farmers until the beginning of the eleventh century. See Kimura Shigemitsu, “Chijūsha no seiritsu to nōkō girei,” in Kankyō to shinsei no bunkashi: Kankyō to shinsei no kattō, ed. Masuo Shinichirō, Kudō Ken’ichi, and Hōjō Katsutaka (Tokyo: Bensei shuppan, 2003), 1:249.
3. At the White Horses (Aouma) observance, a white horse was presented to the emperor for viewing, followed by a banquet. It was thought that if one looked at a white horse on the seventh day of the First Month, the evil forces for that year would be exorcised—a custom that came from China. A blue-gray horse (aouma) was used at first, but since white horses were considered divine in Japan, white horses came to be presented at the ceremony.
4. In the ancient period, Stamping Song (Tōka), a group dance to singing and stamping, was held at the imperial court, where male and female dancers were invited to celebrate the beginning of the New Year. The Tōka for men was held on the fourteenth and fifteenth days of the First Month, while that for women took place on the sixteenth day.
5. At Sagichō, a fire festival held on Minor New Year (Koshōgatsu), the first document of the year (kissho) was burned in the belief that this ritual would prevent illness for the coming year.
6. The rabbit stick (uzue)—which was made from a branch of peach, plum, camellia, or false holly (hiiragi)—was used to dispel demons and other evil forces, and then was offered to the emperor and empress at court.
7. Gencho, held on the first Day of the Boar in the Tenth Month, was an observance in which cakes called inoko-mochi (literally, “piglet cakes”) were eaten at the Hour of the Boar (9:00–11:00 P.M.) to prevent illness. Because boars procreate quickly, Gencho was also a prayer for the well-being of children and descendants.
8. For more on the calendar of annual observances, see Torigoe Kenzaburō, Saijiki no keifu (Tokyo: Mainichi shinbunsha, 1977); and Yamanaka Yutaka and Endō Motoo, eds., Nenjū gyōji no rekishigaku (Tokyo: Kōbundō, 1981).
9. The Heian-period ritual of pulling up the roots of small pines (komatsu) on the first Day of the Rat derives from the homonyms ne (rat) and ne (root). Pulling up roots was auspicious, since it implied lengthening the year.
10. In the Kamakura period, bamboo was added to the pines at the gate.
11. Kanai Shiun, Tōyō gadai sōran (Kyoto: Unsōdō, 1943; rpt., Tokyo: Kokusho kankōkai, 1997), 737; Inoue Kenichirō, “Chūsei no shiki keibutsu,” in Keibutsuga: shiki keibutsu, ed. Takeda Tsuneo, vol. 9 of Nihon byōbue shūsei, ed. Takeda Tsuneo, Yamane Yūzō, and Yoshizawa Chū (Tokyo: Kodansha, 1977), 154.
12. A good example of a poem about gathering young herbs is one by Sosei, composed on a spring screen painting on the occasion of the fortieth birthday of a Fujiwara courtier: “No doubt the god watches me gather new herbs at Kasuga Field and celebrate ten thousand years of your life” (Kasugano ni wakana tsumitsutsu yorozu yo wo iwau kokoro wa kami zo shiruramu [Kokinshū, Celebration, no. 357]). Kasuga Field was at the foothills of Mount Kasuga in Nara, near the Kasuga Shrine, home of the ancestral god of the Fujiwara clan.
13. From the Muromachi period, the wakana were chopped up, a practice that became widespread among commoners in the Edo period. Today, this traditional meal takes the form of seven-grasses gruel (nanakusagayu).
14. The Meandering Stream Banquet entered Japan as early as the Nara period and was celebrated at the imperial court until the early ninth century. As part of a purification ritual, a cup of sake was floated down a stream on the grounds of the imperial palace. Poets sat alongside the stream, composed kanshi (Chinese-style poems) before the cup reached them, and then drank from the cup when it arrived.
15. In the “Suma” chapter of The Tale of Genji, the exiled Genji places a surrogate doll on the water, lets it float away, and pleads his innocence in a poem.
16. The third day of the Third Month is also related to the peach, which in China was thought to have the power to ward off evil and bring about long life, and to the Meandering Stream Banquet. “The third [day] of the Third Month (Peach)” appears in the Wakan rōeishū (Japanese and Chinese-Style Poems to Sing, ca. 1012) as a poetic topic, with a kanshi on Meandering Stream. From the time of the Roppyakuban uta-awase (Poetry Contest in Six Hundred Rounds, 1193), in which Meandering Stream appears as a waka (classical poetry) topic for spring, poems on Meandering Stream were often juxtaposed with poems on peach blossoms.
17. Matsuo Bashō, Sarumino, in Bashō shichibushū, ed. Shiraishi Teizō and Ueno Yōzō, SNKBT 70 (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1990), 313.
18. Tango literally means “first Day of the Horse.” The reading of the graph for “horse” (go) was homophonous with that for “five” (go), for the fifth day of the Fifth Month.
19. Today, the Tango Festival (Tango no sekku) is also referred to as the Sweet Flag Festival (Ayame no sekku), since the annual observance is so closely associated with the sweet flag, which blooms at this time of the year and is used in the ceremony. The graph for the word ayame or ayamegusa (sweet flag) is often confused with or used synonymously with that for kakitsubata (iris), which it closely resembles.
20. This tradition survives in the annual Kamo Shrine Equestrian Contest (Kamo no kurabe-uma).
21. Boys dressed as soldiers and engaged in various mock-martial events. In the Edo period, dolls were placed in front of a sweet-flag helmet (ayame-kabuto) to make warrior dolls.
22. There are six kanshi on the night of the seventh day of the Seventh Month in the Kaifūsō (Nostalgic Recollections of Literature, 751), the earliest Japanese collection of poetry in Chinese.
23. The customs of writing a poem and viewing the Herdsman and the Weaver Woman reflected in water are illustrated in the painting for the Seventh Month in Katsukawa Shūnshō’s (1716–1792) Fujo fūzoku jūnikagetsu zu (Womens Customs in the Twelve Months, ca. 1781–1790 [MOA Museum of Art, Atami]). At the top, poetry sheets are tied to bamboo leaves. On the left side, a young woman intently passes a thread through a needle. At the bottom is a decorated tub filled with water, in which are reflected the stars, depicted as four round spots. For a digital reproduction, see http://www.moaart.or.jp.
24. Imahashi Riko, Edo no kachōga: Hakubutsugaku o meguru bunka to sono hyōshō (Tokyo: Sukaidoa, 1995).
25. In commoner society, by the Edo period, Repulsing Demons (Tsuina) had become or was replaced by Driving Out Demons (Setsubun), also celebrated on the day before the beginning of spring. Setsubun was originally an agricultural observance in which demons were driven away at the beginning of the New Year. See Yuasa Hiroshi, Shokubutsu to gyōji: sono yurai o suirisuru, Asahi sensho 478 (Tokyo: Asahi shinbunsha, 1993), 48–51.
26. Nakamura Yoshio, “Shinkō, shūzoku, to nenjū gyōji,” in Nenjū gyōji no bungeigaku, ed. Yamanaka Yutaka and Imai Gen’ei (Tokyo: Kōbundō, 1981), 441–456.
27. Except for some observances such as Kanbutsu and Nehan-e, which are related to the Shakyamuni Buddha, few of these annual observances are about historical or religious figures. By contrast, the most prominent festivals in the European calendar are centered on Jesus or the Christian saints, including Saint Nicholas, a major saint in Germany and the Low Countries.
28. In ancient China, red beans were thought to have special powers, particularly in preventing disease and misfortune. Ki no Tsurayuki’s Tosa nikki (Tosa Diary, ca. 935) indicates that it was normal to make azuki gruel on Minor New Year in the capital in the early tenth century. See Yuasa, Shokubutsu to gyōji, 22.
29. At GoShirakawa’s request, Tokiwa Mitsunaga and other artists depicted annual observances both at court and among commoners in the Nenjū gyōji emaki, which was originally more than sixty scrolls long. The picture scroll was destroyed, and only nineteen scrolls are extant, sixteen of which are copies of the originals by the painter Sumiyoshi Jokei (1599–1670).
30. Inoue, “Chūsei no shiki keibutsu,” 150–155.
31. A similar painting by Sumiyoshi Gukei is Rakuchū rakugai zukan (In and out of the City Painting [Tokyo National Museum]).
32. Takeda Tsuneo, Nihon kaiga to saiji: keibutsuga shiron (Tokyo: Perikansha, 1990), 77. See also Takeda Tsuneo, “Nenjū gyōji-e ni tsuite,” in Nenjū gyōji, vol. 1 of Kinsei fūzoku zufu (Tokyo: Shogakukan, 1983), 74–75.
33. For a digital reproduction of the series, see http://www.moaart.or.jp.
34. Takeda, “Nenjū gyōji-e ni tsuite,” 80.
35. Hattori Yukio, Kabuki saijiki, Shincho sensho (Tokyo: Shinchōsha, 1999), 11–13.
36. Ibid., 21–24.
37. Hatsu Soga (First Soga Play) and hatsuharu kyōgen (early-spring play) became seasonal words for the New Year in haikai and popular culture.
38. Fujiwara no Kiyosuke, Waka shogakushō, in Nihon kagaku taikei, ed. Sasaki Nobutsuna (Tokyo: Kazama shobō, 1956), 2:172–248. The entries for “Mount Tatsuta” and “Mount Kasuga” are on 221; “Mount Ausaka,” 222; “Uji River,” 226; and “spring mist,” “moon,” “snow,” and “cherry blossoms,” 238.
39. Okumura Tsuneya, Utamakura, Heibonsha sensho 52 (Tokyo: Heibonsha, 1977), 23–25.
40. Susaki is the area around Kiba in present-day Kōtō Ward, Tokyo.
41. Atagoyama is a hill north of Shiba Park in present-day Minato Ward, Tokyo.
42. Higuchi Tadahiko, Kōgai no fūkei: Edo kara Tokyo e (Tokyo: Kyōiku shuppan, 2000), 21–23.
43. Another view is that from as early as the Heian period, farmers and commoners observed the custom of climbing the hills, with food and drink, to enjoy the blooming of the cherry trees in spring—a practice referred to as “entering the spring mountains” (haruyama iri). The aristocratic banquet tradition eventually fused with this commoner custom, resulting, by the end of the medieval period, in the practice of eating, drinking, and merrymaking under the cherry trees. See Kira Tatsuo, “Sakura to Nihonjin: nanjūnendai no shizen hogo no tame ni,” in Seitaigaku no mado kara (Tokyo: Kawade shobō shinsha, 1973).
44. Nishiyama Matsunosuke, Hana: bi e no kōdō to Nihon bunka, NHK bukkusu 328 (Tokyo: Nippon hōsō shuppan kyōkai, 1978), 12–32.
45. Kanō Naganobu’s Kaka yūraku zu byōbu (Tokyo National Museum), labeled a National Treasure, is a six-panel screen painting that shows characteristics of the bird-and-flower paintings by his grandfather Motonobu (1476–1559). Unkoku Tōgan’s Hanami takagari zu byōbu (MOA Museum of Art, Atami), designated a Valuable Cultural Treasure, consists of two folding screens (the right one of commoners enjoying cherry blossoms, and the left one of falcon hunting at a warrior’s residence), each with six panels. Unkoku was the founder of the Unkoku school.
46. Kenbutsu-zaemon, in Kyōgenshū, ed. Furukawa Hisashi, Nihon koten zensho 81 (Tokyo: Asahi shinbunsha, 1956), 1:190–192.
47. Sugawara no Michizane wrote a number of kanshi on the “night of the fifteenth.” It appears as a topic in the Wakan rōeishū, which includes poems such as Bo Juyi’s “Thinking of a friend two thousand leagues away on the night of the fifteenth of the Eighth Month.”
48. In the Meiji period, with the change to the solar calendar, the fifteenth day of the Eighth Month moved to summer, so that a key annual observance was lost.
49. Since this final moon viewing occurred in the latter half of the Eighth Month, it was also a cooling-off (nōryō) time.
50. Hōjō Akinao, “Edo no fūzoku to ikebana,” in Ikebana no fūzoku, ed. Kobayashi Tadashi, Ikebana bijutsu zenshū 9 (Tokyo: Shūeisha, 1982), 91.
51. A good example of welcoming a beneficial god is the kaomise (face-showing performance) in kabuki, which occurred at the end of the year, on the first day of the Eleventh Month in the luni-solar calendar (coinciding with the winter solstice) in Edo. The kaomise is thought to have derived from the myth of Amaterasu (Sun Goddess) in the cave; when Amaterasu hid herself away, the world was thrown into darkness, but she was then drawn out of the cave by dancing, singing, and music, which foreshadow kabuki. An example of driving out the destructive gods is the Gion Festival, which is observed in the summer and is intended to rid a city of the plague and other evil elements. See Takashina Shūji, Ōhashi Ryōsuke, and Tanaka Yūko, “Zadankai,” in “Nenjū gyōji,” special issue, Nihon no bigaku 31 (2000): 6.
52. Cherry trees originally grew on the top of hills and mountains, where there was good drainage, but aristocrats wanted to have them close by and transplanted them in the gardens of their city residences. See Takahashi Kazuo, Nihon bungaku to kishō, Chūkō shinsho 512 (Tokyo: Chūō kōronsha, 1978), 83–84.
53. Edward Kamens, Utamakura, Allusion, and Intertextuality in Traditional Japanese Poetry (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1997), 3; Kamo no Chomei, Mumyōshō, in Mumyōshō zenkai, ed. Takahashi Kazuhiko (Tokyo: Sōbunsha, 1987), 236.
7. Seasonal Pyramid, Parody, and Botany
1. Yatsururu (to become emaciated) modifies both mugimeshi (barley) and koi (love), meaning “emaciating barley and love.”
2. Morikawa Kyoriku, Uda no hōshi, in Matsuo Bashō, Kōhon Bashō zenshū, ed. Komiya Toyotaka (Tokyo: Fujimi shobō, 1991), 7:274.
3. This section is based on Haruo Shirane, “Seasonal Associations and Cultural Landscape,” in Traces of Dreams: Landscape, Cultural Memory, and the Poetry of Bashō (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1998), 185–211.
4. In Mushi to Nihon bunka (Tokyo: Taikōsha, 1997), Sakai Masaaki has argued that in the Nara period (710–784), the aristocracy lived in fairly direct contact with nature, while in the Heian period the nobility became urbanized, with nature at a greater distance, making it an object of aesthetic appreciation.
5. Matsue Shigeyori, Kefukigusa, ed. Takenouchi Waka and Shinmura Izuru, Iwanami bunko 3304–3308 (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1943), 144, 150.
6. Matsue Shigeyori, Enoko-shū, in Teimon haikaishū, ed. Nakamura Shunjō and Morikawa Akira, vol. 1 of Koten haibungaku taikei (Tokyo: Shūeisha, 1970), 83.
7. Kobayashi Issa, Hachiban nikki, in Issa-shū, ed. Maruyama Kazuhiko and Kobayashi Keiichirō, vol. 15 of Koten haibungaku taikei (Tokyo: Shūeisha, 1970), 182.
8. Harada Nobuo, Edo no ryōrishi, Chūō shinsho 929 (Tokyo: Chūō kōron shinsha, 1989).
9. Kyokutei Bakin, comp., and Rantei Seiran, ed., Zōho haikai saijiki shiorigusa, ed. Horikiri Minoru, Iwanami bunko (Edo: Hanabusaya daisuke, 1851; Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 2000). In 1803, Kyokutei Bakin edited and published Haikai saijiki (Haikai Seasonal Almanac), in which he explicated 2600 seasonal words. Rantei Seiran’s Haikai saijiki shiorigusa is the revised and expanded edition of Haikai saijiki.
10. Morikawa Akira, “Saijiki no naka no shoku,” in “Shoku no bungaku hakubutsushi,” special issue, Kokubungaku: Kaishaku to kyōzai no kenkyū 29, no. 3 (1984): 67.
11. Keichō kenmonshū (Record of Things Heard and Seen in the Keichō Era, 1644), written by Miura Jōshin (1565–1644), notes that from the Warring States period (1477–1573), samurai favored katsuo (bonito) because of the name’s phonic association with the word katsu (victory).
12. The hokku is in Kuzu no matsubara (Kuzu Pine Fields, 1692), a haikai treatise edited by Kagami Shikō, a disciple of Bashō.
13. Haga Tōru, “Fūkei no hikaku bunkashi: ‘Shōshō hakkei’ to ‘Ōmi hakkei,’” Hikaku bungaku kenkyū, November 1986, 14.
14. On mitate, see Timothy T. Clark, “Mitate-e: Some Thoughts, and a Summary of Recent Writings,” Impressions 19 (1997): 6–27; Hayakawa Monta, “Shunga and Mitate: Suzuki Harunobu’s Eight Modern Views of the Interior (Fūryū zashiki hakkei),” in Imaging / Reading Eros, ed. Sumie Jones (Bloomington: East Asian Studies Center, Indiana University, 1996), 122–128; and Tadashi Kobayashi, “Mitate in the Art of the Ukiyo-e Artist Suzuki Harunobu,” in The Floating World Revisited, ed. Donald Jenkins (Portland, Ore.: Portland Art Museum, 1993), 85–91.
15. Kōbai senku, in Teimon haikai shū, ed. Nakamura and Morikawa, 460–483.
16. I am indebted to Okuda Isao for this particular insight and for tracking down the paintings and waka on the “Eight Views of Ōmi” from the early Edo period.
17. Ishigami Aki, “Suzuki Harunobu ga Fūryū zashiki hakkei kō: gachū kyōka no riyō to zugara no tenkyo,” Ukiyo-e geijutsu / Ukiyo-e Art 156 (2008): 69–87.
18. For a detailed and illustrated article on this topic, see Haruo Shirane, “Dressing Up, Dressing Down: Poetry, Image, and Transposition in the Eight Views,” Impressions 31 (2010): 51–72.
19. Other important encyclopedic almanacs include Nihon saijiki (Japan Seasonal Album, 1688), edited by Kaibara Kōko and Kaibara Ekiken, a record of annual observances; Gijidō Kigen’s Kokkei zōdan (Humorous Miscellaneous Conversations, 1713), which includes detailed explanations of seasonal events and motifs; and Kajitsu toshinamigusa (Flower and Fruit, Annual Wave Grass, 1783), which compiles various annual ceremonies based on Chinese precedent as well as annual events that were no longer observed.
20. For the edition in the Spencer Collection, New York Public Library, with commentary, see Roger Keyes, Ehon: The Artist and the Book in Japan (New York: New York Public Library; Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2006), 112–123.
21. Kitagawa Utamaro, Utamaro: A Chorus of Birds, with an introduction by Julia Meech-Pekarik and a note on kyōka and translations by James T. Kenney (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art and Viking Press, 1981).
22. Imahashi Riko, Edo no kachōga: Hakubutsugaku o meguru bunka to sono hyōshō (Tokyo: Sukaidoa, 1995), 310–317.
23. Tani Sogai, Haikai na no shiori, in Kinsei kōki saijiki honbunshū narabi ni sōgō sakuin, ed. Ogata Tsutomu and Kobayashi Yōjirō (Tokyo: Benseisha, 1976).
24. There are twenty-one different fish in the ōban (large-size rectangle) series and five fish prints in the chūban (middle-size rectangle) series. See Ōshajō bijutsu hōmotsukan, Hiroshige kachōgaten: Tokubetsuten tanjō nihyakunen kinen ōshajō bijutsu hōmotsukan shozō (Tokyo: Ota kinen bijutsukan, 1997), 67–75.
25. For a study of Hiroshige’s bird-and-flower prints, see Andō Hiroshige, Hiroshige: Birds and Flowers, with an introduction by Cynthea J. Bogel, commentaries by Israel Goldman, and poetry translations by Alfred H. Marks (New York: Braziller, 1988).
Conclusion: History, Genre, and Social Community
1. Katō Shūichi, Koyama Hiroshi, and Gomi Tomohide, “Nihon bungaku ni okeru dochakusei to shizenkan,” Asahi jaanaru, January 18, 1974, 38–39.
2. Takahashi Kazuo, Nihon bungaku to kishō, Chūō shinsho 512 (Tokyo: Chūō kōronsha, 1978), 185.
3. Takarai Kikaku, Gogenshū (1747), in Kikaku zenshū, ed. Katsumi Shinpū (Tokyo: Chōkōdō shuppan, 1926), 742.
4. For the Reizei school, see Steven D. Carter, Householders: The Reizei Family in Japanese History, Harvard-Yenching Institute Monograph Series, no. 61 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Asia Center for the Harvard-Yenching Institute, 2007).
5. Some of the seasonal motifs as developed by waka evolved into symbols for cultural nationalism. The cherry blossom, for example, become a national symbol, as epitomized by this famous waka by Norinaga on mountain cherry trees (yama-zakurd), which covered famous places such as Mount Yoshino in Nara: Yamato-gokoro (heart of Yamato) refers to the spirit of Japan. The names of the first four kamikaze (wind of the gods) special forces (suicide plane) units launched in the last year of World War II were taken from Norinaga’s poem: the Shikishima (Islands of Japan) Unit (Shikishima-tai), Yamato Unit (Yamato-tai), Asahi (Rising Sun) Unit (Asahi-tai), and Yama-zakura (Mountain Cherry) Unit (Yama-zakura-tai). The yama-zakura, known for its short time in bloom, was a fitting metaphor for the young kamikaze pilots. But their fatal mission was glorified by their association with Yamato (the ancient name for Japan) and with the rising (morning) sun (asahi), a talismanic image used in the national flag.
6. Takahashi, Nihon bungaku to kishō, 102.
7. Masaoka Shiki, Hyōron, nikki, vol. 4 of Shiki zenshū (Tokyo: Kodansha, 1976), 100.
8. Takahama Kyoshi’s lecture was published in Osaka Mainichi shinbun, April 21, 1928.
9. Sen Sooku, “A Tea Ceremony for Today,” Wall Street Journal, May 6, 2009.