renga
Sign in to saveRenga (, linked poem) is a genre of Japanese collaborative poetry in which alternating stanzas, or ku (句), of 5-7-5 and 7-7 morae (sound units or syllables per line) are linked in succession by multiple poets. Known as tsukuba no michi ( The Way of Tsukuba) after the famous Tsukuba Mountain in the Kantō region, the form of poetry is said to have originated in a two-verse poetry exchange by Yamato Takeru and later gave birth to the genres haikai () and haiku ().
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Article
14 sectionsContents
- History
- Classical and early medieval
- Late medieval
- Edo–Meiji
- Structure of and conventions of ''Hyakuin'' renga
- The renga session
- Outside Japan
- Formats
- Terminology
- See also
- References
- Citations
- Works cited
- Further reading
Renga (, linked poem) is a genre of Japanese collaborative poetry in which alternating stanzas, or ku (句), of 5-7-5 and 7-7 morae (sound units or syllables per line) are linked in succession by multiple poets. Known as tsukuba no michi ( The Way of Tsukuba) after the famous Tsukuba Mountain in the Kantō region, the form of poetry is said to have originated in a two-verse poetry exchange by Yamato Takeru and later gave birth to the genres haikai () and haiku ().
The genre was elevated to a literary art by Nijō Yoshimoto (, 1320–1388), who compiled the first imperial renga anthology Tsukubashū () in 1356. The most famous renga master was Sōgi (, 1421–1502), and Matsuo Bashō (, 1644–1694) after him became the most famous haikai master. Renga sequences were typically composed live during gatherings of poets, transcribed oral sessions known as rengakai (), but could also be composed by single poets as mainly textual works.