The Gem-Glistening Cup is the second volume of Edwin Cranston's monumental Waka Anthology which carries the story of waka, the classical tradition of Japanese poetry, from its beginnings in ancient song to the sixteenth century. The present volume, which contains almost 1,600 songs and poems, covers the period from the earliest times to 784, and includes many of the finest works in the literatures as well as providing evocative glimpses of the spirit and folkways of early Japanese civilization. The texts drawn upon for the poems are the ancient chronicles Kojiki,...

Grasses of Remembrance, the second volume of Edwin Cranston's monumental Waka Anthology, carries forward the story of Japanese court poetry through its Early Classical period, drawing from sources dating from the 890s to the 1080s. These two centuries saw the revival of the prestige of poetry in the native tongue after a century of official preference for versification in Chinese. An anthology of anthologies, Grasses of Remembrance draws copiously from the first four imperially ordered collections, Kokinshu, Gosenshu, Shuishu, and Goshuishu,...