"Mutsu" in Dairi-meisho-hyakushu : The Emperor Juntoku's Conservativeness and Fujiwara-no-Teika's Progressiveness(<Special Issue>The "Inside" and the "Outside" of Medieval Japan)

Abstract

In the third year of the Kenpo Period, an innovative collection of poems was made public. This is Dairi-meisho-hyakushu. Among the contributors probably there cannot be seen any more remarkable contrast in a poetical attitude than that between the Emperor Juntoku and Fujiwara-no-Teika. While the former vindicated the religio-political status quo in his traditional style, the latter experimented with a new method of language by his symbolical representation of Mutsu, a province of northern Japan, where the monk poet Saigyo had been wandering. Thus Teika's attempt was to revitalize the stylized and stagnant poetics of the age.