Contenu du sommaire : L'anthologie poétique en Chine et au Japon

Anthologies in Ancient and Medieval China : from Genesis to Diversification The history of the anthology in China goes back to the dawn of poetry. The first anthology, the Shijing, offered through its complex exegetical procedure a comprehensive representation of humanity that was rather removed from literary considerations. Every succeeding anthology had to position itself in one way or other with respect to the Shijing. By the 6th century, the return to literary criteria had come full cycle, as reflected by the Chuci, the Shipin, the Wenxuan and the Yutai xinyong. From then on, the history of anthologies is rich and diverse, but the five works studied here form a coherent set containing all the elements that were to shape future anthologies.

The Anthology between Tradition and Transformation : Japanese Collections of Poems in Chinese (8th-9th centuries) With the adoption of Chinese writing Japan entered the sphere of Chinese culture, which it assimilated to its own needs. The use of Chinese was essential not only to international relations but also for maintaining a stable government that could bear comparison with the more advanced Chinese system. The Japanese aristocratic and bureaucratic elite derived its prestige from the composition of Chinese poetry, which from the beginning acquired a social and political significance. The first anthology of poetry compiled in Japan was in Chinese, and so were the following three that were compiled at the imperial behest. This article traces the main features of anthologies of Chinese poetry in the 8th and 9th centuries, with particular attention to their political and social meaning.

Narrating Voices : the Compilation of the Shinkokin waka shû as described in the Accounts of Two Witnesses Ever since Emperor Daigo ordered the compilation of the Kokin waka shû in 905, an imperial collection of Japanese poetry was considered an important symbol of a monarch's reign. Twenty-one imperial anthologies were compiled, the last completed in 1439. In this paper, I describe the compilation of the Shinkokin waka shû, the eighth imperial collection, which was commissioned in 1201 and completed in 1216. In order to reconstruct the process, I have used two major complementary sources : the lenaga nikki, the memoir of Minamoto Ienaga, secretary of the office that provided research and editing support for the anthology, and the Meigetsuki, the diary of the famous poet Fujiwara Teika, one of the principal compilers. By examining these two texts in tandem, we can more fully grasp the long and arduous process that produced one of the most perfect masterpieces of Japanese literature.

« Purple Tears » : the Arrangement of Poems in Anthologies as a Key to the Interpretation of Poetic Language This paper is an attempt to trace the poetic and meta-poetic levels of meaning in classical Japanese waka poetry, a tradition much neglected, not to say doomed to oblivion, by the predominant «positivist thinking» of 20th century interpretive practice in Japan. The analysis focuses on the multiple possibilities of interpretation derived from the characteristics of the Japanese poetic language and poetic canon, rather than any single, unambiguous reading in a given concrete situation (ba). By following the evolution of the meaning of the expression sode no namida no iro, «the colour of the tears on the sleeves », this paper draws attention to the order of the poems in the Imperial Poetic Anthologies Hachidai shû, seen as an expression of the processes of signification in waka and of the « poetization » of poetic vocabulary.

Prose in Poetic Anthologies : the Case of the First Eight Japanese Imperial Anthologies Presentation, explanation, and commentary are the functions of the prose parts that accompany poems in official Japanese anthologies. These brief texts place the poems in a paradoxical context of two opposed processes - fragmentation and linkage, making them at the same time unique and collective. This paper aims to clarify the highly strategic function of these prose passages and to trace their evolution in classical Japanese poetry.

Triumph or Death of the Anthology ? the Kangin shû, a Collection of Lyric Poems The Kangin shû /Songs for Leisure Hours, compiled in 1518, is a collection of 311 songs (ko-uta) of various forms, styles, and origins. Despite these differences, the anonymous compiler has succeeded in creating a work of great coherence and consistency, through the use of subtle and varied - often playful - principles to link each poem to the next. In this paper, the corpus of the songs and the linking principles employed are discussed, as well as the question of the ontological status of the collection : is it an anthology of songs or a compendium of linking principles ?

Humorous Collections of Kyôka : the Example of Tokuwaka go manzai shû Numerous collections of comic poetry were compiled during the Edo period, as a result of the introduction of printing techniques as well as the success of the comic genres of haikai and kyôka. This study highlights the evolution of kyôka collections from the middle of the 17th century to the Tenmei era (1781-1791), considered the high point of the kyôka genre, and emphasizes the persistent ambiguity that characterized it throughout its history. Then it takes up the inner structure of the Tokuwaka go manzai shû by Ôta Nanpo, showing the virtuosity displayed by this author in handling the various devices used in classical poetry collections. Finally, it addresses the ironic staging of the author's own character and the complex relations established with the reader.

The Authority of the Compiler in some French Collections of the Renaissance Japanese anthologies confer on the compiler a greater authority than on the authors of the poems compiled, whereas in French anthologies, which are often didactic, the compiler tends to take second place. Nevertheless, some French anthologies from the 16th century also bestow on the compiler the status of an author. For example, L'Anthologie of Pierre Breslay (1574, first attestation of the word in French) or Le Parnasse des poètes françois modernes of Gilles Corrozet (1571). A pervasive theory of imitation explains this fact : it lends anthologies the function of a cultural affirmation, a feature shared with Japanese, if not all, anthologies. As for the principle of linking poems, found in authorial collections of poetry rather than in anthologies - we shall here examine Les Regrets of Du Bellay (1558) - it suggests a weaker link between literature and politics in France than in Japan.