Kodai no Kimi (小大君, fl. circa 990 CE) , also known as Koōgimi) was a Japanese

waka Waka may refer to: Culture and language * Waka (canoe), a Polynesian word for canoe; especially, canoes of the Māori of New Zealand ** Waka ama, a Polynesian outrigger canoe ** Waka hourua, a Polynesian ocean-going canoe ** Waka taua, a Māori w ...

poet and noble from the middle

Heian period The is the last division of classical Japanese history, running from 794 to 1185. It followed the Nara period, beginning when the 50th emperor, Emperor Kanmu, moved the capital of Japan to Heian-kyō (modern Kyoto). means "peace" in Japanese. ...

. During this period of time, the Japanese court was a place of literary flourishing for noble women, and many of the ladies in waiting were accomplished poets and authors. For instance, she was at court as the same time as another renowned female writer,

Murasaki Shikibu was a Japanese novelist, poet and lady-in-waiting at the Imperial court in the Heian period. She is best known as the author of '' The Tale of Genji,'' widely considered to be one of the world's first novels, written in Japanese between abou ...

, author of the great novel The Tale of Genji. Kodai no Kimi was a lady-in-waiting in the courts of

Emperor Ichijo An emperor (from la, imperator, via fro, empereor) is a monarch, and usually the sovereign ruler of an empire or another type of imperial realm. Empress, the female equivalent, may indicate an emperor's wife ( empress consort), mother (empr ...

(who reigned from 986-1011 CE) and his son, the crown prince Okisada who would eventually reign as Emperor Sanjo. In the court of the Crown prince, her position appears to have been that of chamberlain and secretary. Members of the court were expected to participate complex poetic activities, writing poems to exchange for everything from greetings to games to poet-vs-poet competitions. Kodai-no-Kimi was one of the most skilled. She is one of only five women numbered as one of the

Thirty-six Poetry Immortals The are a group of Japanese poets of the Asuka, Nara, and Heian periods selected by Fujiwara no Kintō as exemplars of Japanese poetic ability. The oldest surviving collection of the 36 poets' works is ''Nishi Honganji Sanju-rokunin Kashu'' ...

. Many of her poems are in Japanese imperial poetry anthologies including ''

Shūi Wakashū The , often abbreviated as ''Shūishū'', is the third imperial anthology of waka from Heian period Japan. It was compiled by Emperor Kazan in about 1005.Keene 1999 : 283 Its twenty volumes contain 1,351 poems. The details of its publication and ...

''. There is some overlap between her personal poetry collection ''Kodai no Kimishū'' (小大君集) and

Ono no Komachi was a Japanese waka poet, one of the ''Rokkasen'' — the six best waka poets of the early Heian period. She was renowned for her unusual beauty, and ''Komachi'' is today a synonym for feminine beauty in Japan. She also counts among the Th ...

's personal collection.

References

External links

Kodai no Kimi's poetry online
in Japanese Japanese poets 10th-century Japanese women writers 10th-century Japanese poets 10th-century writers Year of birth unknown Year of death unknown Japanese women poets 10th-century Japanese nobility {{japan-poet-stub