The wind of virtue over the realm : the concept of feng as a legitimizing medium in Hanazono’s prefaces to the Fūgawakashū

This thesis explores the political messages contained in the seventeenth imperial anthology of Japanese poetry (waka), the Fūgawakashū (1346). Through reaffirmation of values presented in previous anthologies, imperial waka anthologies served as a source of mutual legitimization for the commissioning regime and the compiling poets. I examine how Retired Emperor Hanazono (1297-1348, r. 1308-1318), as the head of the Jimyōin faction and the guardian of the Kyōgoku school of poetry, establishes ties between the Fūgawakashū and canonical texts of Japan and China to legitimize his Kyōgoku-Jimyōin faction against the rival Nijō-Daikakuji faction. I argue that Hanazono uses the Confucian concept of feng (風, J. fū) as the organizing principle for his claims in the Fūgawakashū. I discuss the origin of the title “fūga,” which pays homage to the Chinese anthology, the Shijing 詩經 (c. 600 BCE). In the two prefaces composed in kana and mana in the fashion of Kokinwakashū (c. 905) and ShinKokinwakashū (1205), Hanazono identifies governance through the virtue of great men, or feng, as the true function of poetry. By reiterating some arguments from the Kokinwakashū and ShinKokinwakashū prefaces and omitting some aspects to which the Nijō school adheres, Hanazono weaves a poetic lineage that connects the Shijing, Kokinwakashū tradition, and the Fūgawakashū. He proclaims his Kyōgoku school to be the legitimate heir to the spirit of feng represented in the canonized Chinese and Japanese anthologies; the commissioning Jimyōin line is the virtuous rulers abiding by the feng. This thesis also offers some explanation as to the strong legitimacy claim and the explicit critique of the rival faction toward the end of the anthology. I follow evidence for Hanazono’s favourable assessment of Emperor GoDaigo in the early years, consider the turn of events from the perspective of the Jimyōin faction, and conclude that Hanazono’s disappointment in GoDaigo’s revolutionary manoeuvres result in the critical tone in the prefaces. By the assessment of Hanazono’s strategies this study offers to depart from the accepted interpretation of the Fūgawakashū as the Kyōgoku school’s innovative compilation and reconfigures the anthology within a longer tradition of Chinese and Japanese canons.Arts, Faculty ofAsian Studies, Department ofGraduat