The "Inside" and the "Outside" Within the System : The Aporia of Medieval Poetics(<Special Issue>The "Inside" and the "Outside" of Medieval Japan)

Abstract

In the history of medieval literature, the poetical style of the Insei Period has been usually described as an "innovative" attempt to search for something new. From a post-colonial viewpoint, however, as is typically seen in the poem "Ishibumi" of Shuchu-sho, that poetical experiment can be interpreted as a discursive practice of the national policy to assimilate Oshu. In this sense, the poetics of the Insei Period is basically the same as the conventional poetics after Shin-kokin-waka-shu. Whether experimental or conservative, or whether inside or outside the tradition, eventually both of them articulated themselves within the same system. So far as poetical language was thus culturally determined, the possibility of linguistic deviation from the system, which Saigyo partially succeeded in, was hopeless in medieval poetry.