Waka: a short poem within a longer tradition

A rhythm counted in Japanese

The familiar tanka pattern is 5–7–5–7–7 Japanese sound units, usually described as morae. It does not count printed characters or require 31 English syllables in translation. A single written character may be read with several morae, so pronunciation supplies the count. Actual poems can depart from the basic pattern: extra morae are called jiamari, and fewer morae jitarazu.

Earlier waka also included chōka, repeating five- and seven-sound phrases before a 5–7–7 ending, and sedōka, with 5–7–7 followed by 5–7–7. The later association of waka with tanka should not narrow the entire earlier tradition to one form.

Read the rhythm in a poem

Man’yōshū 1–28, attributed to Empress Jitō, reads “春過ぎて／夏来るらし／白たへの／衣干したり／天の香具山”. Nara’s Man’yō Culture Museum supplies the reading はるすぎて／なつきたるらし／しろたへの／ころもほしたり／あまのかぐやま.

Count ha-ru-su-gi-te as five and na-tsu-ki-ta-ru-ra-shi as seven. The final phrase, a-ma-no-ka-gu-ya-ma, is also seven. In sense, spring has passed and summer seems to have arrived, with white garments drying on Mount Kagu. Shirotae no, associated with clothing, is a makurakotoba. The museum’s kana transcription retains へ; the pronunciation aid counts its reading here as e.

Five phrases you can count

春過ぎて｜はるすぎて｜ha-ru-su-gi-te｜5

夏来るらし｜なつきたるらし｜na-tsu-ki-ta-ru-ra-shi｜7

白たへの｜しろたへの｜shi-ro-ta-e-no｜5

衣干したり｜ころもほしたり｜ko-ro-mo-ho-shi-ta-ri｜7

天の香具山｜あまのかぐやま｜a-ma-no-ka-gu-ya-ma｜7

Words can make several connections at once

Waka can make a short sound sequence serve several relationships. A makurakotoba conventionally accompanies a word; kakekotoba turns on two meanings of the same sound; engo builds related vocabulary; honkadori asks the reader to hear an earlier poem within a new one.

Kare joins absence to withering

In “山里は冬ぞさびしさまさりける人めも草もかれぬと思へば”, winter intensifies the loneliness of a mountain village. Kare connects people withdrawing or ceasing to visit, 離れ, with grass withering, 枯れ. Human absence and a seasonal change occupy the same sound.

The village’s loneliness thus involves both human contact and the seasonal landscape: absent visitors and withered grass meet in one word.

Clothing words carry a second thread

In the eastward journey of Ise monogatari, a traveller responds to an acrostic task using kakitsubata: “唐衣着つつなれにし妻しあればはるばるきぬる旅をしぞ思ふ”. Its five phrases begin ka, ki, tsu, ha and ta, supplying the acrostic requested in the story.

Nare connects clothing worn through use, 褻れ, with accustomed intimacy, 慣れ. Tsuma means a wife, 妻, while also evoking a garment’s edge, 褄; harubaru, far away, evokes haru, 張る, stretching cloth. Karagoromo, a robe, introduces this clothing vocabulary, drawing familiar life with a wife into the traveller’s longing. Engo names this network of related words.

An older rain poem inside Teika’s snow

An earlier poem places a traveller in rain at Sano without a house for shelter: “苦しくも降りくる雨か三輪の崎佐野のわたりに家もあらなくに”. Teika’s poem reads “駒とめて袖うちはらふかげもなし佐野のわたりの雪の夕暮れ”.

Sano and the absence of shelter remain. Rain becomes snow; stopping a horse, brushing a sleeve and evening light make a new scene. Recognizing the earlier wording allows the reader to perceive both continuity and alteration.

The earlier range survives in the Man’yōshū

The eighth-century Man’yōshū preserves short and long forms associated with varied authors and occasions. It offers a view of Japanese verse before later waka became so closely identified with the short courtly poem. Its range should not be reduced to that later setting.

An imperial anthology becomes a reference point

Emperor Daigo commissioned the Kokin wakashū, compiled by Ki no Tomonori, Ki no Tsurayuki and others. Its prefaces carry the date 905, yet poems from around 913 were also incorporated. It was not a text closed in a single day. Classified sequences and prefaces made verse into a reference for learning and further composition.

Transmission also shapes what is read. Teika copied the collection repeatedly, while surviving versions preserve differences. Modern scholarly databases compare variants instead of treating every copy as an identical container. Imperial selection established a model; copying and commentary continued to mediate access to it.

An anthology with a prolonged editorial life

Retired Emperor Go-Toba, who directed poetry at the early Kamakura court, ordered the Shinkokin wakashū in 1201. Poets including Fujiwara no Teika and Fujiwara no Ietaka served as compilers. A completion celebration in 1205 did not end revision. Go-Toba continued selecting and deleting poems after his exile to Oki, leaving surviving texts that reflect different editorial stages.

Poetic houses, manuscripts and Edo scholarship

The imperial anthology sequence runs from the Kokin wakashū around 905 to the Shinshoku kokin wakashū of 1439: the Twenty-One Imperial Anthologies. Its conclusion did not end composition or learning within poetic houses, including the Reizei family’s inheritance from Shunzei and Teika. Edo publication brought the Hyakunin isshu to further readers, while Keichū’s study of the Man’yōshū for Tokugawa Mitsukuni produced the Man’yō daishōki.

Meiji changes took more than one direction

The imperial New Year gathering began accepting public submissions in 1874. At the same time, poets challenged both inherited diction and the authority of established models. In his 1898 Letters to a Tanka Poet, Shiki criticized treating imitation of the Kokin wakashū as the whole craft and argued for using classical, ordinary, Sino-Japanese and foreign vocabulary as expression required.

In this polemic, he continued to value the Man’yōshū and Sanetomo while disputing a closed poetic vocabulary. Yosano Akiko’s 1901 Midaregami represented another, romantic direction. Imperial gatherings, poetic houses and modern writers therefore form concurrent contexts rather than one unchanged court tradition.