Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,
This week I hadn't time enough to create a Tokubetsudesu episode, so I have chosen an article written by Jane Reichhold about Tanka. Of course the goal is to write a tanka in response on this article by Jane Reichhold. Have fun reading! (I hope you don't mind the lenght of this post)
OXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO
Teika's Ten Tanka Techniques by Jane Reichhold
According
to tanka tradition Fujiwara Teika (1162-1241) is said to have been written a
letter in 1219 to an unnamed student in which he mentions the ten tanka styles
or techniques.
It was a
common practice for students of poetry to write sets of ten tanka on ten sets
of subjects as practice and challenge. It was a good plan. The various topics,
such as snow, fog, blossoms, moon, grief, or travel, allowed the poet to
explore and practice with subjects and situations not immediate or emotionally
loaded. These poems were then copied and sent off, with a sum of money, to the
local tanka expert for correction and appraisement.
Sometimes
the poems were returned with only marks of circles or lines in the margins
indicating the teacher's opinion, but occasionally the expert was sufficiently
interested in the student or his work (the majority were male) to write up
comments or expound more on current theories.
Robert H.
Bower, who did so much great work with Earl Miner for Japanese poetry,
translated in the winter, 1985, in Monumenta Nipponica the teaching letter now
known as Maigetsushō, along with copious notes of explanation. Bower's
translation is well worth deeper study because the Japanese author, Fujiwara
Teika, was the most revered tanka teacher of his time and for centuries
afterwards his opinions were read and adopted with a religious fervor.
As one of
the compilers of the Shinkokinshū (1204) - the eighth and considered the
greatest of the imperial anthologies of Japanese poetry - Teika had 46 of his
poems included which was a great honour as he was among the younger and more
innovative poets of his day. So esteemed were Teika's opinions that after his
death, sons and their mothers started a fight over their rights to various
documents that is evident today in the schools of tanka named for the family
lines - Nijo and Reizei.
The result
is that today there are several versions, with and without forgeries, of the
Maigetsushō - Monthly Notes. But for scholars it is worth wading through them
all because this document is considered the most extensive and comprehensive of
Teika's surviving critical writings. There is a great deal of information to be
gleaned from this letter that could be valuable for tanka writers at any age,
even today. Any serious student of the form would do well to explore it.
However, my
attention was caught by Teika's mention of the ten tanka styles or techniques.
He does not elaborate on all of them in this document because as he states, he
had already discussed them in previous lessons. For us, the mere listing of the
ten styles or techniques is one of the reasons this treatise is so famous. In
Robert Bower's way of exploring every facet of any work, he includes a footnote
that the idea of ten tanka styles had been given in an essay supposedly written
by Mibu no Tadamine in the early 900s titled as Tadamine Jittei - Tadamine's
Ten Styles. However, none of these styles bear the same name as Teika's, yet
similarities are clear in several cases.
There is
another document, Teika Jittei - Teika's Ten Styles, in which 286 poems taken
from the full range of imperial anthologies are grouped according to the
concept of these styles but all are listed without comment. As so often, even
this treatise, available only as a copy dating from the Edo period, has had its
authenticity questioned.
Thinking
that a greater knowledge of these styles might be helpful for my own work, and
for helping others get a handle on some of the tanka concepts that up until
now, in English had no terms for them, I have borrowed Teika's list and defined
it with further research. The styles or techniques are listed as:
1. Mystery
and depth - yūgentei, the image evoking ineffable loneliness
This category
is associated mostly with Fujiwara Shunzei (1114-1204) Teika's renowned father
and tanka expert. Teika mentions this in some of his other teachings and uses
as examples poem #3:254 Kin'yōshū by Toshiyori:
uzura naku / mano no irie no / hamakaze ni / obananami
yoru / aki no yūgure
cries of
quail
from the shore of Mano cove
winds blow
waves of plume grass
ripple in autumn dusk
#5:533
Shinkokinshū:
furusato wa / chiru momijiba ni / uzumorete
/noki no shinobu ni / akikaze zo fuku
my
birthplace
buried under crimson leaves
fallen in the garden
sedge grass from the eaves
melancholy autumn wind
2.
Appropriate statement - koto shikarubeki
From the
former emperor Go-Toba's Secret Teachings, is his statement that the Priest
Shun'e said of this style "that a poem should be composed so that seems to
glide as smoothly as a drop of water rolling down the length of a five-foot
iris leaf". The priest was known to have composed in a smooth quiet
manner.
As example
is this poem by Shunzei, #16:988 Senzaishū:
sumiwabite / mi o kakusubeki / yamazoto ni /amari
kuma naki /yowa no tsuki kana
weary of
the world
I thought to hide myself away
in this mountain village
but it reaches every corner of the night
bright radiance of the moon
3. Elegant
beauty - urawashiki tei, characterised by harmony, balance, and beauty of
cadence
Examples of
this style are the poem above by Toshyori on Mano Cove and this one from the
great poet of the late 7th century - Kakinomoto no Hitomaro from the Kokinshū,
#9:409:
honobono to / akashi no ura no / asagiri ni /
shimagakureyuku / fune o shi zo omou
dimly dimly
on the shores of Akashi Bay
morning mist
vanishing by distant islands
longing follows the ship
4.
Conviction of feeling - ushintei
This is
Teika's most famous poetical ideal; one that he most developed in his middle
and later years. Over this time he came to give ushin two distinct senses. One,
in the narrow sense of "deep feeling" as one of the ten styles and in
the broader sense of "conviction of feeling" - the quality that must
be part of every good poem. Teika felt this could not be an adopted
"style" but could result only if the poet "approached the art
with the utmost seriousness and concentration". These strong words of
stubborn and uncompromising demand were typical of Teika's goal of the highest
stand of artistic integrity.
Another
interpretation of the style is that it uses a highly subjective sense in which
the speaker's feeling pervade the imagery and rhetoric of the poem. It is
especially appropriate for poems expressing love or grief.
Given as
example is this poem by Princess Shikishi, #9:1034 in the Shinkokinshū:
tama no o yo / taenaba taene / nagaraeba /
shinoburu koto no / yowari mo zo suru
jewel of my
soul
threaded on the string
that should break
how to endure these things
I am getting weaker
5. Lofty
style - taketakaki tei, a method of achieving grandeur and elevation
One of the
traditional examples of this style is the poem by Fujiwara Yoshitsune
(1169-1206) composed on the given theme of "the moon at dawn" in the
Shinkokinshū #16:1545:
ana no to o / oshiakegata no / kumonma yori /
kamiyo no tsuki / kage zo nokoreru
the coming
dawn
pushes open
the Gates of Heaven
from the
clouds
the moon
from the Age of Gods
is an image
left behind
6. Visual
description - miru tei
This is a
rather bland style emphasising visual description and imagery and often
containing no subjective or emotive statements. Some of the decedents of Teika,
such as his son Tameie, used this style or technique to counteract the strong
subjective vein of the "Fujiwara style". In the Teika Jittei are 12
examples of this style among which is this poem by Minamoto Tsunenobu
(1016-1097) written on the subject of "young rice shoots" as
published in Shikokinshū, #3:225:
sanae toru
/ yamado no kakehi / morinikeri / hiku shimenawa ne / tsuyu zo koboruru
the water
pipe
leading
into mountain fields
must be
leaking
moisture
drips down sacred ropes
around the
beds of rice
It seems
Shiki's shasei style of "sketching" in haiku would be a carry-over
from this tanka technique.
7. Clever
treatment - omoshiroki tei, a witty or ingenious treatment of a conventional
topic
The style
must have been popular because Teika gave 31 poems in his anthology of style
examples. This one is by the Archbishop Jien (1155-1225) on the topic of
"snow" from the Shinkokinshū, #6:679:
niwa no yuki ni /
waga ato tsukete / idetsuru o / towarenikeri to / hito ya miruran
in the snow
only
I was in
the garden
leaving
footprints
will people
think someone brought
comfort to
my loneliness?
8. Novel
treatment - hitofushi aru tei, Using an unusual or original poetic conception
Among the
26 examples is the poem by Fujiwara Motozane (ca 950) from the Shinkokinshū,
#11:1060:
namidagawa
/ mi mo uku bakari / nagaruedo / kienu wa hito no / omoi narikeri
a river of
tears
floats my
body off
on its
current
but it
cannot quell the fire
you have
set in my heart
9.
Exquisite detail - komayaka naru tei
This style
is indicated by exact and precise details with often complex imagery. In
Teika's anthology of tanka styles he has 29 examples. One of which is one from
the Kokinshū, #4:193, written by Ōno Chisato (890-905):
tsuki
mireba / chiji ni mono koso / kanashikere / waga ni hitiostu no / /aki ni wa
aranedo
gazing at
the moon
a thousand
sad things
overcome me
not only I
feel this
in autumn
alone
10.
Demon-quelling - onihishigitei (or kiratsu no tei), characterised by strong or
even vulgar diction and terms
Because its
methods are at odds with the classical poetical values of beauty, elegance, and
grace, Teika said the style to be "more difficult" and should be
attempted only when the student has become proficient in the other methods. One
of Teika's examples is taken from the Man'yoshū, #4:503 which is a more violent
version than a similar poem in the Shinkokinshū, #10:911:
kamikaze ya / Ise
no hamaogi / orishikite / tabine ya suran / araki hamabe ni
divine
winds
reeds on
the Ise beach
are broken
to make a
traveller's bed
on this
rough shore
The
operative words to demonstrate the demon-quelling style are "divine
winds" the breaking off of reeds, and the rough seacoast. Teika taught
that even though the poet put these elements into a poem, they should be
treated with sensibility and gentleness however, it seems this has been most
easy to ignore. Yet in an exploration of current tanka examples, I found this
style under-represented and in no way as violent as the ancient poems.
This article originally appeared in Ribbons, the journal of The Tanka
Society of America, in its (northern) spring edition of 2010. It appears her
with the kind permission of the author. (And in a shorter version).
This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until January 22nd at noon (CET). I will (try to) publish our new episode, Daikan (great cold), later on.
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