Kyōshi: Japanese “Wild Poetry”

Abstract

AbstractIn Japan between 1770 and 1790, the craze for witty, comic verse forms such askyōkaandsenryū,infected the ancient and noble tradition of poetry written in Chinese to producekyōshi,“wild Chinese poetry.” Written in both Edo and Kyoto by poets of the lower samurai and educated townsmen classes,kyōshiranged from silly puns and parodies of long-petrified Chinese verse forms to serious poems that used new subjects, language, and perceptions to revive the old genre,kanshi.Of the major poets, Ōta Nampo (Shokusanjin) of Edo, well-known as a master ofkyōka,was equally famous for collections of wittykyōshi,while Hatanaka Tanomo (Dōmyaku Sensii) revived the Chinese “folk song style ballad” as a vehicle for descriptions of daily life in and around Kyoto. Becausekyōshiwas the product of a unique conjunction of literary, social, and political factors, it was almost forgotten by the beginning of the nineteenth century.