Abstract
In this paper, I explore the intimate connection between the Sugawara House and the composition of Sinitic poetry for institutionalised poetry banquets in early Heian Japan. While poetry remained a marginal occupation for the Confucian scholars trained at the Bureau of Education, its performance at banquets constituted a prestigious niche that could be occupied by those who sought to exploit it as an autonomous form of cultural capital. Here I sketch the contours of this connection and analyse a number of anthologizing strategies at work in the personal collection of the renowned early Heian scholar and poet Sugawara no Michizane (845-903) known as Kanke bunsō (Literary Drafts of the Sugawara House).
Highlights
I have explored the dynamic practice of Sinitic poetry composition in early Heian Japan
From the expansion of poetic culture at the beginning of the ninth century to the presentation of Sugawara no Michizane’s personal collection Kanke bunsō, sovereign-sponsored poetry banquets played a vital role in shaping the contours of literary activity
Sinitic poetry was primarily the domain of the social class of the graduates of the kidendō curriculum at the Bureau of Education, and literary collections of the time represent their poetry as part of the performative environment provided by institutionalised banquets
Summary
On the 21st day of the first month of 874 (Jōgan 貞観16), the Confucian scholar and poet Sugawara no Michizane 菅原道真 (845-903) participated in the Palace Banquet (naien 内宴) at the presence of Emperor Seiwa 清和 (850-881, r. 858-876) and contributed with the following poem on the topic Spring Snow Reflects the Early Plums (春雪映早梅):. The present paper, explores the dynamics of the intimate connection between institutionalised banquet poetry in literary Sinitic and the Sugawara House in the early Heian period through an analysis of the anthologizing strategies at work in Sugawara no Michizane’s collection Kanke bunsō. By mirroring the early socio-political significance of the fifth rank for the participation in sovereign-sponsored banquets, the compilers of Ryōunshū – all of at least the fifth rank by the time the collection was completed (ca 814) – apparently sought to demarcate the socio-political possibilities and limitations of kidendō graduates strategically at a time when court rank was being replaced by recognition of expertise and academic status in coordinating the social determinants of poetic activity. 15 I follow Steininger (2017, 136) for the translation of hōryakushi as ‘Policy Test.’
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