( ''A Secret Treatise of Renga Principles'') is a text on

renga ''Renga'' (, ''linked poem'') is a genre of Japanese collaborative poetry in which alternating stanzas, or ''ku (''句), of 5-7-5 and 7-7 morae (sound units, not to be confused with syllables) per line are linked in succession by multiple poets ...

poetics. It was written by

Nijō Yoshimoto , son of regent Nijō Michihira, was a Japanese '' kugyō'' (court noble), waka poet, and renga master of the early Nanboku-chō period (1336–1392). Yoshimoto's wife gave birth to Nijō Moroyoshi. With another woman, he had sons Nijō Morots ...

around 1349. It had a great influence on the development of renga.Miner, Earl Roy, ''Japanese linked poetry'', Princeton University Press, 1980, pbk.

Development

Yoshimoto learned

waka WAKA (channel 8) is a television station licensed to Selma, Alabama, United States, serving as the CBS affiliate for the Montgomery area. It is owned by Bahakel Communications alongside Tuskegee-licensed CW+ affiliate WBMM (channel 22); B ...

from

Ton'a , also read as Tonna; lay name – Nikaidō Sadamune (二階堂貞宗), was a Japanese Buddhist poet who was a student of Nijō Tameyo. Ton'a took a tonsure at Enryaku-ji Temple, but was later associated with the ''Ji'' sect (founded by Ipp ...

and

from Gusai and Kyūsei. While he authored several treatises on waka, it is for renga that he is best known. By the age of thirty, he was regarded as an authority on the subject. In 1345, Yoshimoto composed . This text served as the draft for ''Renri Hishō'', and over the next four years he slightly revised and edited it until it became ''Renri Hishō''. The differences between the two texts are extremely minimal. The text currently remains in a single manuscript in the collection. It is a mid-

Muromachi period The , also known as the , is a division of Japanese history running from approximately 1336 to 1573. The period marks the governance of the Muromachi or Ashikaga shogunate ( or ), which was officially established in 1338 by the first Muromachi ...

copy.

The text begins with a

kanbun ''Kanbun'' ( 'Han Chinese, Han writing') is a system for writing Literary Chinese used in Japan from the Nara period until the 20th century. Much of Japanese literature was written in this style and it was the general writing style for offici ...

preface by Priest Gen'e and concludes with an afterword by Kyūsei. The main text consists of two major sections: general discourse on renga ranging from history to ways to learn, and rules for composing renga. These rules, more formally known as , became the foundation for later renga poetics such as the 1372 .

Notes

References

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Renri Hisho Late Middle Japanese texts Japanese poetry

Development

Contents

Notes

References