Role of Poetry in Narrative Prose of the Heian period (monogatari, nikki)

In the Heian period, Japanese literature and prose was beginning to take shape, starting with things like the Man’yōshū and Kokinshū leading the way to taking poetry to the level of art. Ki no Tsurayuki said that he wanted to make Japanese poetry or waka a higher cultural thing to be enjoyed by the whole country and he succeeded. Poetry became wildly popular with people reciting and creating on the spot, whenever something struck their fancy or they felt that a poem would do the situation well. To consider yourself cultured, it was almost necessary to dabble in poetry as well.

As poetry fit into everyday life, it also took a place in narrative prose of the time. One could scarce read something without coming across some poetry here or there. In fact, some works were mostly all poetry with a paragraph or two of text between them to set up a bit of introduction plot or purpose. With such a big role in narration, poetry found itself with multiple usages and functions. First and maybe most importantly, was the usage of poetry to invoke pathos and feelings, and to give descriptions of a variety of items, locations, weather conditions, etc. Next, it was also used to give a sense of realism, to show relationships, and just express what two people say to each other in a written form. Poetry was, for the most part, a necessary and convenient method of prose in the Heian period.

The Japanese always had a deep appreciation for the transience of life and the beauty that lent to all existing things. They looked at dying flowers, or summer rains, and saw the fleetingness of life and how important it was to treasure the time you had. Disregarding even that aspect of Japanese appreciation, they still often spent time looking at and ...

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..., it was naturally included in the prose of the time as well. It was used for a lot of different things. It gave a sense of pathos and sophistication, and concisely stated a couple of different things that would have been hard or space consuming to do with just prose. Relationships, dialogue between lovers, and common themes that everyone from the period recognized could be easily and eloquently expressed by poetry, giving it a big role in written works of the Heian period.

Works Cited

Ki, Tsurayuki. "The Tosa Diary." Anthology of Japanese Literature. 'Comp' . Donald Keene. New York: Glove Press, 1955. Print.

"Kagero Nikki." Anthology of Japanese Literature. 'Comp' . Donald Keene. New York: Grove Press, 1955. Print.

Shikibu, Izumi. The Izumi Shikibu Diary. Print.

Shikibu, Murasaki, and Royall Tyler. The Tale of Genji. Penguin Classics, 2006. Print.