| The dissertation is a study of the medieval Japanese discipline known as uta no michi, "the Way of Poetry," in its relation to the Kokindenju ("Secret Teachings of Ancient and Modern Poems"), an institution for transmitting and receiving the early canon of waka poetry. The historical point of departure for the study is the evidence that as the social and political conditions for maintaining the Way of Poetry as a viable discipline changed from the early 13th century through the 15th century, the form and the pedagogical ideals of the discipline had to be redefined. As of the early 13th century, the Way of Poetry had been legitimized on the model of the quasi-hereditary professions (shoku) in the service of the imperial court. During the 15th century, this model came to be displaced by that of a vocational and scholastic one under which initiates were trained, in exchange for tuition, and authorized to earn a living, independently of court patronage, by retransmitting esoteric teachings; This reorientation of the institutional basis of the discipline was accompanied by a significant expansion in the role and substance of the Kokindenju. While the latter had made up the core curriculum of the Way of Poetry in the early 13th century, its scope was restricted to the transmission of authorized recensions of canonical texts and glosses thereon. As its role expanded and it became effectively synonymous with the Way of Poetry, the Kokindenju was reformed to encompass instruction in the art of "reading properly" in the sense of interpreting and indeed rewriting the canon on behalf of an ambitious esthetic and ideological program upon which the economy of the institution could be grounded and the cultural legitimacy of the discipline reaffirmed.; This reformation was most effectively accomplished in the latter part of the 15th century by Joen and Sogi, two poets who collaborated in devising an innovative curriculum and a regime for the training and licensing of master poets which turned the Kokindenju into an uncannily successful and profitable pedagogical institution.; The primary textbook of the 'reformed' Kokindenju, Two Readings, is also the earliest complete commentary on the primary canon of waka poetry. A sample collation of Two Readings with sub-commentary is included in the dissertation. |
