午夜剧场

Today, I am sometimes surprised to learn how many people are interested in Saigyo.

The modern era is a chaotic time where it is difficult to know what to believe, but perhaps that is precisely why people are drawn to Saigyo, seeing in him something that touches upon the essence of how a human being should live, even if it cannot be clearly expressed.

Saigyo, along with Teika, is a representative poet of the Shin-Kokin period. In the "Shin Kokin Wakashu," 94 of Saigyo's poems were selected—the highest number in the collection—far exceeding those of professional poets, despite Saigyo not being one himself.

Saigyo's readership is truly broad. Works about Saigyo have been written by a wide variety of people, from specialists to general readers. Saigyo is a historical giant who can no longer be confined within the interests of Japanese literature scholars and those in related fields.

The reason Saigyo came to be so widely loved by the nation is that, along with his reputation as a poet, his very way of life had something that strongly attracted people.

In an era when travel was dangerous and people did not travel unless there were unavoidable circumstances, it seems he had already discovered the allure of travel—leaving behind daily life to let the mind wander in unknown worlds. Through his travels and in his daily life, he conveyed the beauty of cherry blossoms to people through numerous famous poems.

During a turbulent era of transition from an aristocratic society to a warrior society, he encouraged an awareness of the impermanence of life and powerfully demonstrated that there is a way to overcome it. Furthermore, the role Saigyo played in the coexistence of Buddhism and Shinto was extremely significant.

As Tokue Mezaki points out, Saigyo established what could be called the archetype of a free person in our country. The resilience of spirit with which he so thoroughly maintained his way of life during a period of upheaval is unparalleled, not only before his time but even up to the present day.

The fact that a person who abandoned the world and gave up or renounced normal social life ended up having such a massive influence on his contemporaries and subsequent generations can be called a kind of historical paradox. He is a rare existence not only in the history of waka poetry but also in the history of thought and culture.

Yukitada Terazawa

Shincho Sensho

232 pages, 1,760 yen (tax included)

*Affiliations and titles are as of the time this magazine was published.