Paper short abstract:

How did the poems composed for and inscribed on the presentation screens for the November 2019 Daijōe conform with and depart from the precedent? In what ways are the eight poems treating topoi in the yuki and suki prefectures, Tochigi-ken and Kyōto-fu, both traditional and contemporary?

Paper long abstract:

The modern version of the ancient Daijōe ("Great Thanksgiving Assembly") has many features that have been adapted from practices that were first documented in the 10th and 11th centuries. These include the presentation of sets of poems on the four seasons and in celebration of noted places (meisho) in the selected tributary prefectures (in the 2019 Reiwa instance, Tochigi-ken and Kyōto-fu), inscribed on a pair of folding screens (byōbu). Where once court scholars and atelier artists created these offerings, noted contemporary poets and painters (still, all male) now perform in this role. As an example of a research challenge in the study of "the futures of the past," (and as a sequel to my study of Daijōe uta in my 2018 book, Waka and Things, Waka as Things) I will discuss the significance of these poems as an elusive temporal resource reflecting time and change, the revival and transformation of tradition, and the challenges of working with ritual materials that are not intended for public access in the age of the internet. I will review the origins and history of the rite and the role of screens, poems, and other tribute offerings and performances in it, and track how the rite has morphed into his modern form. Many aspects of the rite are secret—not to be observed by the public: the two screens, however, were widely seen in media at the time of the ceremony itself, while the poem texts were not released by the Kunaichō until subsequently and on special request—but thus became part of a corpus that is now over a thousand years old. What does this tell us about the place of court waka in the 21st century?