Iio Sogi (1421?-1502) is one of the most renowned masters of renga, linked verse. Japanese linked verse reached its zenith during the Muromachi period, to the extent that even commoners enjoyed composing verse in competition. Sogi, probably of low birth, trained himself to become a professional renga poet during the civil war of the Onin era (1467-77). He was eventually designated by the shogun as the highest master of renga. He was the central figure in the compilation by imperial command, in 1945, of an anthology of contemporary linked verse. This anthology, Shinsen Tsukuba-shu, is regarded as the greatest achievement in orthodox style renga.
In Kyoto, Japan's political and cultural center, Sogi gave court nobles and aristocrats lectures on classics, such as the Tale of Genji and the Kokin anthology, as well as instructions on linked verse. He also made numerous extensive trips to distant places. There he was welcomed by local warriors, who asked him to coach their renga compositions and serve as master for their renga gatherings. His trips were so frequent and his association with certain warriors so close that some suspect that this master of poetry was also the first professional spy in Japan. But there is little evidence to show that he played a role similar to that of the itinerant monks of medieval Italy. More significant about Sogi's travels is the fact that they were for literary activities. As such, they served as a cultural link between local areas and the center and between the warrior class with the aristocracy during this period of disunity.
All the characteristic features of the renga had been developed by Sogi's time. According to scholars, the most important features were as follows. First, the renga was a literary activity by groups of people gathered together. Usually, one hundred lines formed a renga. People, often amateurs, composed the lines one after another in the manner of a chain, under the guidance of a master. The participants were simultaneously composers and appreciators and in an ideal atmosphere a sense of togetherness prevailed. People of different classes gathered together as in the gatherings presided over by Sogi. Second, the renga was a literature that prized and bound itself to set forms to the extreme. The composition of linked verse had to follow meticulous rules concerning subject matter, intervals at which the same subject matter could reappear, and so forth. This means that participants were presumed to share common images of every subject matter. Third, a knowledge of classical literature was deemed essential to the renga. Renga masters had to be experts of the classics, as Sogi actually was. Renga were full of allusions to classical novels and poems.
The key element behind these and other characteristics of the renga was a concept called hon-i (lit., fundamental meaning). Any subject matter was expressed in terms of its hon-i, that is, the imagery of its beauty which had become a convention through the long process of repetition since the Heian period. No renga composer could deviate from this set notion of beauty. In other words, the hon-i was a “fixed image” in our language. Some of Sogi's trips were taken to confirm the hon-i of renowned places.
Some scholars of Japanese literature today conclude that due to these characteristics linked verse is too stereotyped to be regarded as first-rate literature. Others maintain that its conventions are exactly what makes the renga an exciting literature. This author agrees with the second view. But he also wants to stress the significance of the fact that local warriors were renga enthusiasts, and it was they who desired and promoted the compilation of the Shinsen Tsukuba-shu. Sogi, a culture carrier, linked local areas and the center through l

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