Saigyo: Poetry, Travel, and Life
Writer Profile
Yukitada Terazawa
Other : Professor EmeritusYukitada Terazawa
Other : Professor Emeritus
2024/04/12
I am sometimes surprised to learn how many people today are interested in Saigyo.
The modern era is a chaotic time where it is hard to know what to believe, but perhaps for that very reason, people are drawn to Saigyo, seeing in him something that touches the essence of how humans 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 specialists in Japanese literature and related fields.
The reason Saigyo has come to be so widely loved by the public is that, along with his reputation as a poet, there was something in his very way of life that strongly attracted people.
In an era when travel was dangerous and people did not travel unless absolutely necessary, he seems to have already discovered the allure of travel—leaving behind the mundane to let one's heart wander in unknown worlds. Through his travels and 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 was a way to overcome it. Furthermore, Saigyo played an extremely significant role in the coexistence of Buddhism and Shinto.
As Tokue Mezaki pointed out, Saigyo established what could be called the archetype of the "free man" in Japan. The resilience of spirit with which he so thoroughly maintained his way of life during such a turbulent period is unparalleled, not only before his time but even up to the present day.
The fact that a man who renounced the world and abandoned or gave up normal social life had such a profound influence on his contemporaries and future generations can be called a kind of historical paradox. He is a rare figure, not only in the history of waka poetry but also in the history of thought and culture.
*Affiliations and titles are as of the time of publication.