THE LOVE POEMS OF THE 'KOKINSHU': A TRANSLATION, WITH COMMENTARY, AND STUDY OF THE INFLUENCE OF CHINESE AND EARLIER JAPANESE POETRY

The primary focus of this dissertation is the translation, with commentary, of chapters 11 through 15 of the Kokinwakashu, an anthology of Japanese poetry compiled in about 905 AD. The commentary for each of the 369 poems includes the classification of the poem in terms of its position in the sequential arrangement of the chapter, a discussion of significant problems in interpretation, the poetic techniques at work in the poem, important textual variants, pertinent allusions to earlier Chinese and Japanese poetry noted by Japanese scholars from the 12th century through to the present time, and an analysis of the poem and of its relationship both to the poems which immediately precede it in the anthology and to the allusions translated for consideration.;Using a comparative approach, this dissertation demonstrates comprehensively for the first time the extent and importance of the poetic use of allusion in the Love Poems of the Kokinshu, the most influential anthology of poetry in the history of Japanese literature, drawing upon Japanese scholarship for data and then analyzing it. A number of serious questions are raised both in regard to various aspects of the function and extent of allusions in the Kokinshu to earlier Japanese and Chinese poetry. Questions are also raised with respect to the structure of the arrangement of the poems both in several pre-Kokinshu collections of poetry and in the Kokinshu itself.;The six introductory chapters include an introduction to the Kokinshu, a discussion of its importance in Japanese literature, a history of the manuscripts and a history of the major commentaries, in the first chapter. The second chapter is a discussion of the development of court poetry in China, in the Six Dynasties and early T'ang, and in Japan from the time of the Manyoshu to the time of the Kokinshu. The third chapter analyzes the extent and nature of the allusions to Chinese poetry, concentrating on the allusions to the Yu-T'ai Hsin-Yung and to the works of Po Chu-i. The fourth chapter analyzes the extent and nature of the allusions to the poetry of the Manyoshu. The fifth chapter analyzes the function of allusion as seen in the three periods of poetry contained in the Kokinshu. The sixth chapter concerns itself with an analysis of the principles of association and progression at work in the arrangement of the poems within the five chapters of the Love Poems in the Kokinshu. In doing this, study is also made of the principles of arrangement evident in the "Amatory Epigrams" of the Greek Anthology, in a Sanskrit anthology of poetry, in two classical Chinese anthologies, in the Manyoshu, in the Kampyo period poetry contest, and in the Kudai Waka.