The is an anthology of

Chinese poems Chinese poetry is poetry written, spoken, or chanted in the Chinese language, and a part of the Chinese literature. While this last term comprises Classical Chinese, Standard Chinese, Mandarin Chinese, Yue Chinese, and other historical and vernac ...

(Jp. ''kanshi ''漢詩) and 31-syllable Japanese waka (Jp. ''tanka'' 短歌) for singing to fixed

melodies A melody (), also tune, voice, or line, is a linear succession of musical tones that the listener perceives as a single entity. In its most literal sense, a melody is a combination of pitch and rhythm, while more figuratively, the term ca ...

(the melodies are now extinct). The text was compiled by

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 ...

ca. 1013. It contains 588 Chinese poems by some 30 Chinese poets, including

Bai Juyi Bai Juyi (also Bo Juyi or Po Chü-i; , Mandarin Chinese, Mandarin pinyin ''Bǎi Jūyì''; 772–846), courtesy name Letian (樂天), was a Chinese musician, poet, and politician during the Tang dynasty. Many of his poems concern his career o ...

(Po Chü-i; 772－846),

Yuan Zhen Yuan Zhen (; 779 – September 2, 831), courtesy name Weizhi (), was a Chinese novelist, poet, and politician of the middle Tang dynasty. In prose literature, Yuan Zhen is particularly known for his work '' Yingying's Biography'', which has oft ...

(Yüan Shen; 779－831) and Xu Hun (Hsü Hun; fl ca 850) together with some 50 Japanese poets of Chinese verse such as

Sugawara no Michizane , or , was a scholar, poet, and politician of the Heian period of Japan. He is regarded as an excellent poet, particularly in '' waka'' and '' kanshi'' poetry, and is today revered in Shinto as the god of learning, . In the famed poem anthology ' ...

, Minamoto no Shitagau (911－983), Ōe no Asatsuna (886－957), Ki no Haseo (845－912), and others. The 216 waka poems in the collection are by 80 famous poets such as Kakinomoto no Hitomaro,

Ki no Tsurayuki was a Japanese author, poet and court noble of the Heian period. He is best known as the principal compiler of the ''Kokin Wakashū'', also writing its Japanese Preface, and as a possible author of the ''Tosa Diary'', although this was publish ...

, Ōshikōchi Mitsune, among many other illustrious names. ''Wakan rōeishū'' is divided into two books: "Seasonal poems" occupy the first book, while "Miscellanea" are in the second. The poems are further sub-classified by common topics (Jp. ''dai'' 題); ''kanshi'' alternate with ''waka'' on the same subject.Thomas LaMarre (2000). ''Uncovering Heian Japan: an archaeology of sensation and inscription''. Durham, NC : Duke University Press. offers an in-depth theoretical discussion of the text (cf. Index at the back).

Translation

Scholars J. Thomas Rimer and Jonathan Chaves published the first translation and study in any Western language (English) of this bilingual anthology under the title ''Japanese and Chinese Poems to Sing: The Wakan Rōei Shū'' (

Columbia University Press Columbia University Press is a university press based in New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's la ...

, 1997). The translators received the Japan–U.S. Friendship Commission Prize for the Translation of Japanese Literature in 1998 for their work.

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Wakan roeishu Late Old Japanese texts Japanese poetry anthologies 11th-century Japanese books