Dissertation

The canonization of Hitomaro: Paradigm of the poet as God

Commons, Anne Elisabeth

2003

Overview

This dissertation is a study of the reception, canonization, and ultimate deification of the seventh-century Japanese court poet Kakinomoto no Hitomaro. The dissertation examines the process of Hitomaro's canonization over a thousand-year span, from the eighth century to the eighteenth, analyzing his evolving image as a reflection of larger cultural patterns or tropes across that range of time. These images of Hitomaro are analyzed both in terms of his textual canonization and his extra-textual canonization, which took the form of worship ceremonies and enshrinement. The study examines Hitomaro's status as a symbolic embodiment of the Japanese court-poetic tradition, and illuminates the ways in which he was appropriated to fulfill a legitimizing and authorizing role within that tradition by later poetic practitioners. It demonstrates how the fluidity of Hitomaro's image was predicated on his power as a symbol, in some instances with almost no regard to his poetry. His textual canonization is based not only on the reception of his works, but on his valorization as a figure in later, highly-regarded canonical texts. His worship rituals and other aspects of his extra-textual canonization represent further developments from his treatment in major texts, and the dissertation elucidates the significance of Hitomaro's worship as a watershed in the increasing integration of religious and poetic discourse and praxis in medieval Japan.

• Publisher: ProQuest Dissertations & Theses
• Subject: Asian literature / Confucius (551-479 BC)
• ISBN: 0549855009, 9780549855002