Fujiwara no Teika

Fujiwara no Teika

Fujiwara no Teika (1162 – September 26, 1241) was a Japanese anthologist, calligrapher, literary critic, poet, and scribe of the late Heian and early Kamakura period.

Quotes

• 和歌に師匠なし。たゞ旧き歌をもつて師となす。心を古風に染め、詞を先達に習はば、誰人かこれを詠ぜざらんや。
  • There are no teachers of Japanese poetry. But they who take the old poems as their teachers, steep their minds in the old style, and learn their words from the masters of former time — who of them will fail to write poetry? [1]
  • Variant translation:
    In poetry there are no teachers. One makes antiquity one’s teacher. Provided he steep his mind in the styles of antiquity and learn his diction from the great poets of old, who can fail to compose good poetry?
    • Essentials of Poetic Composition (詠歌大概 Eiga no Taigai)

• On this spring night
  the floating bridge of my dreams
  has broken away:
  and lifting off a far peak—
  a cloud-bank in empty sky.
  • The Road to Komatsubara: A Classical Reading of the Renga Hyakuin 1987, Steven D. Carter

Quotes about

• In this art of poetry, those who speak ill of Teika should be denied the protection of the gods and Buddhas and condemned to the punishments of hell.
  • Attributed to Shotetsu in Conversations with Shotetsu (Shotetsu Monogatari), 1992, Translated by Robert H. Bower

See also

• Saigyo
• Basho
• Shotetsu