Fujiwara No Teika - Poetic Achievements

Poetic Achievements

"In this art of poetry, those who speak ill of Teika should be denied the protection of the gods and Buddhas and condemned to the punishments of hell." -Shōtetsu

Teika selected the works for the Ogura Hyakunin Isshu, an anthology of a hundred poems by a hundred poets. His Ogura Hyakunin Isshu was later thought to be a book of waka theory in which all types of ideal waka and all techniques were laid out; disputes over specific style and whether to be conservative or liberal that divided his descendants into a number of feuding schools/clans like the Reizei, Kyōgoku, and Nijō.

Teika made many manuscript copies of Japanese classics, including such landmarks of Japanese literature as The Tale of Genji, The Tales of Ise and the Kokinshū anthology. In his days, the ancient Japanese pronunciations were lost or difficult to understand, rendering the orthography of kana confused and uncertain. Teika researched old documents and recovered the earlier system of deciding between interpretations of kana, and developed a systematic orthography which was used until the modern Meiji period. He applied his kana system to his manuscripts, which were known for their accuracy and general high quality and called Teika bon ("Teika text"). Using his method he was able to document the accurate pronunciation of earlier waka like the ones in the Kokin Wakashū. His manuscripts were also appreciated for his eponymous distinct and bold style of calligraphy. The Adobe font "Kazuraki SPN", released in 2009, is based upon the calligraphic style of Fujiwara Teika.

Teika is also remembered, like his father, as being something of an innovator- the Encyclopædia Britannica says:

"Teika employed traditional language in startling new ways, showing that the prescriptive ideal of "old diction, new treatment" inherited from Shunzei might accommodate innovation and experimentation as well as ensure the preservation of the language and styles of the classical past."

The "old diction" here are phrases and words from the "Three Collections": the Kokinshū, the Gosen Wakashū, and the Shūi Wakashū, but not much older than that (for instance, the diction of the Man'yōshū was considered too old). Teika wrote in his Maigetsusho that the best poems were spontaneous and original, but nevertheless traditional:

"But such a notion is quite erroneous. For if we were to call such verses as that superior, then any poem at all we might write could be a fine one. No, first the powers of invention must be freed by reciting endless possibilities over and over to oneself. Then, suddenly and spontaneously, from among all the lines one is composing, may emerge a poem whose treatment of the topic is different from the common run, a verse that is somehow superior to the rest. It is full of poetic feeling, lofty in cadence, skillful, with resonances above and beyond the words themselves. It is dignified in effect, its phrasing original, yet smooth and gentle. It is interesting, suffused with an atmosphere subtle yet clear. It is richly evocative, its emotion not tense and nervous but sensible from the appropriateness of the imagery. Such a poem is not to be composed by conscious effort, but if a man will only persist in unremitting practice, he may produce one spontaneously."

The following is an example of how Teika used old and classic imagery such as Takasago and Onoe, as well as pine and cherry trees, in fresh ways:

His poems were described as remarkable for their elegance and exemplars of Teika's ideals, in his early and later years (respectively; Teika considerably modified his personal beliefs during his 40s, after the death of Shunzei, and simplified his style of composition), of the styles of yoen- one of the ten orthodox styles Teika defined and defended in his poetic criticism, with some of the others being the onihishigitei ("demon-quelling force") style, the style of sabi or "loneliness" (closely related to mono no aware), the style of yugen, or "mystery and depth"; the yoen style was concerned with "ethereal beauty", and ushin ("deep feeling" or "conviction of feeling". This shift in style from yoen to ushin was intended to achieve a certain sort of makoto, or integrity; Teika sometimes referred to his aim as ushin ("deep feeling"), which confusingly was also the name of one of the ten styles. The yoen style was one of the most popular in his time due in no small part to Teika's of it (yoen had first been described by Fujiwara no Mototoshi in the 1150s, but had been only marginally successful); years later, the Symbolists would admire and emulate (to a degree) his use of language to evoke atmosphere in his brief poems in the yoen style. An excellent example (and one later chosen for an Imperial anthology) is the first poem below: