Poets, Patrons, and the Public: Poetry as Cultural Phenomenon in Courtly Japan - Hardcover

by Gian Piero Persiani (Author)

Waka poetry was all the rage in tenth-century, courtly Japan. Every educated person composed it, emperors and consorts sponsored it, and societal interest in it was at an all-time high. Persiani's book offers an unprecedentedly broad and vivid portrayal of this season of literary flourishing, revealing the multitude of factors that contributed to it, as well as the social, political, and cultural reasons behind waka's rise.
Deftly combining sociological theory and social and intellectual history with insightful readings of a wealth of primary texts--some never before discussed in English--the book is both a history of waka in the Heian period and a study of Heian court society through the lens of waka.

Author Biography

Gian Piero Persiani is Assistant Professor of Premodern Japanese Literature and Culture at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. He writes on premodern Japanese literature and culture, the relationship between Sinitic and vernacular forms in medieval East Asia, and the history of East-West contacts. Poets, Patrons, and the Public: Poetry as Cultural Phenomenon in Courtly Japan is his first book.