Emperor Chokei's Literary Background(<Special Issue>The Backgrounds of the Production of Medieval Literature)

Abstract

Emperor Chokei, the third emperor of the Southern Dynasty, is the author of some excellent poems in Shinyo-waka-shu and in Sengen-sho, the book of annotations on Genji-monogatari. In spite of his literary attainments, however, the emperor had rather poor access to literature in his childhood, for he was not allowed to read anything but major works such as Sandai-shu and Genji-monogatari. Although his father Emperor Go-Murakami or Nijo-Tametada probably taught him how to appreciate literature, the emperor-poet must have formed his own literary style by learning as much from the limited number of texts as he could.