Makurakotoba
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Makurakotoba
are figures of speech used in Japanese poetry in association with certain words. The set phrase can be thought of as a "pillow" for the noun or verb it describes, although the actual etymology is not fully known. It can also describe associations and allusions to older poems (see ). Many have lost their original meaning but are still used. They are not to be confused with ("poem pillow"), which are a category of poetic words used to add greater mystery and depth to poems. are present in the , one of Japan's earliest chronicles. History and usage are most familiar to modern readers in the , and when they are included in later poetry, it is to make allusions to poems in the . The exact origin of remains contested to this day, though both the and the , two of Japan's earliest chronicles, utilise it as a literary technique. In terms of usage, are often used at the beginning of a poem. The is a similar figure of speech used in poetry, used to introduce a poem. In fact, th ...
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Jokotoba
, literally meaning "preface word", is a figure of speech found in discourse related to Japanese waka poetry. ''Jokotoba'' expressions are set before certain words, and makes use of wordplay through similes, kakekotoba and homonyms. History and usage The ''makurakotoba'' is closely related to the ''jokotoba'' as a figure of speech in Japanese waka poetry. The main differences are that ''jokotoba'' are not restricted by the number of syllables, and so have greater freedom in terms of length, and they do not have fixed objects which they modify, and so are more bountiful in terms of creativity. For these reasons, in comparison to ''makurakotoba'', ''jokotoba'' can be seen to be more complex expressions in terms of content. There are two types of ''jokotoba'': ''ushin-no-jo'' (有心の序) and ''mushin-no-jo'' (無心の序). ''Ushin-no-jo'' connect or associate through semantic meaning, while ''mushin-no-jo'' connect or associate through phonetic pronunciation. Examples The it ...
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Jokotoba
, literally meaning "preface word", is a figure of speech found in discourse related to Japanese waka poetry. ''Jokotoba'' expressions are set before certain words, and makes use of wordplay through similes, kakekotoba and homonyms. History and usage The ''makurakotoba'' is closely related to the ''jokotoba'' as a figure of speech in Japanese waka poetry. The main differences are that ''jokotoba'' are not restricted by the number of syllables, and so have greater freedom in terms of length, and they do not have fixed objects which they modify, and so are more bountiful in terms of creativity. For these reasons, in comparison to ''makurakotoba'', ''jokotoba'' can be seen to be more complex expressions in terms of content. There are two types of ''jokotoba'': ''ushin-no-jo'' (有心の序) and ''mushin-no-jo'' (無心の序). ''Ushin-no-jo'' connect or associate through semantic meaning, while ''mushin-no-jo'' connect or associate through phonetic pronunciation. Examples The it ...
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Man'yōshū
The is the oldest extant collection of Japanese (poetry in Classical Japanese), compiled sometime after AD 759 during the Nara period. The anthology is one of the most revered of Japan's poetic compilations. The compiler, or the last in a series of compilers, is today widely believed to be Ōtomo no Yakamochi, although numerous other theories have been proposed. The chronologically last datable poem in the collection is from AD 759 ( 4516). It contains many poems from a much earlier period, with the bulk of the collection representing the period between AD 600 and 759. The precise significance of the title is not known with certainty. The contains 20 volumes and more than 4,500 poems, and is divided into three genres: , songs at banquets and trips; , songs about love between men and women; and songs to mourn the death of people. These songs were written by people of various statuses, such as the Emperor, aristocrats, junior officials, soldiers ( songs) ...
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Japan
Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north toward the East China Sea, Philippine Sea, and Taiwan in the south. Japan is a part of the Ring of Fire, and spans an archipelago of 6852 islands covering ; the five main islands are Hokkaido, Honshu (the "mainland"), Shikoku, Kyushu, and Okinawa. Tokyo is the nation's capital and largest city, followed by Yokohama, Osaka, Nagoya, Sapporo, Fukuoka, Kobe, and Kyoto. Japan is the eleventh most populous country in the world, as well as one of the most densely populated and urbanized. About three-fourths of the country's terrain is mountainous, concentrating its population of 123.2 million on narrow coastal plains. Japan is divided into 47 administrative prefectures and eight traditional regions. The Greater Tokyo Ar ...
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Suruga Province
was an old province in the area that is today the central part of Shizuoka Prefecture. Suruga bordered on Izu, Kai, Sagami, Shinano, and Tōtōmi provinces; and was bordered by the Pacific Ocean through Suruga Bay to the south. Its abbreviated form name was . History Early period Suruga was one of the original provinces of Japan established in the Nara period under the Taihō Code. The original capital of the province was located in what is now Numazu, which also had the ''Kokubun-ji'' and the Ichinomiya (Mishima Taisha) of the province. Under the ''Engishiki'' classification system, Suruga was ranked as a "major country" (上国), and was governed by a '' Kuni no miyatsuko'' and under the ''ritsuryō'' system was classed as a "middle country" (中国) In a 680 AD cadastral reform, the districts forming Izu Province were administratively separated from Suruga, and the provincial capital was relocated to the right bank of the Abe River in what is now Shizuoka City. ...
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Japanese Poetry
Japanese poetry is poetry typical of Japan, or written, spoken, or chanted in the Japanese language, which includes Old Japanese, Early Middle Japanese, Late Middle Japanese, and Modern Japanese, as well as poetry in Japan which was written in the Chinese language or '' ryūka'' from the Okinawa Islands: it is possible to make a more accurate distinction between Japanese poetry written in Japan or by Japanese people in other languages versus that written in the Japanese language by speaking of Japanese-language poetry. Much of the literary record of Japanese poetry begins when Japanese poets encountered Chinese poetry during the Tang dynasty (although the Chinese classic anthology of poetry, ''Shijing'', was well known by the literati of Japan by the 6th century). Under the influence of the Chinese poets of this era Japanese began to compose poetry in Chinese '' kanshi''); and, as part of this tradition, poetry in Japan tended to be intimately associated with pictorial paint ...
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Kakekotoba
A or pivot word is a rhetorical device used in the Japanese poetic form waka. This trope uses the phonetic reading of a grouping of kanji (Chinese characters) to suggest several interpretations: first on the literal level (e.g. 松, ''matsu'', meaning "pine tree"), then on subsidiary homophonic levels (e.g. 待つ, ''matsu'', meaning "to wait"). Thus it is that many waka have pine trees waiting around for something. The presentation of multiple meanings inherent in a single word allows the poet a fuller range of artistic expression with an economical syllable-count. Such brevity is highly valued in Japanese aesthetics, where maximal meaning and reference are sought in a minimal number of syllables. Kakekotoba are generally written in the Japanese phonetic syllabary, hiragana, so that the ambiguous senses of the word are more immediately apparent. History Pivot words are first found in the earliest extant manuscripts where poetic verse is preserved in written form. The earliest e ...
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Onomatopoeia
Onomatopoeia is the process of creating a word that phonetically imitates, resembles, or suggests the sound that it describes. Such a word itself is also called an onomatopoeia. Common onomatopoeias include animal noises such as ''oink'', ''meow'' (or ''miaow''), ''roar'', and ''chirp''. Onomatopoeia can differ between languages: it conforms to some extent to the broader linguistic system; hence the sound of a clock may be expressed as ''tick tock'' in English, in Spanish and Italian (shown in the picture), in Mandarin, in Japanese, or in Hindi. The English term comes from the Ancient Greek compound ''onomatopoeia'', 'name-making', composed of ''onomato''- 'name' and -''poeia'' 'making'. Thus, words that imitate sounds can be said to be onomatopoeic or onomatopoetic. Uses In the case of a frog croaking, the spelling may vary because different frog species around the world make different sounds: Ancient Greek (only in Aristophanes' comic play '' The Frogs'') prob ...
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Utamakura
is a rhetorical concept in Japanese poetry. Definition is a category of poetic words, often involving place names, that allow for greater allusions and intertextuality across Japanese poems. enables poets to express ideas and themes concisely—thus allowing them to stay in the confines of strict structures. Some scholars see the use of geographical allusion as the evidence for a restricted scope of poetry writing. Although the poets' "true" meaning was true because the essence was initially pre-established, the poems were written within fixed topics (). The poet could inhabit a subjective position or persona and write about the topic, but not necessarily about their personal feelings; therefore, could have restrained the scope of topics a poet could write about. include locations familiar to the court of ancient Japan, such as: * particularly sacred Shinto and Buddhist sites, * places where historic events occurred, and * places that trigger a separate mental associatio ...
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Honkadori
In Japanese poetry, is an allusion within a poem to an older poem which would be generally recognized by its potential readers. Honkadori possesses qualities of yūgen and in Japanese art. The concept emerged in the 12th century during the Kamakura period. Honkadori is one of several terms in Japanese poetry used to describe allusion, another being ."''anecdotal allusions to prose literature' "''borrowing words and phrases from earlier prose works'/ref> Context This style of quoting is a common trope in many ancient Japanese works of literature including stories such as '' the Tale of Genji'' and poems such as those found in the '' Kokinshū'' and the ''Shin Kokinshū''. In a narrative story, honkadori are often found in the form of a poem spoken by one of the characters. In a waka poem, this is usually the first line of the poem. Honkadori is not merely a reference to another poem even though lines are sometimes copied word for word. The use of honkadori attempts to affect ...
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Sanuki Province
was a province of Japan in the area of northeastern Shikoku. Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005). "''Sanuki''" in . Sanuki bordered on Awa to the south, and Iyo to the west. Its abbreviated form name was . In terms of the Gokishichidō system, Sanuki was one of the provinces of the Nankaidō circuit. Under the ''Engishiki'' classification system, Sanuki was ranked as one of the "upper countries" (上国) in terms of importance, and one of the "middle countries" (中国) in terms of distance from the capital. The provincial capital was located in what is now the city of Sakaide, but its exact location was only identified in 2012. The ''ichinomiya'' of the province is the Tamura jinja located on the city of Takamatsu."Nationwide List of ''Ichinomiya''", p. 3.
retrieved 2011-08-09


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Yamato Province
was a province of Japan, located in Kinai, corresponding to present-day Nara Prefecture in Honshū. Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric (2005). "Yamato" in . It was also called . Yamato consists of two characters, 大 "great", and 和 " Wa". At first, the name was written with one different character (), but due to its offensive connotation, for about ten years after 737, this was revised to use more desirable characters () (see Names of Japan). The final revision was made in the second year of the Tenpyō-hōji era (c. 758). It is classified as a great province in the ''Engishiki''. The Yamato Period in the history of Japan refers to the late Kofun Period (c. 250–538) and Asuka Period (538–710). Japanese archaeologists and historians emphasize the fact that during the early Kofun Period the Yamato Kingship was in close contention with other regional powers, such as Kibi Province near present-day Okayama Prefecture. Around the 6th century, the local chieftainship gained na ...
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