Overview

Linked verse (renga) was the most popular form of poetry in Japan's medieval era (c. 1200–1600 CE). Renga poets linked verses of seventeen and fourteen syllables into long sequences in accordance with complex rules and literary allusions; the first verse, which initially stood alone, was the ancestor of the modern haiku. Courtiers, warriors, and commoners alike practiced linked verse in an atmosphere of literary artistry, scholarship, social sensitivity, and charged competition. The masters were often invited at great expense to warrior domains to preside at linked-verse sessions and provide instruction in the art. Some of Japan's most famous poets, notably Sōgi and Bashō, composed not only revered renga works but also books of guidance, history, theory, and commentary. This book is the most comprehensive work in English on premodern Japanese linked verse. It includes a history of the genre in both its formal (ushin) and unorthodox (haikai) manifestations through the work of Bashō, an introduction to linked-verse composition and commentaries, and an overview of the art's performative aspects. These three parts are each linked to original English translations: an early treatise on renga history, theory, and rules; a particularly intricate hundred-verse sequence and its contemporary commentaries; and two guides to mental attitude and deportment at a renga session. Wide-ranging and erudite, Linked Verse in Medieval Japan is a masterful account of the history, theory, and practice of one of Japan's great art forms.

Full Product Details

Author:   H. Mack Horton
Publisher:   Columbia University Press
Imprint:   Columbia University Press
ISBN:  

9780231191142

ISBN 10:   0231191146
Pages:   1120
Publication Date:   30 September 2025
Audience:   College/higher education ,  Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Forthcoming
Availability:   Awaiting stock  

Table of Contents

List of Figures Conventions and Acknowledgments 発句 Introduction 史 Part I. History: Modalities of Medieval Japanese Linked Verse 1. The Origins of Linked Verse: The Nara and Heian Periods 2. The Early Medieval Period: Ushin and Mushin; Dōjō and Jige 3. The Early Maturity of the Ushin Renga Style: Nijō Yoshimoto and Kyūzei 4. The Apogee of the Ushin Renga Voice 5. The Haikai Efflorescence and the Early Modern Transition Translation: Private Treatise on Linked-Verse Principles (Renri hishō), by Nijō Yoshimoto 注 Part II. Commentary: Historical Reception and the Yajima Shōrin’an “What-Tree” Hundred-Verse Renga Sequence Translation: The Yajima Shōrin’an “What-Tree” Hundred-Verse Renga Sequence (Yajima Shōrin’an naniki hyakuin), by Sōchō and Sōboku Chart 1: The Structure of the Yajima Shōrin’an “What-Tree” Hundred-Verse Renga Sequence 場 Part III. Performance: The Linked-Verse Session Translations: Rules for Linked-Verse Sessions (Renga kaiseki shiki), by Nitta Shōjun, and Ten Vexations of Linked Verse (Renga no jūmuyaku), attributed to Sōchō 挙句 Epilogue: The Modern Revival of Ushin Renga Studies Appendix 1: Basic Rules of Intermission and Seriation in Orthodox Linked Verse Appendix 2: Linked Verse in Japanese and Chinese (Wakan renku) Appendix 3: A Note on Medieval Waka Schools Abbreviations Notes Bibliography Index to Poems General Index

Reviews

Based on superb scholarship, this book draws on an impressive array of primary and secondary sources to trace the history of medieval Japanese linked verse. A landmark in the field, it contains elegant translations and thorough commentary on important texts never before available in English. -- Michel Vieillard-Baron, École Pratique des Hautes Études If, as Horton claims, “for a thousand years and more, poetry was the sovereign element of Japanese cultural life,” then this lucid study is the sovereign treatment in English (and perhaps in any language) of one of that culture’s most intricately challenging and sophisticated poetic forms. -- Edward Kamens, author of <i>Waka and Things, Waka as Things</i>

Author Information

H. Mack Horton is the Catherine and William L. Magistretti Distinguished Professor of Japanese Literature at the University of California, Berkeley. His books include Song in an Age of Discord: The Journal of Sôchô and Poetic Life in Late Medieval Japan (2002); Traversing the Frontier: The Man’yōshū Account of a Japanese Mission to Silla in 736–737 (2012); and The Rhetoric of Death and Discipleship in Premodern Japan: Sōchō’s Death of Sōgi and Kikaku’s Death of Master Bashō (2019).

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