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A Study on Waka Poetry Contest in Newspapers —Focusing on the Theme for the Utakai Hajime—

LEE YUN JI 1

1고려대학교 글로벌일본연구원

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ABSTRACT

Each January, Japan’s imperial court hosts the New Year’s Poetry Contest for members of the imperial family and some carefully chosen private citizens to read Waka poems they had composed on a preannounced theme. Every year, more than 20,000 Tanka are received from private citizens. This ceremony, known as the Utakai Hajime(Imperial New Year’s Poetry Reading), is the modern version of a court culture supposedly dating back to the mid-Kamakura period. It is a traditional event where the imperial court interacts with the general public through Waka. From 1874, poems written by the general public were admitted for consideration for the first time, and the Utakai Hajime ceremony which had previously been conducted exclusively within the court thus became open to the common people. In 1879, of the poems submitted by the general public, those considered to be of special value were recited at the Utakai Hajime, along with poems written by the imperial family. Since 1882, all poems recited at the ceremony including those written by the Emperor and the imperial family have been published in newspapers and since 1884 they have been also published in the a government organ. Such changes reflect efforts to advertise the modern emperor’s presence and imperial authority to the public and build a nation of subjects who would partake in the tradition of Waka composition passed on for over a millennium. In the process, Waka was the ‘Japanese national identity’, has been disseminated and strengthened through various kinds of the culture media. Ceremonies such as the Utakai Hajime had served to establish the emperor as a symbol of continuity and cohesion. Especially the print media like newspapers and magazines had played a role in both perpetuating and institutionalizing national culture. This article first chronicles the history of the Utakai Hajime and then, explores the relationships between National Literature and print media through analysing a role of the print media as a constructer of national identities, particularly focused on newspapers.

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* References for papers published after 2023 are currently being built.

This paper was written with support from the National Research Foundation of Korea.
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