was an important and innovative

Japanese poet 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 t ...

, who compiled the ''

Gosen Wakashū The , often abbreviated as ''Gosenshū'' ("Later Collection"), is an imperial anthology of Japanese waka compiled in 951 at the behest of Emperor Murakami by the Five Men of the Pear Chamber: Ōnakatomi no Yoshinobu (922-991), Kiyohara no Mot ...

''. He was the son of Minamoto no Tsunenobu (1016–1097); holder of the second rank in court and of the position of Grand Counsellor). Shunrai was favored by

Emperor Go-Sanjo 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 ( ...

and to a lesser degree

Emperor Shirakawa was the 72nd emperor of Japan,Imperial Household Agency (''Kunaichō'') 白河天皇 (72)/ref> according to the traditional order of succession. Shirakawa's reign lasted from 1073 to 1087. Genealogy Before his ascension to the Chrysanthemum Thr ...

; in no small part for political reasons. At this time, the Fujiwara family dominated the country, and its branch, the

Rokujō family The Rokujō family () was a poetically conservative faction in the Japanese Imperial court, founded by Fujiwara no Akisue (1055–1123 CE); it was the first clan to specialize in attaining power and influence via success in poetry, and was orig ...

, similarly dominated the court poetry scene; by favoring their rivals, the Emperors could thus strike back. Although Shunrai was passed over to compile the ''

Goshūi Wakashū :''"The language of poetry should be like brocade and the feeling deeper than the ocean."'' -from Michitoshi's Preface The , sometimes abbreviated as ''Goshūishū'', is an imperial anthology of Japanese waka compiled in 1086 at the behest of ...

''. Shunrai's angry polemical ''Nan Goshūi'' ("Errors in the ''Goshūishū''") appears to have somehow convinced Shirakawa to have Shunrai compile the next imperial anthology, the ''

Kin'yō Wakashū The , sometimes abbreviated as ''Kin'yōshū'', is a Japanese imperial anthology of waka whose two drafts were finished in 1124 and 1127. It was compiled at the behest of the Retired Emperor Shirakawa, by Minamoto no Shunrai (~1055–1129; somet ...

''. This

anthology In book publishing, an anthology is a collection of literary works chosen by the compiler; it may be a collection of plays, poems, short stories, songs or excerpts by different authors. In genre fiction, the term ''anthology'' typically cate ...

, when completed, embroiled Shunrai in dispute, and his ''Gosen Wakashū'' was especially criticized with various uncomplimentary nicknames; Brower and Miner mention that one critic, Fujiwara no Akinaka (

fl. ''Floruit'' (; abbreviated fl. or occasionally flor.; from Latin for "they flourished") denotes a date or period during which a person was known to have been alive or active. In English, the unabbreviated word may also be used as a noun indicatin ...

1100-1125) wrote a now-lost ten-part work called the ''Ryōgyokushū'' ("Collection of Genuine Jewels") which did nothing but mock and criticize the ''Kin'yō Wakashū''. In 1113, Toshiyori wrote the poetic treatise known as "Toshiyori zuinō (俊頼髄脳)." Zuinō, which is also seen in the title of

Fujiwara no Kintō , also known as Shijō-dainagon, was a Japanese poet, admired by his contemporaries "... Fujiwara no Kinto (966–1008), the most admired poet of the day." pg 283 of Donald Keene's '' Seeds in the Heart''. and a court bureaucrat of the Heian p ...

's poetic treatise the "Shinsen zuinō," can be translated literally as myelencephalon, but this term was used to refer to books that contained essays on poetry and figuratively means that it knows the "mind" of poetry.

References

*pgs. 237, 242-243 of ''Japanese Court Poetry'',

Earl Miner Earl Roy Miner (February 21, 1927 – April 17, 2004) was a professor at Princeton University, and a noted scholar of Japanese literature and especially Japanese poetry; he was also active in early modern English literature (for instance, his obit ...

, Robert H. Brower. 1961,

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is conside ...

Press, LCCN 61-10925 {{DEFAULTSORT:Minamoto no, Shunrai 1055 births 1129 deaths 12th-century Japanese poets Hyakunin Isshu poets