O wpływie kobiecej estetyki na rozwój wczesnej japońskiej poezji waka

Abstract

The article is an attempt at presenting the development of native Japanese poetry at the turn of Nara and Heian epochs through the influence of the so-called "after-night letters" (intimate erotic poems circulated solely in the private correspondence of aristocrats and ladies-in-waiting) on the official court literature. In the period separating the edition of two first anthologies of Japanese poetry - "Man'yoshu" (The Collection of Ten Thousand Leaves) and "Kokinwakashu" (The Collection of Ancient and Modern Songs) there was a marked change in the mode of emotional expression of the speaking subject and in the use of poetic tropes. Even though in the intervening years the Yamato court came under the considerable Chinese influence, the feminine aesthetics, so characteristic of the "after-night letters", gradually became part of waka poetry as the latter grew in popularity, and eventually found expression in the manifesto of the new poetics - Ki no Tsurayuki's "Kanajo". Therefore, it was the erotic poems written by ladies-in-waiting that saved Japanese poetry from sinization, while also giving it - in contrast to vividly expressive elegies from the "Man'yoshu" collection - a new inflection through the application of subtle allusions and puns, often used earlier in private, intimate correspondence.