SOURCE: An introduction to The Manyoshu: One Thousand Poems, The Iwanami Shoten, 1940, pp. xiii-lxxx.

In the following excerpt, the Nippon Gakujutsu Shinkokai (the Japanese Classics Translation Committee) present an overview of the Manyoshu, including discussions of the political, social, and philosophical background to the collection.

Part I

General Remarks

The Manyōshū is the oldest of the early Japanese anthologies, and by far the greatest both in quantity and quality. It consists of 20 books and contains more than 4,000 poems, written for the most part by the poets who flourished in the Fujiwara and Nara Periods, which coincide with the Golden Age of Chinese poetry—the eras of Kaiyuan and Tienpao under the T'ang dynasty, when Li Po and Tu Fu lived and sang. In England it was the Anglo-Saxon period of Beowulf, Cædmon and Cynewulf. The Anthology reflects Japanese life and civilization of the 7th and 8th...