The Imperial mode of Sinitic poetry: Literacy and authority in Early Heian Japan

The beginning of the Heian period (794-1185) was particularly transformative for Japan. The literary genre of Sinitc poetry, in particular, played a prominent role in the profound changes that affected the administrative system and ceremonial life of the imperial court. By the late eighth century, poetry became a test subject for the entry-level civil service examination for students of the kidendō (Way of Annals and Biographies) curriculum at the Bureau of High Education and, at the same time, took central part at some annual imperial banquets that continued to flourish in the following two centuries. During the early ninth century, three “imperial anthologies” of Sinitic poetry and prose were compiled in rapid succession, which contributed to cementing the strong connection between the Heian imperial clan and the kidendō literate elite. At a time when poetry was growing into a meaningful form of cultural and socio-political capital, this connection was predicated on mutual beneficial opportunities as well as tensions. By analyzing a specific sequence of poems exchanged between Emperor Saga (r. 809-823) and one of his poetic tutors, which is preserved in the second collection Bunka shūreishū (Collection of Masterpieces of Literary Talent, 818), this paper explores what I call the “imperial mode of Sinitic poetry” of early Heian Japan, a poetic ecology in which the literacies of the sovereign and the kidendō individuals interacted and negotiated claims of cultural hierarchy and legitimation.