Nara Period - Nara Period Literature

Nara Period Literature

Concentrated efforts by the imperial court to record and document its history produced the first works of Japanese literature during the Nara period. Works such as the Kojiki and the Nihon Shoki were political in nature, used to record and therefore justify and establish the supremacy of the rule of the emperors within Japan.

With the spread of written language, the writing of Japanese poetry, known in Japanese as waka, began. Over time, personal collections were referenced to establish the first large collection of Japanese poetry known as Man'yōshū sometime after 759. Chinese characters were used to express sounds of Japanese until kana were invented. The Chinese characters used to express the sounds of Japanese are known as man'yōgana.