Hyakunin Isshu as a Special Kind of Composition in Japanese Poetry

Thesis paper «Hyakunin Isshu as a Special Kind of Composition in Japanese Poetry» describes the anthology «Hyakunin Isshu» in the context of classical Japanese poetic tradition and aims to determine how and how much the anthology is different from the traditional Japanese poetic compositions. In order to do that we identify the canons of Chinese anthologies for a better understanding of the foundation of Japanese tradition, then we consider the principles of the organization of the Japanese collections by looking through the first court anthology «Kokin wakashu». The next step is to study collections of one hundred songs because its form is the closest to the organization of «One Hundred poems» and then we dismantle the structure of «Hyakunin Isshu». Finally we identified the differences between the organization of the «Hyakunin Isshu» and traditional Japanese collection, and this differences distinguish «Hyakunin Isshu» against classical Japanese anthologies. In the process, we used Russian translations of the classic Chinese anthology «Shijing», the first Japanese Imperial collection «Kokin wakashu» and «Hyakunin Isshu» in Japanese and in Russian translations.