The poetry written by the Japanese imperial court between A.D. 550 and 1350 is one of the great literatures of the world. The present volume, an introduction to that literature, is at once a condensation, a reorganization, and an extension (to A.D. 1500) of Japanese Court Poetry (1961), by the author and Robert H. Brower, the standard treatment of the subject is in English. The book's five central chapters are devoted to the major court poets and their work; other chapters deal with the forms, assumptions, and themes of court poetry. The author's emphasis throughout is on the human and...