Studies in the Manyoshu

Four essays by Orikuchi Shinobu (the poet Shaku Chokuu), one of the great scholars of ancient Japanese literature, on the Man'yoshu, Japan's earliest great anthology of poetry. Written between 1922 and 1928, they follow the book from the way it was compiled, through a general introduction for lecture audiences, to a long study of the ritual and spirit beliefs behind the poems.

Orikuchi reads the poems as the afterlife of ritual speech: the visiting god, the binding and calling of souls, the priestess-poet, the songs of the festival field. The writing is dense, oral and strikingly original, and this is its complete, unabridged English version, translated directly from the Japanese with endnotes on names, terms and textual puzzles.

Translated by Valentin Sarić. AI-assisted translation.