|
|
Asian Studies Book Services |
|||
|
|
||||
About us contact details Catalogue
|
The
Tale of Saigyo is a poetic biography of the late Heian poet Saigyo
(1118–90), one of the most loved and respected poets in Japanese
literary history. Its anonymous author followed the venerable
“poem-tale” tradition by using 128 of Saigyo’s finest and best-known
poems and weaving around them
facts and legends about the poet. The result is a biographical
“journey” through his life. Saigyo moves from the life of a brilliant
and favored young poet at the Heian imperial court, through a Buddhist
“awakening” that leads him to cast off his worldly life and family
ties and to transform himself into a wandering monk in search of
salvation, through the vicissitudes of his long hard life on the road, to
a final apotheosis as Buddhist saint in his famous death. Published by Center for Japanese Studies, University of Michigan |
