The pedagogical value of tsukinami haikai: learning cultural associations

Abstract

The corpus of haikai (haiku) poetic material produced from the early until the latter part of the nineteenth century in Japan has been largely dismissed as unliterary since Masaoka Shiki (1867–1902). In particular scholars have avoided the study of the poetic practice known as tsukinami haikai, a form of poetic competition. By examining a specific tsukinami haikai text as well as looking at the process of tsukinami haikai competitions, I argue that they had an important pedagogical and cultural value. The poets who composed poems for tsukinami haikai competitions gained the education necessary to read Masaoka Shiki's arguments in favor of a ‘literary poetry’. In addition the vocabulary that they learned from tsukinami haikai was ‘universal’ and thus transcended local identities. Tsukinami haikai is important for understanding the cultural history of nineteenth century Japan.