Shotetsu
Encyclopedia
Shōtetsu was a Japan
ese poet
during the Muromachi period
, and is considered to have been the last poet in the courtly waka
tradition ; a number of his disciples were important in the development of the renga
art form, which led to the haiku
.
for unknown reasons. At approximately the age of 15 (by the Occidental count), he was sent to the religious center of Nara
where he became an acolyte in an unspecified Buddhist
temple. He would spend the next five years there studying, among other things, Buddhist scripture.
Shortly after his father's death in 1400 CE, Shōtetsu moved back to Kyoto, and sought out a fellow named Imagawa Ryōshun (b. 1325/1326 ?, d. 1417/1420) and asked him to instruct him in the "Way of Poetry".
This was not an unexpected visit for Ryōshun; he and Shōtetsu had met many times previously- it was this Imagawa Ryōshun, retired military leader, lay priest, respected amateur poet, and accomplished author of polemic essays attacking the enemies of the Reizei poetic clan, who was apparently instrumental (the relevant passage gives an incorrect age for Ryōshun at the period it supposedly occurred, leading Inada Toshinori to believe that the passage conflates a number of events; thus it may be misleading as to the circumstances that introduced Shōtetsu to courtly poetry), in introducing the young Shōtetsu (whose personal name then still was Sonmyōmaru, given name Masakiyo) to poetic composition. From an autobiographic portion of Shōtetsu's extended essay on poetry, Shōtetsu Monogatari
:
Shōtetsu studied classical courtly poetry with Ryōshun, and other areas of literature, including of course famous works like The Tales of Ise
, Essays in Idleness
, and was even inducted into the secret traditions relating to the famed Tale of Genji
and theShin Kokin Wakashū. With such an influential master, Shōtetsu met and learned from many of the most influential poets of the age. In 1406, Shōtetsu left his master, entering a Kyoto Rinzai Zen temple called Tōfuku-ji
; no doubt he was admitted in no little part because of his relationship to Ryōshun (now in his nineties), who had previously gone to that temple. It was during this period that the Reizei family
and its poetic ideals (along with associated poets) flourished receiving high titles and numerous grants of land. As he was solidly in this school of poetry, Shōtetsu prospered as well.
Eventually, cut loose by his two mentors' deaths (Tamemasa would die in 1417, and Ryōshun in either 1417, or 1420), Shōtetsu embarked on a short journey - one of the very few journeys far away from Kyoto in his life - to visit various "utamakura
" (places famously commemorated in poetry); upon his return to Kyoto, he plunged whole-heartedly into Kyoto's poetry scene, having decided to make his life's work poetry, and not Buddhism.
By 1424, he had left his temple for a modest hut on the outskirts of Kyoto, as befitted a professional poet with the accompanying hosts of disciples, patrons, and invitations to head poetry gatherings at the most noble families' homes (and eventually at the residences of the Ashikaga shoguns themselves).
But this happy era for Shōtetsu could not last forever. It ended between the second and third day of the fourth month of the year 1432:
This was not an isolated setback for the ~51 year old Shōtetsu- the shogun Ashikaga Yoshimochi
had died in 1428, and his younger brother Ashikaga Yoshinori
(b. 1394, d. 1441) had become shogun. Unlike his deceased brother, Yoshinori not non-partisan with regard to the poetic dispute between the Reizei and the Asukai, distinctly preferring the Asukai's poetry; in addition, several traditional biographies of Shōtetsu claim that Yoshinori had a personal antipathy to him, going so far as to place Shōtetsu under house arrest. Shōtetsu would suffer two major blows from this official hostility: the income from his hereditary estates was confiscated. This was a major financial blow to him, but by no means fatal.
The second blow struck straight at his heart- he was denied inclusion in the 21st, and last ever, Imperial anthology of waka which was compiled and edited by the Asukai. This exclusion from the Shinshokukokin Wakashū ("New Collection of Ancient and Modern Times Continued") meant that Shōtetsu could never achieve the final pinnacle of recognition for poetic merit, and that his name would be permanently diminished for all time; it is difficult to overstate how important inclusion in an Imperial anthology was to medieval poets.
In the wake of this blow, Shōtetsu became a hermit, seeing few people, going to fewer gatherings, and composing even fewer poems. His retreat ended in 1441 with the assassination of Yoshinori by one of his generals- his partisan spirit had extended beyond the field of poetry, and irritated many. Shōtetsu returned to his former place, now a highly respected and experienced poet in the liberal Rezei tradition. These were good and prosperous times for him, as he had entry into the most exclusive homes, and indeed, would even tutor the new shogun, Ashikaga Yoshimaga (b. 1435, d. 1490), in the intricacies of the Tale of Genji; his reward for this lengthy tutoring would be the return of his familial estate.
From this period on, Shōtetsu began declining in ill-health. The shadow of the approaching Ōnin War
was even then visible in the riots and disturbances which began occurring number of years before. Shōtetsu had by this point also outlived many of his patrons, students, teachers and friends. After three years of prolonged illness, Shōtetsu died at the age of 79 in the year 1459. He had begun copying out the Tale of Genji, expecting to complete it before he died. He finished the first chapter. In his later years, his greatest student was Shunkei (1406-1475), who, while he greatly admired his former teacher and Teika, worked not just in waka, but in renga as well, where he was known for his usage of the yugen and yōembi (ethereal beauty) styles.
A defining feature of the poetry of Japan at this period was the existence of a long running feud or war between a number of clans over primacy in poetry, and consequently in courtly influence. Each clan came to be associated with a distinct artistic school- the Rezei family, which Shōtetsu was aligned with, distinctly hewed to a liberal bent, which encouraged its poets to experiment with all of the traditional 10 recognized styles of poetry, as opposed to the Nijō family
, which advocated a restrained, conservative style (specifically, the "ushin", or deep feelings style).
Both of these families were descended from Fujiwara no Teika, and both claimed to carry on his legacy.
After a period of Reizei ascendancy under Rezei Tamehide (great-grandson of Teika) (b. 1302 ?, d. 1372), they suffered a decline and a consequent rise in the fortunes of the Nijō, as Tamehide's son, Iametuni, became a monk. The Nijō soon suffered setbacks under the wastrel Nijō Tameshige (b. 1325, d. 1385), whose promising son, Nijō Tametō (b. 1341, d. 1381), was killed comparatively young, killed by a brigand.
In a further disaster for the Nijō, Tametō's son, Nijō Tamemigi was killed by a brigand as well in 1399 (?), effectively wiping out the Nijō as a force. Under the grandson of Tamehide, Tanemasa (b. 1361, d. 1417), the Rezei were raised again to their former position of dominance, where Shōtetsu came into the picture.
He did this with the aid of a former general, Imagawa Ryōshun (b. 1326, d. 1417 or 1420), who had considerable literary skill. They defeated the Nijō adherents close to the Ashikaga Shogunate
with 6 polemical treatises between 1403 and 1412, defending the Reizei's poetic doctrine and their cause. Ryōshun used a number of quotations to bolster his case, including notably a quote of Teika, which was that all of the "ten styles" were licit for poetic use and experimentation, and not merely the Nijō's ushin. With the aid Ryōshun afforded him, Tanemasa's politicking eventually succeeded in converting the Shogun, ending the matter- until the Asukai revived the dispute, that is.
An Animal, in Spring
Shōtetsu was also adept at courtly love poems:
The Unbearable Wait for Love
An allusive variation on a poem by Teika:
Forgotten love
An allusive variation on an anonymous Kokin Wakashū poem:
A number of his poems allude to his understanding of Zen Buddhism
:
Seeking Love
Buddhism, related to the Moon
Buddhism
As befitted a professional poet, a number of poems reflect on his
chosen occupation:
Famous Market Town
Lamenting
Reminiscing
But of course, most poems are not so easily categorized:
Summer Writing Brush
One Call from a Cuckoo
Reminiscing
Critical to understanding his poetry is appreciation of his connection with Teika.
It also provides striking objective proof of Shōtetsu's veneration for Fujiwara - the only poet whose poems are discussed more than Teika is Shōtetsu himself. For all that Shōtetsu was seen by others as a staunch Rezei apologist, and for all that Shōtetsu benefited from his affiliation with the Reizei, he was a bit of a poetic fundamentalist:
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
ese poet
Poet
A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...
during the Muromachi period
Muromachi period
The is a division of Japanese history running from approximately 1336 to 1573. The period marks the governance of the Muromachi or Ashikaga shogunate, which was officially established in 1338 by the first Muromachi shogun, Ashikaga Takauji, two years after the brief Kemmu restoration of imperial...
, and is considered to have been the last poet in the courtly waka
Waka (poetry)
Waka or Yamato uta is a genre of classical Japanese verse and one of the major genres of Japanese literature...
tradition ; a number of his disciples were important in the development of the renga
Renga
' is a genre of Japanese collaborative poetry. A renga consists of at least two or stanzas, usually many more. The opening stanza of the renga, called the , became the basis for the modern haiku form of poetry....
art form, which led to the haiku
Haiku
' , plural haiku, is a very short form of Japanese poetry typically characterised by three qualities:* The essence of haiku is "cutting"...
.
History
He was born in 1381 in a minor fortified town in the then province of Bitchū (now Okayama) to a samurai of middling rank named Komatsu Ysukiyo. About ten years after his birth, Shōtetsu's family moved to KyotoKyoto
is a city in the central part of the island of Honshū, Japan. It has a population close to 1.5 million. Formerly the imperial capital of Japan, it is now the capital of Kyoto Prefecture, as well as a major part of the Osaka-Kobe-Kyoto metropolitan area.-History:...
for unknown reasons. At approximately the age of 15 (by the Occidental count), he was sent to the religious center of Nara
Nara, Nara
is the capital city of Nara Prefecture in the Kansai region of Japan. The city occupies the northern part of Nara Prefecture, directly bordering Kyoto Prefecture...
where he became an acolyte in an unspecified Buddhist
Buddhism
Buddhism is a religion and philosophy encompassing a variety of traditions, beliefs and practices, largely based on teachings attributed to Siddhartha Gautama, commonly known as the Buddha . The Buddha lived and taught in the northeastern Indian subcontinent some time between the 6th and 4th...
temple. He would spend the next five years there studying, among other things, Buddhist scripture.
Shortly after his father's death in 1400 CE, Shōtetsu moved back to Kyoto, and sought out a fellow named Imagawa Ryōshun (b. 1325/1326 ?, d. 1417/1420) and asked him to instruct him in the "Way of Poetry".
This was not an unexpected visit for Ryōshun; he and Shōtetsu had met many times previously- it was this Imagawa Ryōshun, retired military leader, lay priest, respected amateur poet, and accomplished author of polemic essays attacking the enemies of the Reizei poetic clan, who was apparently instrumental (the relevant passage gives an incorrect age for Ryōshun at the period it supposedly occurred, leading Inada Toshinori to believe that the passage conflates a number of events; thus it may be misleading as to the circumstances that introduced Shōtetsu to courtly poetry), in introducing the young Shōtetsu (whose personal name then still was Sonmyōmaru, given name Masakiyo) to poetic composition. From an autobiographic portion of Shōtetsu's extended essay on poetry, Shōtetsu Monogatari
Monogatari
is a literary form in traditional Japanese literature, an extended prose narrative tale comparable to the epic. Monogatari is closely tied to aspects of the oral tradition, and almost always relates a fictional or fictionalized story, even when retelling a historical event...
:
"A certain preceptor of the Ontoku'in once said to me, "If you want to compose poetry, I will take you with me to the civil administrator's house across the way." At that period of my life, I was still wearing my hair long in the manner of young children, and I felt embarrassed by my extreme youth, but nonetheless I went with the preceptor to the civil administrator's house. ... Then, when I arrived at the poetry meeting itself on the 25th, the highest places on the one side were occupied by Reizei no Tamemasa and Tamekuni, and on the other side by the former shogunShogunA was one of the hereditary military dictators of Japan from 1192 to 1867. In this period, the shoguns, or their shikken regents , were the de facto rulers of Japan though they were nominally appointed by the emperor...
al deputy... [who] was at that time a lay priest of more than 80 years... After this occasion, I just kept going again and again to those meetings, and thus gained experience in poetic composition. I was fourteen years old at the time."
Shōtetsu studied classical courtly poetry with Ryōshun, and other areas of literature, including of course famous works like The Tales of Ise
The Tales of Ise
is a Japanese collection of tanka poems and associated narratives, dating from the Heian period. The current version collects 125 sections, with each combining poems and prose, giving a total of 209 poems in most versions....
, Essays in Idleness
Tsurezuregusa
is a collection of Japanese essays written by the monk Yoshida Kenkō between 1330 and 1332. The work is widely considered a gem of medieval Japanese literature and one of the three representative works of the zuihitsu genre, along with Makura no Sōshi and the Hōjōki.Tsurezuregusa comprises a...
, and was even inducted into the secret traditions relating to the famed Tale of Genji
The Tale of Genji
is a classic work of Japanese literature attributed to the Japanese noblewoman Murasaki Shikibu in the early 11th century, around the peak of the Heian period. It is sometimes called the world's first novel, the first modern novel, the first psychological novel or the first novel still to be...
and theShin Kokin Wakashū. With such an influential master, Shōtetsu met and learned from many of the most influential poets of the age. In 1406, Shōtetsu left his master, entering a Kyoto Rinzai Zen temple called Tōfuku-ji
Tofuku-ji
is a Buddhist temple in Higashiyama-ku in Kyoto, Japan. Tōfuku-ji takes its name from two temples in Nara, Tōdai-ji and Kōfuku-ji. It is one of the so-called Kyoto Gozan or "five great Zen temples of Kyoto". Its honorary sangō prefix is .-History:...
; no doubt he was admitted in no little part because of his relationship to Ryōshun (now in his nineties), who had previously gone to that temple. It was during this period that the Reizei family
Reizei family
The Reizei family is a branch of the clan Fujiwara.For eight centuries, the family secretly preserved, under imperial order, an important collection of documents. On April 4, 1980, this collection of about 200,000 pieces was made public by Tametō Reizei . The following year, a library in Tokyo was...
and its poetic ideals (along with associated poets) flourished receiving high titles and numerous grants of land. As he was solidly in this school of poetry, Shōtetsu prospered as well.
Eventually, cut loose by his two mentors' deaths (Tamemasa would die in 1417, and Ryōshun in either 1417, or 1420), Shōtetsu embarked on a short journey - one of the very few journeys far away from Kyoto in his life - to visit various "utamakura
Utamakura
is a rhetorical concept in Japanese poetry.-Definition:Utamakura is a category of poetic words, often involving place names, that allow for greater allusions and intertextuality across Japanese poems....
" (places famously commemorated in poetry); upon his return to Kyoto, he plunged whole-heartedly into Kyoto's poetry scene, having decided to make his life's work poetry, and not Buddhism.
By 1424, he had left his temple for a modest hut on the outskirts of Kyoto, as befitted a professional poet with the accompanying hosts of disciples, patrons, and invitations to head poetry gatherings at the most noble families' homes (and eventually at the residences of the Ashikaga shoguns themselves).
But this happy era for Shōtetsu could not last forever. It ended between the second and third day of the fourth month of the year 1432:
"On the night of the second, I stayed over at the house of the Chief of Central Affairs, and awakened to a report that my hut, "Imakumano", had burned in a fire in the neighborhood in the middle of the night- a report that was to no avail, for the damage was already done, with all of the poems I had composed since my twentieth year, all 27,000 of them, in more than 30 volumes, gone up in smoke, not a single one escaping- and this along with all my books and hand-copied treasures."
This was not an isolated setback for the ~51 year old Shōtetsu- the shogun Ashikaga Yoshimochi
Ashikaga Yoshimochi
was the 4th shogun of the Ashikaga shogunate who reigned from 1394 to 1423 during the Muromachi period of Japan. Yoshimochi was the son of the third shogun Ashikaga Yoshimitsu....
had died in 1428, and his younger brother Ashikaga Yoshinori
Ashikaga Yoshinori
was the 6th shogun of the Ashikaga shogunate who reigned from 1429 to 1441 during the Muromachi period of Japan. Yoshinori was the son of the third shogun Ashikaga Yoshimitsu.-Shogunal succession:...
(b. 1394, d. 1441) had become shogun. Unlike his deceased brother, Yoshinori not non-partisan with regard to the poetic dispute between the Reizei and the Asukai, distinctly preferring the Asukai's poetry; in addition, several traditional biographies of Shōtetsu claim that Yoshinori had a personal antipathy to him, going so far as to place Shōtetsu under house arrest. Shōtetsu would suffer two major blows from this official hostility: the income from his hereditary estates was confiscated. This was a major financial blow to him, but by no means fatal.
The second blow struck straight at his heart- he was denied inclusion in the 21st, and last ever, Imperial anthology of waka which was compiled and edited by the Asukai. This exclusion from the Shinshokukokin Wakashū ("New Collection of Ancient and Modern Times Continued") meant that Shōtetsu could never achieve the final pinnacle of recognition for poetic merit, and that his name would be permanently diminished for all time; it is difficult to overstate how important inclusion in an Imperial anthology was to medieval poets.
In the wake of this blow, Shōtetsu became a hermit, seeing few people, going to fewer gatherings, and composing even fewer poems. His retreat ended in 1441 with the assassination of Yoshinori by one of his generals- his partisan spirit had extended beyond the field of poetry, and irritated many. Shōtetsu returned to his former place, now a highly respected and experienced poet in the liberal Rezei tradition. These were good and prosperous times for him, as he had entry into the most exclusive homes, and indeed, would even tutor the new shogun, Ashikaga Yoshimaga (b. 1435, d. 1490), in the intricacies of the Tale of Genji; his reward for this lengthy tutoring would be the return of his familial estate.
From this period on, Shōtetsu began declining in ill-health. The shadow of the approaching Ōnin War
Onin War
The ' was a civil war that lasted 10 years during the Muromachi period in Japan. A dispute between Hosokawa Katsumoto and Yamana Sōzen escalated into a nationwide war involving the Ashikaga shogunate and a number of daimyo in many regions of Japan....
was even then visible in the riots and disturbances which began occurring number of years before. Shōtetsu had by this point also outlived many of his patrons, students, teachers and friends. After three years of prolonged illness, Shōtetsu died at the age of 79 in the year 1459. He had begun copying out the Tale of Genji, expecting to complete it before he died. He finished the first chapter. In his later years, his greatest student was Shunkei (1406-1475), who, while he greatly admired his former teacher and Teika, worked not just in waka, but in renga as well, where he was known for his usage of the yugen and yōembi (ethereal beauty) styles.
Historical context
- "In poetry there are no teachers. One makes antiquity one's teacher. Provided he steeps his mind in the styles of antiquity and learns his diction from the great poets of old, who can fail to compose good poetry?" --Fujiwara no TeikaFujiwara no TeikaFujiwara no Teika , also known as Fujiwara no Sadaie or Sada-ie, was a Japanese poet, critic, calligrapher, novelist, anthologist, scribe, and scholar of the late Heian and early Kamakura periods...
A defining feature of the poetry of Japan at this period was the existence of a long running feud or war between a number of clans over primacy in poetry, and consequently in courtly influence. Each clan came to be associated with a distinct artistic school- the Rezei family, which Shōtetsu was aligned with, distinctly hewed to a liberal bent, which encouraged its poets to experiment with all of the traditional 10 recognized styles of poetry, as opposed to the Nijō family
Nijo family
The was one of five regent houses, branches of the Fujiwara clan, a powerful noble family that monopolized regent positions Sesshō and Kampaku in Japan. The family was founded by Kujō Michiie's second son Nijō Yoshizane, while his third son Ichijō Sanetsune founded Ichijō family.-External links:* ...
, which advocated a restrained, conservative style (specifically, the "ushin", or deep feelings style).
Both of these families were descended from Fujiwara no Teika, and both claimed to carry on his legacy.
After a period of Reizei ascendancy under Rezei Tamehide (great-grandson of Teika) (b. 1302 ?, d. 1372), they suffered a decline and a consequent rise in the fortunes of the Nijō, as Tamehide's son, Iametuni, became a monk. The Nijō soon suffered setbacks under the wastrel Nijō Tameshige (b. 1325, d. 1385), whose promising son, Nijō Tametō (b. 1341, d. 1381), was killed comparatively young, killed by a brigand.
In a further disaster for the Nijō, Tametō's son, Nijō Tamemigi was killed by a brigand as well in 1399 (?), effectively wiping out the Nijō as a force. Under the grandson of Tamehide, Tanemasa (b. 1361, d. 1417), the Rezei were raised again to their former position of dominance, where Shōtetsu came into the picture.
He did this with the aid of a former general, Imagawa Ryōshun (b. 1326, d. 1417 or 1420), who had considerable literary skill. They defeated the Nijō adherents close to the Ashikaga Shogunate
Ashikaga shogunate
The , also known as the , was a Japanese feudal military regime, ruled by the shoguns of the Ashikaga clan.This period is also known as the Muromachi period and gets its name from Muromachi Street of Kyoto where the third shogun Ashikaga Yoshimitsu established his residence...
with 6 polemical treatises between 1403 and 1412, defending the Reizei's poetic doctrine and their cause. Ryōshun used a number of quotations to bolster his case, including notably a quote of Teika, which was that all of the "ten styles" were licit for poetic use and experimentation, and not merely the Nijō's ushin. With the aid Ryōshun afforded him, Tanemasa's politicking eventually succeeded in converting the Shogun, ending the matter- until the Asukai revived the dispute, that is.
His poetry
Shōtetsu was a prolific poet- Steven D. Carter once remarked that "His complete oeuvre, if it existed today, would probably comprise over 31,000 poems." He emulated his idol Fujiwara no Teika in striving to master all accepted style of poetry. His corpus is extremely difficult to critically examine due the issues of incompleteness, a wide range of voices and style, and sheer size.Examples
An example of one of his yugen ("mystery and depth") poems (translation and format, Steven D. Carter), with the assigned topic preceding Shōtetsu's response:An Animal, in Spring
- The gloom of dusk.
- An ox
- from out
- in the fields
- from out
- comes walking my way;
- and along
- the hazy road
- I encounter
- no one.
Shōtetsu was also adept at courtly love poems:
The Unbearable Wait for Love
- Past and
- gone now
- is the time I awaited,
- leaving me
- clinging-
- anxious for wind
- from the pines,
- like dewdrops
- at break of day.
An allusive variation on a poem by Teika:
Forgotten love
- I had forgotten-
- as I kept on forgetting
- to remind
- myself
- that those who vow to forget
- are the ones who can't forget.
An allusive variation on an anonymous Kokin Wakashū poem:
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A number of his poems allude to his understanding of Zen Buddhism
Buddhist poetry
Buddhist poetry is a genre of literature that forms a part of Buddhist discourse.The first examples of Buddhist poetry can be found in traditional scriptures such as the Dhammapada, according to which, Siddhārtha Gautama , upon his reaching enlightenment, proclaimed:Through the round of many births...
:
Seeking Love
- With what harshness
- they come blowing
- towards me-
- the mountain winds
- from deep
- within
- the heart
- within
- of one who asks
- no lodging.
Buddhism, related to the Moon
- "Look up!"
- someone says,
- pointing into
- empty sky
- with one finger-
- but no one
- bothers to obey
- and get
- A look
- at the moon.
- A look
Buddhism
- Even
- the mountains
- all take
- for themselves
- the form
- for themselves
- of
- the first Buddha;
- and how ceaselessly
-
- the law
-
- is expounded
- by the storm winds!
As befitted a professional poet, a number of poems reflect on his
chosen occupation:
Famous Market Town
- They accumulate,
- but there
- is no one
- to buy them-
- is no one
- these leaves
- of words
- piling up
- like wares
- for sale
- like wares
- beneath the Sumiyoshi Pine.
Lamenting
- Darkness has fallen.
- With my boat
- making no progress
- on Waka Bay,
- I end this year
- As others,
- tossed on
- the waves
- of old age.
- the waves
Reminiscing
- So far
- to go yet
- on the long Way of Poetry-
- when the daylight
-
- ends.
-
- How I wish
- I had
- the body
- I had
- I had
- back when I began!
But of course, most poems are not so easily categorized:
Summer Writing Brush
- When I
- look upon
- the rich sheen
- of summer hairs
- in my new writing brush,
- I am saddened
-
- by a deer-
-
- drawn
- at night
- to a hunter's torch.
- at night
One Call from a Cuckoo
- As if to say-
- "Isn't it true
- for men, as well:
- that the more the words,
- the less they are of value?"-
- the cuckoo does not call again.
Reminiscing
- All these images
- from
- A world
- of long ago-
- A world
- of what good are they?
- Pine winds, come-
-
- please blow away
-
- these
- unforgotten dreams.
Critical to understanding his poetry is appreciation of his connection with Teika.
Teika
- "In this art of poetry, those who speak ill of Teika should be denied the protection of the gods and Buddhas and condemned to the punishments of hell."
- "Both factions (Nijō vs. Rezei) are tiresome. I myself have no respect for those degenerate houses. I study only the essence of ShunzeiFujiwara no Shunzeiwas a noted Japanese poet and nobleman, son of Fujiwara no Toshitada. He was also known as Fujiwara no Toshinari or Shakua ; in his younger days , he gave his name as Akihiro , but in 1167, changed to Shunzei...
and Fujiwara no TeikaFujiwara no TeikaFujiwara no Teika , also known as Fujiwara no Sadaie or Sada-ie, was a Japanese poet, critic, calligrapher, novelist, anthologist, scribe, and scholar of the late Heian and early Kamakura periods...
."
Monogatari
Most modern understanding of Shōtetsu is derived from his Monogatari, which is by either Shōtetsu himself, or edited by his disciple Shōkō. The work is useful, not merely for the critical discussion, but also for the biographical detail on Shōtetsu it provides. It exists in 2 volumes, probably compiled by disciples. It contains 'randomly a variety of information: bits of Shotetsu's poetic biography, an articulation of his aesthetic ideals, exegeses of poems, poetic anecdotes, advice for novice poets, and such specialist information as the date of Hitomaro's death.'.It also provides striking objective proof of Shōtetsu's veneration for Fujiwara - the only poet whose poems are discussed more than Teika is Shōtetsu himself. For all that Shōtetsu was seen by others as a staunch Rezei apologist, and for all that Shōtetsu benefited from his affiliation with the Reizei, he was a bit of a poetic fundamentalist:
"Each of these schools has succeeded in mastering only a single poetic style and is constantly disputing with its rivals. It is my opinion that a person should pay no attention whatsoever to these schools. Instead, he ought to cherish the style and spirit of Teika, and strive to emulate him though he may never succeed."
"Now, a person might object to this kind of expression, saying that he would write instead, "Can it be that he has prayed / never to see me again?" and protesting that there is no point in putting it into such difficult language. This may be very true, of course, but let such critics look at the collected poems of Teika. There is not a single flat verse to found among them."
Partial bibliography
- Shōkonshū ("Grass Roots") was Shōtetsu's personal anthology of poetry from when he was 52 (the year his Imakumano quarters, and his 32 volumes of 27,00 poems were destroyed by fire), to his death, consisting of ~11,000 poems; this collection was revised after his death by his disciple Shōkō (b. 1412, d. 1494 CE).
- Shōtetsu Monogatari; a work of admixed autobiography and poetic criticism. It is a source of information on Shōtetsu but apparently compiled by his disciples after his death.