Abstract
Kyuchu Utakai Hajime, the Imperial New Year Poetry Recitation Party held every January, is one of the most popular and important national ceremonies in Japan. It is held at the Imperial Court Palace and the selected waka poems are recited along with the poems composed by His Majesty the Emperor and Imperial family. The ceremony appears in the government gazette and the newspapers and is broadcast on TV. The number of poems submitted has surpassed twenty thousand annually for the last twenty years. These poets are not only Japanese but also non-Japanese people, including those who live in other countries. As this chapter shows, the origin of the ceremony cannot be clearly identified, but its background may be considered in the light of two traditions: that of the poetry literature and that of the poetic recitation itself.
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Tagaya, Y. (2017). A Legacy of Japanese Courtly Literature: The Imperial New Year Poetry Recitation Party. In: Nelson-Campbell, D., Cholakian, R. (eds) The Legacy of Courtly Literature. Arthurian and Courtly Cultures. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-60729-0_11
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-60729-0_11
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Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-60728-3
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-60729-0
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