Fujiwara no Teika (Fujiwara Sadaie) (Writer)

 

(1162-1241) poet

Fujiwara no Teika was born into a family of Japanese noblemen and poets. He was a direct descendant of Fujiwara Michinaga, who ruled Japan from 995 to 1028. However, his family line descended through a succession of younger sons, so his position in the Japanese court, while respectable, was not powerful. His father, Shunzei, was a great poet and literary critic who compiled the seventh imperial literary anthology, the Senzaishu, in 1183.

Fujiwara held minor court positions throughout his life. His opportunities for advancement through the imperial ranks were often stymied by political intrigues or, in one case, by his own temperament, as evidenced when he struck a court official with a candlestick after being provoked. Still, Fujiwara’s literary skill and his father’s favorable reputation allowed him to achieve great fame as a poet and critic. He wrote and taught tanka, and he was an accomplished essayist. For these reasons, he was asked to compile the eighth imperial anthology, the Shinkokinshu, by the ex-emperor Go-Toba in 1201. Fujiwara included many of his own poems in the collection.

Later in his life, Fujiwara began to teach young writers about poetry. His Maigetsusho, or Monthly Notes, was a detailed series of essays about poetic style and sensibility. He also collected shorter anthologies of representative poems that he used to teach young poets by example. He advised poets to look forward in their work and not to “become enamored of the archaic style.” As a champion of poetry and as a master poet, Fujiwara continues to influence Japanese literature.

English Versions of Works by Fujiwara no Teika

Fujiwara Teika’s Superior Poems of Our Time. Translated by Robert H. Brower and Earl Miner. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1967.


The Tale of Matsura: Fujiwara Teika’s Experiment in Fiction. Translated by Wayne P. Lammers. Ann Arbor, Mich.: Center for Japanese Studies, 1992.

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