Paper short abstract:

This paper will focus on Honchō ichinin isshu (One Poem Each by Poets of Our Court, prefaced 1660), an anthology of Japanese kanshi compiled and annotated by Hayashi Gahō, a leading Confucian scholar of the early Edo period, and examine Gahō's attitude toward Heian-period kanshi.

Paper long abstract:

In the Edo period, several anthologies were compiled and published with the aim of providing comprehensive collections of kanshibun (Chinese prose and poetry) that had been written in Japan. This paper will focus on Honchō ichinin isshu (One Poem Each by Poets of Our Court, prefaced 1660), a pioneering anthology compiled and annotated by Hayashi Gahō, a Confucian scholar in service of the bakufu and a leading intellectual of early Edo, and examine Gahō's attitude toward Heian-period kanshi.

In Honchō ichinin isshu, Gahō writes that after the Hōgen and Heiji Rebellions of 1156 and 1159, governance by benevolent rulers went into decline and people with literary talent disappeared. It is no coincidence that of the approximately 480 kanshi in the anthology, covering a millennium from the seventh to seventeenth centuries, the majority date from the Heian period. Gahō selected the poems based on various criteria, including the subject matter and poetic form. What is noteworthy is that the kanshi he picked out from the works of representative Heian poets such as Kūkai and Sugawara no Michizane all concern exchanges with Tang and Balhae, and he also repeatedly gives praise to Michizane's family of scholars, who helped uphold their family tradition as experts on kidendō (history and literature). This was likely a reflection of how deeply committed Gahō and other scholars of the Hayashi family were to literary exchanges with Joseon diplomatic missions and to the transmission and advancement of their family's scholarly expertise.

The content of Honchō ichinin isshu is also closely tied to Honchō tsugan (A Comprehensive Mirror of Our Court), Gahō's main work that he compiled concurrently, as well as his own kanshibun. This paper will examine Gahō's intentions in compiling this Heian-centred anthology in relation to his other works, the position of the Hayashi family, and the scholarly and cultural milieu of the early Edo period. Finally, the paper will touch on how Honchō ichinin isshu and its new attention to Heian kanshibun influenced other Edo-period authors and scholars of classical Chinese poetry and prose.