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Paper short abstract

This paper analyzes modes of emotional expression in Sinitic poetry by two aristocratic-born Zen nuns in the Edo period, focusing on differences in word choice and recurring motifs in poems on daily life, nature, and the seasons. It sheds light on their monastic experience and literary inheritance.

Paper long abstract

This paper offers a comparative examination of modes of emotional expression in Sinitic poetry composed by two Zen nuns in early modern Japan: Abbess Daitsū Bunchi (1619-1697) and Abbess Taisei Shōan (1668-1712). Both were daughters of emperors who became nuns and lived in special convents for members of the royal family and high-ranking aristocracy, where they later served as abbesses. Like many Buddhist intellectuals of their time, they composed poetry in Sinitic, the primary literary and devotional language of premodern Japanese Buddhism.

While many of their poems, written for Buddhist occasions such as memorial services and ritual observances, explicitly express religious ideas, this paper examines poems that were composed outside such formal religious contexts. I focus in particular on poems by the two abbesses that share similar themes related to daily life, nature, and the seasons. Through close reading, I analyze differences in word choice and recurring motifs and consider how these features correspond to differing patterns of emotional expression. Poems by Abbess Bunchi more frequently employ imagery and diction associated with calmness and stability, whereas poems by Abbess Shōan more often emphasize scenes and language associated with sorrow, longing, and solitude.

By situating these observations within a comparative framework, this study suggests how attention to emotional expression in poetry can shed light on lived monastic experience and literary inheritance among elite Zen nuns in early modern Japan, an area that has received limited scholarly attention.