NAME: Kathleen kate adam

GRADE AND SECTION: 11 sulfur

Kakinomoto Hitomaro

JAPANESE POET
Kakinomoto Hitomaro, also called Kakinomoto no Hitomaro, (died 708, Japan), poet venerated by the
Japanese since earliest times. He was also Japan’s first great literary figure.
Among his surviving works are poems in the two major Japanese poetic forms of his day—tanka
and chōka. Probably he also wrote sedōka (“head-repeated poem,” consisting of two three-line verses of
5, 7, 7 syllables), a relatively minor song form that seems to have been first adapted to literary purposes
by Hitomaro and to have barely survived him. All of the poems accepted as indisputably authored by
Hitomaro (61 tanka and 16 chōka), as well as a large number of others attributed to him, are to be found
in the Man’yōshū (“Collection of Ten Thousand Leaves”), the first and largest of Japan’s anthologies of
native poetry. These poems, together with notes by the compilers, are the chief source for information on
his life, about which very little is known.
Hitomaro is believed to have been born and reared near Nara. He entered the service of the court in a
minor capacity, serving successively two imperial princes; imperial activities are celebrated in some of his
most famous poems. Later he became a provincial official, and he is believed to have died in Iwami
province (now Shimane prefecture). He seems to have had at least two wives.
Standing on the threshold of Japan’s emergence from a preliterate to a literate, civilized society, Hitomaro
achieved in his poems a splendid balance between the homely qualities of primitive song and the more
sophisticated interests and literary techniques of a new age. He inherited the stiff techniques, plain
imagery, and restricted range and subject matter—the traditional “word hoard”—of preliterate song. To
that inheritance he added new subjects, modes, and concerns, as well as new rhetorical and other
structural techniques (some of which may have been adapted from Chinese poetry), along with a new
seriousness and importance of treatment and tone. Many of his longer poems are introduced by a kind of
solemn “overture,” relating the present with the divine past of the Japanese land and people.
All of Hitomaro’s poems are suffused with a deep personal lyricism and with a broad humanity and sense
of identity with others. Outstanding among his works are his poem on the ruined capital at Ōmi; his
celebration of Prince Karu’s journey to the plains of Aki; two poems each on the death of his first wife and
on parting from his second; his lament on the death of Prince Takechi; and his poem composed on
finding the body of a man on the island of Samine.
Go-Toba
EMPEROR OF JAPAN

Go-Toba, in full Go-Toba Tennō, personal name Takahira, (born Aug. 6, 1180, Kyōto, Japan—died
March 28, 1239, Oki province, Japan), 82nd emperor of Japan, whose attempt to restore power to the
imperial house resulted in total subjugation of the Japanese court.
He was placed on the throne in 1183, taking the reign name Go-Toba (“Later Toba”), by the Minamoto
clan after it had established military hegemony over most of Japan.
After reigning for 15 years, Go-Toba in 1198 abdicated in favour of his son in order to form a cloister
government (insei) through which he dominated the imperial court. The following year Minamoto
Yoritomo, head of the Minamoto clan, whom the emperor had appointed to the office of shogun (military
dictator), died, and in the next few years members of the Hōjō family established themselves as the
hereditary shogunal regents, thus effectively usurping the power of the shogun.
Go-Toba took advantage of the ensuing friction to develop his own power structure, including a sizable
army. In 1219 the last of the Minamoto line died, and Hōjō Yoshitoki (1163–1224) became firmly
established as regent. Go-Toba believed there was enough discontent with Hōjō rule to warrant a
confrontation. After accusing Yoshitoki of being a rebel in 1221, he issued a call to warrior families
throughout the country to join his forces. The Hōjō, however, reacted swiftly, and less than a month later
the uprising was over. Go-Toba and his two sons were exiled, and the Hōjō family solidified their military
and economic hold on the court. The incident is known as the Jōkyū Disturbance (Jōkyū no ran), from the
name of the period between 1219 and 1221 in which the incident occurred.