Calligraphic manuscript on fine torinoko paper, entitled on gold-paper label on upper cover “Guhishō” 愚秘抄 [“Excerpts of My Foolish Secrets”]; title at beginning of text “Guhishō u sue” 愚秘抄鵜末
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29 folding leaves. 8vo (229 x 156 mm.), later semi-stiff silk-brocade-covered wrappers (covers a bit wormed), gold- & silver-speckled endpapers, old stitching. [Japan]: on final leaf (in trans.): “3 August 1483.”
A beautiful and fine calligraphic manuscript of “Guhishō,” a text on waka poetic theory that, along with “Gukenshō” 愚見抄, “Sangoki” 三五記, and “Kirihioke” 桐火桶, made up the writings collectively referred to as the “Cormorant and Heron Forgeries” (Usagikei Gisho 鵜鷺系偽書). These four texts were attributed to Fujiwara no Teika (1162-1241), the “single most influential figure in the history of Japanese classical poetry. [He] was the supreme arbiter of poetry in his own day, and for centuries after his death was held in religious veneration by waka and renga poets alike. Teika’s unique reputation rested in part upon his accomplishment as the leading figure among the many fine poets of the Shinkokin Jidai, the period of fifty-odd years in the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries when revival and innovation in the native poetry were exemplified in Shinkokinshi, ca. 1204, the eighth, and in many respects the greatest, of the imperially sponsored anthologies of classical verse. As one of the six compilers of this anthology, and with forty-six of his poems included in it, Teika stood at the forefront of the younger and more innovative poets of his day, and his various experiments with diction, rhetoric, and figurative language, as well as with new styles, modes, and aesthetic effects, were widely imitated by his contemporaries. After his death, his quarreling descendants were recognized as the ultimate authorities on all poetic matters, and through them Teika’s influence pervaded six hundred years of Japanese poetic history.”–Robert H. Brower, “Fujiwara Teika’s Maigetsushō” in Monumenta Nipponica, 40.4 (1985), p. 399.
So great was Teika’s reputation that, following his death, a number of forged poetic texts were created by the extremely competitive members the Nijō and Reizei poetic factions, both of which claimed the texts had been left by Teika. These texts, including “Guhishō,” were composed around the turn of the 14th century and immediately entered the canon of Teika’s writings. They were considered authentic, and had a significant impact on Japanese poetic traditions and aesthetics, until the 20th century.
The final leaf of text contains information about which source material was used to create this manuscript, dated 3 August 1483. Our manuscript could well be a later copy.
Fine and fresh copy, written in a beautiful calligraphic hand on thick superior torinoko paper. First and last few leaves with minor marginal worming. Preserved in a chitsu, with the characteristic handwriting of Mr. Mori, the chief bibliographer of the great dealer Sorimachi Shigeo 反町茂雄, on the label of the upper cover of the box.
A beautiful and fine calligraphic manuscript of “Guhishō,” a text on waka poetic theory that, along with “Gukenshō” 愚見抄, “Sangoki” 三五記, and “Kirihioke” 桐火桶, made up the writings collectively referred to as the “Cormorant and Heron Forgeries” (Usagikei Gisho 鵜鷺系偽書). These four texts were attributed to Fujiwara no Teika (1162-1241), the “single most influential figure in the history of Japanese classical poetry. [He] was the supreme arbiter of poetry in his own day, and for centuries after his death was held in religious veneration by waka and renga poets alike. Teika’s unique reputation rested in part upon his accomplishment as the leading figure among the many fine poets of the Shinkokin Jidai, the period of fifty-odd years in the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries when revival and innovation in the native poetry were exemplified in Shinkokinshi, ca. 1204, the eighth, and in many respects the greatest, of the imperially sponsored anthologies of classical verse. As one of the six compilers of this anthology, and with forty-six of his poems included in it, Teika stood at the forefront of the younger and more innovative poets of his day, and his various experiments with diction, rhetoric, and figurative language, as well as with new styles, modes, and aesthetic effects, were widely imitated by his contemporaries. After his death, his quarreling descendants were recognized as the ultimate authorities on all poetic matters, and through them Teika’s influence pervaded six hundred years of Japanese poetic history.”–Robert H. Brower, “Fujiwara Teika’s Maigetsushō” in Monumenta Nipponica, 40.4 (1985), p. 399.
So great was Teika’s reputation that, following his death, a number of forged poetic texts were created by the extremely competitive members the Nijō and Reizei poetic factions, both of which claimed the texts had been left by Teika. These texts, including “Guhishō,” were composed around the turn of the 14th century and immediately entered the canon of Teika’s writings. They were considered authentic, and had a significant impact on Japanese poetic traditions and aesthetics, until the 20th century.
The final leaf of text contains information about which source material was used to create this manuscript, dated 3 August 1483. Our manuscript could well be a later copy.
Fine and fresh copy, written in a beautiful calligraphic hand on thick superior torinoko paper. First and last few leaves with minor marginal worming. Preserved in a chitsu, with the characteristic handwriting of Mr. Mori, the chief bibliographer of the great dealer Sorimachi Shigeo 反町茂雄, on the label of the upper cover of the box.