About the Talk
The Man’yōshū, compiled at the end of the eighth century, is the oldest extant anthology of waka poems in Japan. Its poetry articulates a distinctive view of nature: many nature poems convey a sense of intimacy with the natural world while maintaining a respectful distance from it.
Professor Nina Witoszek (University of Oslo) has observed that skaldic poetry treats nature as grundstoff—a raw material that shapes culture, and has cited Man’yōshū nature poems as a moving example of this view. In these poems, emotion and thought are often crystallized into vivid imagery drawn from the natural environment.
This talk focuses on the poetic imagination of nature expressed in the works of the ancient kings (Emperors) included in the anthology. These rulers evoked the power of the land and sea, the mountains and the rivers, and the sun, the moon, and the clouds as a source of authority, rather than relying solely on political or military means. At times, however, nature remained indifferent to their hopes and will. I argue that the
vivid natural imagery in their poetry offers fresh perspectives for contemporary Japanese–Norwegian environmental thought.
Speaker Bio
Yasuhiko Komatsu is a professor of Japanese literature with a Ph.D. at Aoyama Gakuin University, Tokyo. His research focuses on the Man’yōshū, the oldest extant anthology of Japanese waka poems, exploring it through the lenses of book history, its reception during wartime, comparative literature, and environmental studies. He has published several books on the Man’yōshū, including Man’yō gakushi no kenkyū [A Study of the History of Classical Scholarship on the Man’yōshū]. Recently, he has begun a comparative study of the Man’yōshū alongside Indian, Serbian, Polish, and skaldic poetry, examined from the perspective of environmental thought.
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